A new effort is underway on the anniversary of Native American activist Leonard Peltier's conviction to urge President Barack Obama to grant clemency to a man Amnesty International considers to be a "political prisoner" in the United States.
This effort is spearheaded by the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee and joined by his supporters worldwide.
"We no longer have to convince the world of his innocence," Peltier attourney John Privitera told Al Jazeera at a press conference in New York City this past December. "All anyone has to do is read the judicial history of his conviction and incarceration and it is clear that there was a miscarriage of justice."
The judicial history of the Peltier case is fraught with racism, false evidence, coerced testimonies, controversy, and perjury. It is a stain on the judicial system of the United States and has attracted support for Peltier's freedom by such notable figures as Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and the Dalai Lama.
Reign of Terror
It was the mid 1970s on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota during a period which saw the highest per capita murder rate in the country. Most murders went unsolved. Few were ever investigated.
Tribal Council Chairman Richard "Dick" Wilson was elected in 1972. Wilson, viewed as a corrupt administrator who channelled tribal funds to himself while jobs went to his allies, cracked down on the "traditional" people of Pine Ridge, those who valued their indigenous culture, language, and beliefs over more Americanized, western based value systems.
An enthusiastic supporter of signing over native land rights to mining companies, Wilson organized a private militia called 'Guardians of the Oglala Nation' or 'GOONs' to intimidate his political opponents.
At the time, the American Indian Movement (AIM) had been a growing force across the United States standing up for Native American rights, including the upholding of treaties signed by the US Government with the Lakota Nation.
On February 27, 1973, protesting the injustice and conditions on the reservation and bringing attention to the broken treaties, some 200 members of the American Indian Movement and their Oglala Lakota supporters occupied the town of Wounded Knee on Pine Ridge, the site of the 1890 massacre by the US 7th Cavalry which killed at least three hundred unarmed Indians - mostly women and children.
The occupation of Wounded Knee was met by a massive show of force by the FBI, US Marshals, and Tribal Police. Military armoured personnel carriers rumbled down the reservation's roads, and the occupation ended after a 71 day standoff which saw two Indians, Frank Clearwater and Buddy LaMont, killed by gunfire.
What followed was a period on the reservation referred to by those who lived through it as the "reign of terror."
Dick Wilson's tribal government funded GOON squads began a campaign of violence against anyone thought to be an AIM supporter or traditional Oglala Lakota. Entire neighborhoods were shot up, houses were burned, and at least sixty members of AIM or their supporters on the reservation had been found murdered.
The traditional people on the reservation invited AIM to play a more active role in helping protect them from Wilson's gangs. Leonard Peltier was one of those who came to Pine Ridge to help safeguard the community from the violence which engulfed them.
"It was a time of terror for our people, the FBI came to the land of the Oglalas and gave guns and bullets to Indian people,
"I think I can explain beyond serious doubt, that Leonard Peltier has committed no crime whatsoever," said former US Attourney General Ramsey Clark. "But that if he had been guilty of firing a gun that killed an FBI Agent, it was in defense of not just his people but the integrity of humanity from domination and exploitation."
A new effort is underway on the anniversary of Native American activist Leonard Peltier's conviction to urge President Barack Obama to grant clemency to a man Amnesty International considers to be a "political prisoner" in the United States.
This effort is spearheaded by the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee and joined by his supporters worldwide.
"We no longer have to convince the world of his innocence," Peltier attourney John Privitera told Al Jazeera at a press conference in New York City this past December. "All anyone has to do is read the judicial history of his conviction and incarceration and it is clear that there was a miscarriage of justice."
The judicial history of the Peltier case is fraught with racism, false evidence, coerced testimonies, controversy, and perjury. It is a stain on the judicial system of the United States and has attracted support for Peltier's freedom by such notable figures as Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa, and the Dalai Lama.
Reign of Terror
It was the mid 1970s on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota during a period which saw the highest per capita murder rate in the country. Most murders went unsolved. Few were ever investigated.
Tribal Council Chairman Richard "Dick" Wilson was elected in 1972. Wilson, viewed as a corrupt administrator who channelled tribal funds to himself while jobs went to his allies, cracked down on the "traditional" people of Pine Ridge, those who valued their indigenous culture, language, and beliefs over more Americanized, western based value systems.
An enthusiastic supporter of signing over native land rights to mining companies, Wilson organized a private militia called 'Guardians of the Oglala Nation' or 'GOONs' to intimidate his political opponents.
At the time, the American Indian Movement (AIM) had been a growing force across the United States standing up for Native American rights, including the upholding of treaties signed by the US Government with the Lakota Nation.
On February 27, 1973, protesting the injustice and conditions on the reservation and bringing attention to the broken treaties, some 200 members of the American Indian Movement and their Oglala Lakota supporters occupied the town of Wounded Knee on Pine Ridge, the site of the 1890 massacre by the US 7th Cavalry which killed at least three hundred unarmed Indians - mostly women and children.
