US Must Set Peltier Free
Leonard Peltier, a Native American born in 1944, has been in prison since 1976 for the murder of two FBI agents killed in a shoot-out one year earlier on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Today, there is significant doubt about his guilt; the affair even attracted the attention of the 12th session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, concluded on May 22, last year.
The affair illustrates perfectly the situation of Native Americans in the 1970s and their struggle for new and better rights. Its protagonist was born in 1944 in Grand Forks, North Dakota, to parents of Chippewa origin. His childhood was blighted by extreme poverty and marginalization. Leonard suffered the very same isolation to which so many Native Americans were subjected, especially during time spent at the work training institute, where he learned to repair old automobiles.
The first five years of the ‘70s were a period of great struggle for the American Indian movement, which had drawn its enthusiasm from other pacifist freedom movements, themselves inspired by the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. Theirs was the struggle to protect their native soil against the voracity of ever-encroaching housing and federal government business projects. In 1973, a government initiative aiming to drive the Lakota tribe off its territory ignited the resistance of some 300 natives, but it also sparked a domestic war. Following the principle of divide and conquer, the leader of the U.S. rapid response unit formed an alliance with Dick Wilson, the head of a different tribe, who had his own type of private police force, and who was using violence and murder to instigate fear in the indigenous community.
Wilson was also involved in secret sales to the government of part of the land of the Lakota Oglala Reservation at Pine Ridge in South Dakota. The U.S. government was aware of the pride and stubbornness of the Native American population and tried all means to hunt the Lakota people from their territory, so as to then take control of their oil reserves. It was a very hard period, during which time the area bore the brunt of the presence of FBI agents, as well as the murder of numerous Native Americans, now officially estimated to be in the range of at least 60 people.
In June 1975, the Oglala community made a cry for help to the AIM, and Leonard Peltier was one of the 17 who responded. On June 26, 1975, two FBI agents pulled up in a car near the Native American community. With no identification on them, they used the pretext of the search for a suspected boot thief. It was almost certainly a ruse; not long after, an almighty shoot-out broke out. The Oglala Lakota responded to the armed fire to defend themselves; when it was all over, there were three bodies left lying on the ground. Two of them were the FBI agents, and one, a Native American. For this Native American, an investigation was not even opened, whereas three people were charged for the deaths of the FBI agents.
The first two suspects were tried and acquitted on the grounds of having no case; meanwhile, the third and final suspect, Leonard, fled to Canada. All the FBI's frustration was now directed toward him. Peltier was arrested in Canada on Feb. 6, 1976, and after a few months, he was extradited on the grounds of false testimony. The first accusation of an unfair trial came directly from the Canadian government, which disapproved of the way the extradition was handled.
His trial was handled differently than that of the other two suspects, who had been set free. It took place in the historically anti-Native American city of Fargo, in front of a wholly white jury and a notoriously racist judge. The verdict came as no surprise. Peltier was sentenced to the equivalent of two consecutive life terms. During the trial, any favorable evidence was ignored; indeed, the only witness statements that were taken into account were vague, contradictory and contaminated. After five years, accurate ballistics results succeeded in proving that the bullets that had killed the two agents had not come from Leonard's weapon, and some of the witnesses that had accused him of being guilty actually retracted their statements and confessed that they had made them under threat from the FBI. Faced with these new revelations, Leonard was nevertheless still denied the possibility of a retrial, despite the significant evidence attesting to his innocence. Thirty-nine years later since starting his time in the cells, Peltier is still locked up in the U.S. penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Even when the evidence is overwhelming, justice seems to forget the most pressing and racist of "cold cases."
Text reworked with the help of Gabriele Franco at Andrea De Lotto's request.
The affair illustrates perfectly the situation of Native Americans in the 1970s and their struggle for new and better rights. Its protagonist was born in 1944 in Grand Forks, North Dakota, to parents of Chippewa origin. His childhood was blighted by extreme poverty and marginalization. Leonard suffered the very same isolation to which so many Native Americans were subjected, especially during time spent at the work training institute, where he learned to repair old automobiles.
The first five years of the ‘70s were a period of great struggle for the American Indian movement, which had drawn its enthusiasm from other pacifist freedom movements, themselves inspired by the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. Theirs was the struggle to protect their native soil against the voracity of ever-encroaching housing and federal government business projects. In 1973, a government initiative aiming to drive the Lakota tribe off its territory ignited the resistance of some 300 natives, but it also sparked a domestic war. Following the principle of divide and conquer, the leader of the U.S. rapid response unit formed an alliance with Dick Wilson, the head of a different tribe, who had his own type of private police force, and who was using violence and murder to instigate fear in the indigenous community.
Wilson was also involved in secret sales to the government of part of the land of the Lakota Oglala Reservation at Pine Ridge in South Dakota. The U.S. government was aware of the pride and stubbornness of the Native American population and tried all means to hunt the Lakota people from their territory, so as to then take control of their oil reserves. It was a very hard period, during which time the area bore the brunt of the presence of FBI agents, as well as the murder of numerous Native Americans, now officially estimated to be in the range of at least 60 people.
In June 1975, the Oglala community made a cry for help to the AIM, and Leonard Peltier was one of the 17 who responded. On June 26, 1975, two FBI agents pulled up in a car near the Native American community. With no identification on them, they used the pretext of the search for a suspected boot thief. It was almost certainly a ruse; not long after, an almighty shoot-out broke out. The Oglala Lakota responded to the armed fire to defend themselves; when it was all over, there were three bodies left lying on the ground. Two of them were the FBI agents, and one, a Native American. For this Native American, an investigation was not even opened, whereas three people were charged for the deaths of the FBI agents.
The first two suspects were tried and acquitted on the grounds of having no case; meanwhile, the third and final suspect, Leonard, fled to Canada. All the FBI's frustration was now directed toward him. Peltier was arrested in Canada on Feb. 6, 1976, and after a few months, he was extradited on the grounds of false testimony. The first accusation of an unfair trial came directly from the Canadian government, which disapproved of the way the extradition was handled.
His trial was handled differently than that of the other two suspects, who had been set free. It took place in the historically anti-Native American city of Fargo, in front of a wholly white jury and a notoriously racist judge. The verdict came as no surprise. Peltier was sentenced to the equivalent of two consecutive life terms. During the trial, any favorable evidence was ignored; indeed, the only witness statements that were taken into account were vague, contradictory and contaminated. After five years, accurate ballistics results succeeded in proving that the bullets that had killed the two agents had not come from Leonard's weapon, and some of the witnesses that had accused him of being guilty actually retracted their statements and confessed that they had made them under threat from the FBI. Faced with these new revelations, Leonard was nevertheless still denied the possibility of a retrial, despite the significant evidence attesting to his innocence. Thirty-nine years later since starting his time in the cells, Peltier is still locked up in the U.S. penitentiary in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Even when the evidence is overwhelming, justice seems to forget the most pressing and racist of "cold cases."
Text reworked with the help of Gabriele Franco at Andrea De Lotto's request.