And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Sunday, May 30, 1999
The Nelson Mandela of America
Imprisoned native leader Leonard Peltier finally allowed to meet Sun
columnist in Leavenworth
By PETER WORTHINGTON -- Toronto Sun
LEAVENWORTH, Kansas -- The prisoner who's dubbed the North American Nelson
Mandela seemed pleased to see me.
At first I had been refused access to Leonard Peltier, the Ojibwa-Sioux
serving two life sentences in the maximum security federal prison at
Leavenworth for the death of two FBI agents at South Dakota's Pine Ridge
Reserve in 1975.
I had visited Peltier twice before, in 1992 and 1995 when, after looking
into the case at some length, felt -- along with others -- that he was
framed by the FBI and the "system" that wanted someone, anyone, punished
for the shooting deaths of agents Ron Williams and Jack Coler in the range
war of those turmoiled times.
Without explanation, Leavenworth's warden, J.W. Booker, changed his mind
after I wrote a lengthy article equating Peltier with Nelson Mandela. I had
speculated that he was denied visitors because his health was worsening and
authorities wouldn't be unhappy if he died in prison.
The Mandela parallel is apt. Mandela was 27 years in South African prisons
before world pressure got him freed. Peltier is into his 24th year in
prison for murders that the FBI and prosecutors now admit "we don't know
who fired those shots." He has a form of lockjaw that prevents him from
eating properly. His jaw is atrophied at a half-inch opening. He is denied
specialist treatment.
Like Mandela, Peltier's sole motivation is working for his people, whom he
sees as disadvantaged (to put it generously). He was a member of AIM (the
American Indian Movement) in the mid-'70s which the FBI, somewhat
hysterically, branded "subversive, extremist with a record of violence" and
likely Communist.
Last week I visited Peltier, first getting a guided tour of Leavenworth,
courtesy of the prison's executive assistant, Bob Bennett. It is a
remarkable prison of some 1,800 inmates and 600 staff, where the average
sentence is around 20 years -- a city within walls, without women, where
the pace is slow, amenities impressive, security phenomenal.
Peltier has aged since our last meeting, but seemed robust. As usual, he
was optimistic about efforts being made on his behalf. A week earlier he'd
met Danielle Mitterrand, widow of France's former president, who urged
executive clemency. The day after my visit he was to be interviewed by CNN
(which had previously been denied access). Soon he's scheduled to meet
delegates from the European Parliament, which has also urged his release.
Peltier was puzzled and upset that Canada's Justice Minister Anne McLellan
had recently responded to Reform Party questions that at his extradition
hearings in 1976 no one had lied and "there is no evidence of any fraud in
the extradition process."
In fact, fraud illuminates the extradition. A sworn affidavit by one Myrtle
Poor Bear that she was Peltier's girlfriend and had witnessed him kill the
wounded FBI agents was (according to Paul Halprin, the Canadian lawyer
representing the U.S. government at the extradition hearings) key in
getting him extradited.
It subsequently turned out that Poor Bear was mentally incompetent, had
never met Peltier, wasn't on the Pine Ridge reserve that day. Her affidavit
was dictated and concocted by the FBI. She had done three affidavits -- the
first saying she didn't witness anything. Her other two were a combination
of perjury, concocting evidence, fabrication and criminal impropriety.
FALSE AFFIDAVIT
As well as getting Peltier extradited, the fraudulent affidavit was also a
contemptuous violation of the extradition treaty and deliberate ploy to
corrupt the justice system. This is not an opinion, it is fact acknowledged
by the courts at every level except, it seems, the Canadian government.
"Why would your justice minister say such a thing that everyone knows is
untrue?" Peltier wonders. I told him, as I said on an Edmonton radio
station, that McLellan was either ignorant of the case, or not telling the
truth.
McLellan's other evidence, as well as the phony affidavit (which she
insisted wasn't phony), was enough to get Peltier extradited -- a view
disputed by former solicitor-general Warren Allmand who reviewed the case a
couple of years ago for then-justice minister Allan Rock. Today, Allmand
says the Poor Bear affidavit was virtually the only reason Peltier was
extradited.
