Vol. 80/No. 35 September 19, 2016
Free Leonard Peltier! Framed for defending Native American rights
Peltier, 71 and in poor health, was convicted in 1977 and given two consecutive life sentences on frame-up charges that he killed two FBI agents.
In July the International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee organized a motorcycle ride from Portland, Oregon, to Washington, D.C. A trailer with Peltier’s prison paintings, his picture and signs demanding his freedom, along with a five-car convoy, attracted attention along the trip.
“We drove 300 miles a day. It’s difficult for workers to get time off to join in, but along the way, people were asking, ‘Who is Leonard Peltier,’” Chauncey Peltier, Leonard’s son, told the Militant. He is a former construction worker and a member of Laborers Local 296 in Portland and a board member of the defense committee.
On Sept. 17 the defense committee is organizing marches for clemency in Los Angeles; Houston; Olympia, Washington; and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and has called for further actions on Columbus Day, Oct. 10.
Impacted by the fight for Black rights and the movement against the war in Vietnam, the American Indian Movement organized actions across the country in the late 1960s and ’70s protesting oppressive conditions imposed on Native Americans — from inadequate health care, denial of fishing rights and exploitation of Indian lands by mining companies to violations of repressive treaties by the U.S. government.
Washington and the FBI declared war on the movement, launching COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program) against AIM and its leadership.
In one of their most famous protest actions, some 300 AIM activists occupied Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation Feb. 27, 1973, and held it for 71 days to dramatize conditions on the reservations. They were surrounded by federal agents and fired on nightly. More than 100 participants were arrested.
Two of the main leaders, Dennis Banks and Russell Means, were special targets of the government. Their trial lasted almost nine months, but the judge dismissed all charges against them.
After Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge Tribal Chairperson Dick Wilson saw the radicalizing youth as a threat to his power. He organized his own force, appropriately called GOON (Guardians of the Oglala Nation). More than 60 AIM members, supporters and family members were killed by the thugs between April 1973 and July 1976.
Looking to defend themselves, residents of Pine Ridge asked Leonard Peltier to organize AIM volunteers to set up camp in Oglala. On June 26, 1975, FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams approached the camp, allegedly looking for a man accused of theft and assault. During an exchange of fire that ensued, they radioed for backup and soon more than 100 agents from the FBI, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, GOON and other police agencies had surrounded the site. Two FBI agents were shot and killed. Joseph Stuntz, a young Indian man, was killed by the cops during the confrontation.
Peltier and AIM activists Bob Robideau and Darrell Butler were arrested and charged with murder. They were acquitted on grounds of self-defense, but in a separate trial Peltier was found guilty.
No one was ever charged for the murder of Stuntz.
“Did Stuntz’s life not matter?” Peltier asked the New York Daily News during a recent interview. “That’s what we were always fighting to change — the idea that Indian lives weren’t worth anything.”
The FBI claimed it was Peltier who shot the two FBI agents at close range, but there is no physical evidence linking Peltier to their deaths. A 1975 laboratory ballistic report, which was denied to Peltier at his trial, disproves the FBI’s charge. Government lawyers admitted that they don’t know who fired the shots.
Prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense at the trial that could have led to Peltier being found not guilty.
The government has never ceased to campaign against freeing Peltier. In 2000, some 500 FBI agents marched in Washington, D.C., to oppose the possibility of clemency by President Bill Clinton. Both Clinton and George W. Bush denied Peltier’s request.
His defense committee asks people to write to President Barack Obama, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C. 20500, and urge him to grant clemency. For information on upcoming actions visit: www.whoisleonardpeltier.info.
Write to him at Leonard Peltier, #89637-132, USP Coleman I, P.O. Box 1033, Coleman, FL 33521.
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