And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Date: Sun, 07 Nov 1999 12:21:55 -0500
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Lynne Moss-Sharman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: canada 11/07/99
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November 7, 1999 Truth buried at Wounded Knee
Former minister's report raises more questions about Peltier extradition
By PETER WORTHINGTON -- Sun Media
As anyone who has ever tried, even in a minor way, to correct an injustice
knows, it can be a long, arduous, frustrating, tortuous
path. Just ask Warren Allmand. When Native activist Leonard Peltier was
arrested in Canada in 1976 and extradited to the U.S. for the 1975 shooting
deaths of two FBI agents during a range war on South Dakota's Pine Ridge
reserve (near Wounded Knee), Allmand was first
Canada's solicitor-general and then minister of Indian Affairs.
He later realized the extradition was fraudulent, based on false
affidavits acquired by the FBI from a Native woman (Myrtle Poor Bear) who
had never met Peltier and was not in Pine Ridge at the time, but who
claimed to have been his girlfriend and to have watched him kill the
agents. Peltier is in the 23rd year of two consecutive life sentences. At
first, I felt Peltier was guilty, but over years of examining the case and
evidence, I became convinced he didn't do it. There seems not the
slightest doubt that the FBI framed him. Even today, the FBI is determined
he'll never go free -- even though they now admit they haven't a clue who
did the actual
shooting. In 1994, Allmand reviewed the case for then-justice minister
Allan Rock, as did other justice department lawyers.
Allmand released his report this week, after Justice Minister
Anne McClellan released her own report (after contacting U.S.
Attorney General Janet Reno) that the extradition was on the
up-and-up and proper. Here are the highlights of Allmand's 1994 report on
the extradition, with comments on memos submitted by Justice lawyers:
* Of three Poor Bear affidavits, one -- in which she said she
hadn't witnessed the shooting, and had departed Pine Ridge --
was never included in the extradition case . The FBI later
acknowledged Poor Bear was "incompetent" and her affidavits
"unbelievable." (McClellan effectively still vouches for them.)
* No circumstantial evidence was considered by Judge Schultz
in the extradition, and circumstantial evidence in Canada was
different from that presented at Peltier's U.S. trial. Ballistic
evidence accepted at the trial was later shown to be
"questionable and in part, fabricated."
* After two other Natives were acquitted (Bob Robideau and
Dino Butler) when their trial was shifted to Iowa, the U.S.
Justice Department and FBI refused to let Peltier's trial take place in
neutral territory and "pounded the community with adverse publicity
regarding Peltier and the American Indian Movement (AIM)."
* A Canadian Justice lawyer went to the U.S.and co-operated
with the FBI on the Poor Bear affidavits. Assistant FBI director
Ronald Moore noted in a memo that it was on the Canadian
lawyer's recommendation "that only Poor Bear's second and third
affidavits were used."
Allmand concludes that if the Canadian lawyer didn't know about the
excluded affidavit, "the FBI was guilty of trying to manufacture a case and
mislead the Canadian justice system." (The lawyer himself denied any
involvement and accused the FBI of trying to cover their butts.) Three
judges questioned FBI integrity. Judge Ross of the U.S. Court of Appeal
said: "Why the prosecutor's officer continued to extract more from her
(Poor Bear) ... is beyond my understanding." Appeal Judge Gerald Heaney:
"The FBI used improper tactics in securing Peltier's extradition." Judge
R.P. Anderson of the B.C. Supreme Court: "It seems clear to me that the
conduct of the U.S. government involved misconduct from inception." Judge
Heaney determined that violence at Pine Ridge (over selling uranium
resources that tribal elders opposed) was the "culmination of the federal
government's refusal to respond to the 'legitimate grievances' raised by
the Native community."
The FBI supplied vigilante snipers with weapons and ammunition.
The FBI concealed ballistic evidence indicating Peltier's rifle
could not have fired the shots that killed the agents. This
"suppressed evidence" cast a strong doubt on the government's
case. Allmand found it's not unusual for the U.S. government to use
illegal methods to return individuals to U.S. territory: A false
extradition to get one individual returned from Mexico;kidnapping another
in order to return a wanted man; the British House of Lords refused an
extradition on grounds that evidence was shaky. The FBI blocked publication
of Peter Mathiessen's book, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse for eight years of
legal actions at a cost of some $25 million. One oddity rarely mentioned
is that the two murdered FBI
agents (Ron Williams and Jack Coler) were supposedly entering
the Jumping Bull compound to question one Jimmy Eagle about stolen cowboy
boots. Stolen boots are an FBI concern? Give us a break. They were there
as the vanguard for concentrated attack -- giving rise to the
"self-defence" acquittal of Butler and Robideau.
In essence, Allmand in 1994 was "convinced that there was fraud and
misconduct at both the extradition and the trial." He recommended
contacting the U.S. attorney general and urging either a new trial or
clemency. Failing that, he urged "an independent judicial inquiry" into
circumstances of the extradition.