"If it wasn't for that false affidavit I wouldn't have been extradited,"
says Peltier. "If they'd had other evidence, they (the FBI and prosecutors)
would never have jeopardized their careers, their reputations by creating
false affidavits the way they did."
Maybe, but they got away with it.
Peltier is encouraged that the conservative Reform Party and the socialist
NDP in Parliament seem aligned in wanting Canada to protest the fraudulent
extradition. "My case should cut across ideological lines," he says. "It's
not an issue of left and right, but one of right and wrong."
Not a day goes by that Peltier doesn't mentally review his case and the
range war at Pine Ridge and Wounded Knee in the mid-'70s, when the FBI,
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) police, the GOONs (Guardian of Oglala
Nation), SWAT teams, vigilantes and National Guard were poised.
Uranium deposits on Indian land were sought by government. AIM and
traditional Indians felt another treaty was about to be violated in the
name of expediency. In that time-frame, 60 Indians were murdered -- 47 of
them AIM supporters. The wounded exceeded 300. Not one Indian death was
investigated. "It was war," recalls Peltier.
Initially, the FBI put Indians Bob Robideau and Dino Butler on trial for
shooting the two FBI agents who had entered the Jumping Bull compound on
June 26, 1975, ostensibly to arrest one Jimmy Eagle for allegedly stealing
a pair of cowboy boots. It came out at the trial that some 50 FBI agents
and police were poised to attack the compound. The jury acquitted the pair,
ruling self-defence.
Peltier still has difficulty understanding how he could have been found
guilty of first-degree murder, and then have the FBI and prosecutors admit
they didn't know who pulled the trigger and say that Peltier was guilty not
of murder, but of aiding and abetting.
This distinction also confused appeal judges Donald Ross and Gerald Heaney,
who said if Peltier had been tried for aiding and abetting, the verdict
might have been difficult.
IMPROPER TACTICS
Judge Heaney reluctantly rejected the appeal because he said while it was
"possible" the jury would have reached a different verdict had evidence not
been withheld, he wasn't sure the jury would "probably" have acquitted
Peltier. He lambasted the FBI.
Judge Heaney later wrote Senator Dan Inouye of Hawaii a letter which he
asked be delivered to the president. He said that the government had
"over-reacted at Wounded Knee;" that it "must share responsibility" for the
violence; that "more than one person was involved in the shooting of the
FBI agents;" that the "FBI used improper tactics in securing Peltier's
extradition;" and that the president should invoke clemency to let "a
healing process" begin.
An astonishing letter from an appeal court judge. To no avail.
While Peltier looks robust, his long hair and moustache show traces of
white. At age 55, he has no self-pity, his sense of humour is unaffected,
but he's in obvious discomfort, if not outright pain. Two operations on his
atrophied jaw were botched, the second one in 1996 putting him in a coma
for 14 hours and necessitating a total blood transfusion. He's
understandably wary of prison surgeons.
Dr. E.E. Keller of the Mayo Clinic, a specialist in this form of jaw
ailment, has seen Peltier's files and thinks he can correct it. But the
prison says no -- it's their surgeons or no one. The warden issued a
statement that the Medical Centre for Federal Prisoners at Springfield,
Missouri, has confirmed Peltier suffers from ankylosis (fusing of the
jawbone joints) which "prohibits him from properly opening or closing his
mouth."
Although Peltier refuses further treatment at Springfield, the prison feels
his "condition is stable and does not warrant prolonged, intensive
treatment." Peltier eats by shoving food through a missing front tooth and
mashing it against his teeth with his tongue. Wires from the bungled jaw
operation jut into his mouth, causing acute pain.
"As I'm over 50, I get medical checks every six months, and I always
complain about my jaw and headaches and pain on the right side of my face
reaching the eye," he says. "But medical staff say there's a standing order
they can't discuss my jaw or the pain.
