WHY PELTIER SHOULD BE FREED

WHY PELTIER SHOULD BE FREED

Excerpts from a talk by San Diego ANSWER leader Carl Muhammad at a meeting in Los Angeles on political prisoners.

November 27, 2003--Free Leonard Peltier! This great person is a citizen of the Anishinabe and Lakota nations, a father, a grandfather, an artist, a writer and an Indigenous rights activist. He has spent the last 27 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

Schoolteachers, activists, congresspersons, diplomats, actors, musicians, laborers and housewives have come out in support of him and call his incarceration a grave miscarriage of justice.

His humanity and love for his people led him to assist the Oglala Lakota people of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in the mid- 1970s. Members of the American Indian Movement, along with local traditionalists, carried out a 72-day occupation of Wounded Knee to protest injustices against their tribes, violations of the many treaties, and current abuses and repression against their people.

After a government-sponsored military-style assault against the protesters, various officials promised hearings on local conditions and treaty violations. These hearings were never convened.

The next three years came to be known as the "Reign of Terror." The FBI carried out repeated arrests, harassment and legal proceedings against AIM leaders and supporters, with the collaboration of tribal chairperson Dick Wilson. At least 64 local Native people were brutally murdered. Three hundred were harassed, beaten or otherwise abused. All the victims were either affiliated with AIM or allies.

In May 1975, disputes were building on Pine Ridge over the Black Hills and strip-mining. Multinational corporations wanted to pro spect for uranium. Dick Wilson supported the efforts, but traditionalists were very much opposed.

On June 26, 1975, two FBI agents entered the Jumping Bull ranch, allegedly to arrest a young Native American, Jimmy Eagle. No one knows who began shooting first, AIM supporters or the agents, but when the skirmish ended, the two agents and a Native man were dead.

Today, the U.S. attorney admits that no one knows who fired the fatal shots. Freedom of Information Act documents show that the FBI attack had apparently been planned.

Leonard Peltier was one of several high-level AIM leaders present during the shootout. Murder charges were brought against him, Dino Butler, Bob Robideau and Jimmy Eagle. Butler and Robideau stood trial separately from Peltier, who fled to Canada. At the trial of Butler, the jury found both men not guilty on grounds of self-defense.

Leonard was extradited from Canada. On April 18, 1977, after a trial filled with inconsistencies, Leonard was convicted of murder and later was sentenced to two consecutive life terms.

From behind bars he has helped estabish scholarships for Native students and special programs for Indigenous youth. He has served on the advisory board of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, and has sponsored children in Central America. He has donated to battered women's shelters, organized the annual Chris tmas drive for the people of Pine Ridge Reservation, and promoted prisoner art programs.

Recently he wrote a letter of solidarity to Cuba and its revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, calling for an end to subversion and aggression against the Cuban government and people.

He has accepted the California Peace and Freedom Party nomination to run for president of the United States in 2004.