November 7, 1999 Spared jail due to 'fragile emotions'
CALGARY (CP) -- An aboriginal man sentenced to one year in jail for killing
his cousin is too emotionally fragile to spend any further time in jail,
Alberta's top court has ruled. The Alberta Court of Appeal concluded the
one-year sentence handed to Marc Poucette wasn't enough, but since he has
already been paroled his sentence won't be increased. "We are concerned
that a return to a penitentiary .... might have an adverse effect on his
rehabilitation," the appeal court judges stated. Poucette was convicted of
manslaughter in the stabbing death of his cousin on Jan. 21, 1998.
November 7, 1999
Abuse compensation being abused
By TED BYFIELD -- Calgary Sun
There seems to lie fixed in the bureaucratic mind the assumption
that people, especially "the common man," are essentially good,
fair and honest. We won't lie, cheat, exploit or take unfair advantage.
Vast programs are established on this confident assumption and their
budgets set accordingly. The bureaucrats then discover that if we can get
away with it, most of us do lie, cheat and exploit, and consequently, the
costs of the programs rise astronomically. They begin always with some
indisputable need.
Certain people are suffering and desperately need help. They're
poor, they're sick, they're unemployed. So the government steps in with a
program -- welfare, medicare, unemployment insurance. But then the
unforeseen occurs. The deserving get welfare, but so do the distinctly
undeserving. The sick get hospital care, but so too do those whose sickness
is definitely dubious. The jobless who are willing to work get help, but so
do the jobless unwilling to work. Soon costs go wild, and taxes must rise
to meet them.
The federal government is once again confronted with a horrible example of
this. During the 1960s, when we began liberating ourselves from all sexual
restraint and the doctrine "if it feels good, do it" gained acceptance, a
few individuals in remote places took this literally.
They were teachers in Native residential schools, some run by
churches, some by the federal government. They therefore thought it
liberating to introduce the youngsters in their care to the joys of sex.
The consequences are known to history. Criminal charges were
laid, proved and the pedophiles usually sent, as was proper, to
jail. That the victims of this outrage grew up injured by it is altogether
credible, and so is the contention they deserve compensation. Accordingly,
the government opened a fund, put what was estimated at $200 million into
it and invited the victims to apply. At first all went as expected.
Out-of-court settlements were reached with the victims of sexual abuse at
the Gordon Residential School in eastern Saskatchewan, running anywhere
from $20,000 to $200,000, and it looked as though the program could be
completed within the budget. But then the unexpected began.
White lawyers descended upon the reserves. Mass meetings were called, claim
forms were distributed. Were you "abused?" What's "abuse?" Well, not just
sexual abuse, of course. There could be physical abuse, "cultural" abuse.
Were you denied your "culture?"
The claimants, who were expected to number in the hundreds,
suddenly exploded into the thousands. Now the government sees itself
confronted with claims that will run into the billions, much of it going to
the lawyers. The churches, meanwhile, are in worse shape. They haven't got
billions. The United Church could be financially destroyed in the
process,and one Anglican diocese, Cariboo in British Columbia, already
regards itself as bankrupt because a court declared it 40% liable for the
sexual aggressions of a dormitory supervisor at St. George's residential
school near Lytton. Cariboo Diocese won't be able to pay. If it declares
bankruptcy, presumably all the church properties would have to be sold.
But this is merely for starters, because here the abuse was blatantly
sexual and against the law. However, many of the claims protest "physical"
abuse, a charge which, if allowed, would make virtually every male that
ever attended them a valid "victim."
The fact is that society has radically changed its attitude on what
constitutes physical abuse. Up to the 1950s, just about every public
school in Canada used the "the strap" and residential schools, including
the high-fee private schools attended by children of the wealthy, used "the
stick." These practices continued in the Native schools into the '70s. So
if the "physical abuse" claims are allowed, this would mean hundreds of
thousands of Canadians have a theoretical claim against some school board
for "abuse." As for "cultural" abuse, any Native kid taught the white man's
history has a claim for that. Would the courts actually uphold such stuff?
Why not? Look at their record to date. What began, in other words, as a
legitimate claim for compensation has evolved into a fraudulent racket
likely costing billions. People, so it seems, aren't very nice. We lie,
cheat and take advantage. That's why taxes are what they are.
"Let Us Consider The Human Brain As
A Very Complex Photographic Plate"
1957 G.H. Estabrooks
www.angelfire.com/mn/mcap/bc.html
FOR K A R E N #01182
who died fighting 4/23/99
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
www.aches-mc.org
807-622-5407
For people like me, violence is the minotaur; we spend our lives
wandering its maze, looking for the exit. (Richard Rhodes)
Never befriend the oppressed
unless you are prepared to
take on the oppressor.
(Author unknown)