"I have the beginning of an abscessed tooth at the back, which can't be
treated ... I'd like the Mayo Clinic to look at it."
"Why won't they send you there?" I wonder.
"The prison says inmates can't dictate treatment. Also, they think I might
escape." (Which he once did in 1979.)
"Would you escape?"
"Never. It would be a betrayal of my supporters."
I suggest that his enemies would relish him escaping because it would
undermine his campaign for amnesty, which is gaining momentum. Peltier
agrees: "I just want my jaw treated, to be able to open and close my mouth,
to eat properly, to ease the pain, to be normal."
Peltier doesn't have the prison shuffle or lethargy one often sees in
inmates with no future. He is fatalistic, but not resigned. He's become a
leader, a symbol for Indians in the U.S. and Canada.
MOVIE RIGHTS
These days he's excited because two movies are in the works. One by Steven
Segal about his life, the other by an Indian movie company called Smoke
Signals, involving Whoopi Goldberg, Winona Ryder and Matt Damon.
He says: "I'm especially interested in the Indian production -- they've got
the rights to Peter Mathiessen's book, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. Whoopi
seems really keen."
I suggest that Graham Greene would be a natural to play him. Peltier seems
to think he resembles Segal. I joke that perhaps he'd like Sylvester
Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger. He laughs.
In Robert Redford's documentary, Incident at Oglala, there's an interview
with a masked man identified only as "Mr. X," who claims he did the
shooting. What about that?
"I don't know for a fact who did the shooting, but I think I know," says
Peltier. "But I can't say anything. Who'd believe me? Besides, we have a
tradition that you don't turn against your own. This wasn't a domestic
dispute in 1975, it was a war. A soldier who's captured and turns against
his own is ostracized. I want out of prison bad, I want to see my
grandkids, I want to live what life I have left in freedom, but I can't
point a finger at someone else.
"What's happened to me is what's been happening to Indians one way or
another since the beginning. I didn't create the political climate of the
1970s but I lived it, like all Indians."
As for the immediate future, Peltier is encouraged that Amnesty
International no longer merely urges his case be reviewed for a new trial,
but urges immediate and unconditional release -- something he says the
Methodist Church in America now advocates.
He thinks support is growing. Many early supporters who grew weary and
frustrated over the years and left, have returned to the cause. The
Congress of American Indians and Canada's Assembly of First Nations,
representing virtually every North American Indian, plan joint action on
his behalf.
"It would be useful if 500 or 1,000 tepees would arrive in Washington as a
show of solidarity. It'd be theatre, but Indians are good at theatre.
Tepees and a couple of hundred horses and Indians in traditional dress
would have an effect. I know a hundred right now who would go, but who'd
pay for it?"
Who indeed? Peltier facetiously suggests Microsoft's Bill Gates, supposedly
the richest man in the world, might sponsor such a rally since he's feuding
with the government.
Peltier is pretty active, despite his jaw and frustrations of getting
justice. His paintings are sold or turned into prints which raise money for
his defence. Extra money goes into a scholarship fund. For years he's tried
to figure a way to paint the legendary Crazy Horse, with whom he identifies
and is increasingly compared.
Any day now Peltier's autobiography comes out -- Prison Writings: My Life
Is My Sundance, edited by former National Geographic writer and specialist
on Indian culture, Harvey Arden, and published by St. Martin's Press.
In the meantime, like Nelson Mandela before him, he waits patiently and
plans how to work for his people when he's released, something he is
convinced is inevitable and predestined.
Leavenworth prison authorities, on the other hand, note caustically that as
far as they are concerned, Leonard Peltier will be a free man only when his
sentence ends in 2040, when he turns 97.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leonard's book is now available at amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312203543/qid=923006459/002-6835
471-3861455 Amazon.com: A Glance: Prison Writings : My Life is My Sundance
Get the message out to other groups and forums and BBS's etc.
Don't let them silence Leonard!
PLEASE BROADCAST THIS MESSAGE EVERYWHERE!!!
Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Unenh onhwa' Awayaton
http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/
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