The occupation of Wounded Knee was met by a massive show of force by the FBI, US Marshals, and Tribal Police. Military armoured personnel carriers rumbled down the reservation's roads, and the occupation ended after a 71 day standoff which saw two Indians, Frank Clearwater and Buddy LaMont, killed by gunfire.
What followed was a period on the reservation referred to by those who lived through it as the "reign of terror."
Dick Wilson's tribal government funded GOON squads began a campaign of violence against anyone thought to be an AIM supporter or traditional Oglala Lakota. Entire neighborhoods were shot up, houses were burned, and at least sixty members of AIM or their supporters on the reservation had been found murdered.
The traditional people on the reservation invited AIM to play a more active role in helping protect them from Wilson's gangs. Leonard Peltier was one of those who came to Pine Ridge to help safeguard the community from the violence which engulfed them.
"It was a time of terror for our people, the FBI came to the land of the Oglalas and gave guns and bullets to Indian people,
"As long as he's treated like a political prisoner, we indigenous people are also treated this way. Not having our treaty rights and our sovereignty rights and our freedom of worship being recognised, I think Leonard is a symbol of all of that," added Foster. "For what he represents and what he symbolizes, they want to punish him."
A Dine/Navajo, Foster is a volunteer spiritual advisor for Native American inmates in state prisons and federal penitentiaries. He has been a strong advocate for traditional ceremonies for Native American prisoners, more than 2,000 of whom he has come in contact with while visiting 96 correctional facilities over 30 years in order to conduct sweat lodge ceremonies, pipe ceremonies, and cell side visits.
"I started visiting Leonard Peltier in the Leavenworth US Penitentiary, and eventually moved on to the US Penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania," said Foster. "I know Leonard Peltier to be a Revered Elder, and he is a very reverent and spiritual person. He's not some gangster or some gang banger. That's what the federal bureau of prisons wants you to believe."
In seeming disregard for the American Indian Freedom of Religion Act signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, an Act which safeguarded the right of Native Americans in the US to practice their religion, even if incarcerated, Peltier has been denied visits from Foster since being transferred to Coleman Federal Correctional Complex, a maximum security prison in Coleman, Florida in 2011.
The reason?
Because Foster is a "friend" of Peltier.
"I raised the issue with the chaplain," said Foster. "That if I were a priest, minister, or rabbi, and had known an inmate for thirty years wouldn't I be somehow friends and have a relationship? But he wouldn't budge on it. The US prison system, when you think about it, is designed to break your spirit, to break your will, to break you down and make you give up. They've tried for thirty seven years to break Leonard's spirit and they haven't done it."
With the incarceration of Leonard Peltier, the US government's battle against him has not ended. As a prisoner in the US penal system, Peltier has endured beatings and solitary confinement.
He also has diabetes, high blood pressure, has suffered a stroke and, accoriding to his lawyers, been denied sufficient medical treatment.
Exemplar of Justice?
As the United States fashions itself as a global leader in human rights advancement, Leonard Peltier's freedom cannot be overlooked.
"I want you to realize there are millions of people throughout the world who are aware of Leonard's case of injustice", Attourney Peter Grant, who is Peltier's lawyer, told Al Jazeera. "They have to be reminded of this. Every diplomat, every world leader knows it is a ball and chain on the President's ability to speak about human rights. It affects his credibility."
Peltier has been Grant's client for decades now.
"We have to reignite the fact of the injustice done to Leonard", Grant added. "We have to keep not only local pressure on the President from people here in the United States, from people on this continent, from people throughout Indian country, we have to keep human rights pressure throughout the world on this president because he has no credibility on those issues until he breaks this ball and chain on his own ankle."
At the New York press conference, Privitera read an appeal to President Barack Obama.
"Mr President, we appeal directly to you. As a legal scholar, you know that article two, section two of our constitution is one of the strong threads in the fabric of our justice system. It is a responsibility born by the executive. It embraces the power to deliver justice, to exercise mercy, and to be wise in that law given power."
"This is an historic opportunity, Mr. President, to infuse your legacy with soulfulness and wisdom", he read. "We ask only that you commute the sentence of Leonard Peltier. No further findings have to be made. Commute him after thirty seven years of imprisonment. You have clemency power to say, and we ask that you do it now, that justice has been served by time, sir. And it's time to return Leonard home to his community to work and die on Turtle Mountain."
Having been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize multiple times himself while incarcerated, Peltier must hope Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama is listening.
Emphasizing the urgency, Privitera continued, "Mr President, this case cries out for mercy. It is time to reveal and exercise your power and wisdom judiciously and we plead today that you commute Leonard Peltier's sentence. Be merciful. Be wise. Use your power. Bring Leonard Peltier home."
Until that happens, Leonard Peltier and his supporters around the world continue to wait.
Original Article
Source: aljazeera.com
Author: Jason Coppola
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