http://intercontinentalcry.org/maasai-evicted-and-imprisoned-for-hunting-concession/

Maasai evicted and imprisoned for hunting concession

Posted by Ahni
on August 24, 2009

 
PHOTO: Erika Bloom


The Hadzabe community of Yaeda China valley, Tanzania, aren't the only ones facing eviction and starvation so the commercial sport hunting industry can make a name for itself.

According to Survival International, eight Maasai villages were burnt to the ground last month - leaving 3,000 people without any food, shelter, or water.

"On 4 July, heavily armed Tanzanian riot police set fire to Maasai homesteads and foodstores to evict them from their ancestral land," says Survival. "Thousands of Maasai are now destitute with their cattle in acute drought conditions. They were forced from their villages to create a game hunting area for the Otterlo Business Corporation (OBC)."

17 years ago, the Tanzanian government granted OBC exclusive hunting rights to Maasai lands in Loliondo, northern Tanzania. The company is reportedly connected to Royal families from the United Arab Emirates - undoubtedly the same families pushing for a sport hunting enterprise on Hadzabe lands.


In the Name of Luxury

This wasn't simply an eviction, like what the Ogiek are facing in nearby Kenya. It was also an attempt to dehumanize the Massai - specifically, Maasai women.

An unknown number of women were raped and severely beaten during the eviction. One woman told Survival, "two armed men chased me and forced me to lie down, at the same time another six men followed them and all raped me."

"The recent atrocities show that the situation is now critical," Survival goes on to say. "Maasai women recently demonstrating in Loliondo against the violent evictions were told they had no right to protest. Anonymous threats have also been made to local community leaders."

Further, "the burning of villages has now stopped. But any Maasai herding cattle within the OBC hunting area are being arrested. Five people have already been tried without access to legal defence or bail, and have been imprisoned for six months. A further ten Maasai are due to appear in court on 24 August."


International Demands

Since the July 4 eviction, several NGO's have stepped forward in support of the Maasai, demanding a full, independent inquiry into the human rights violations.

They are also calling for the resignation of the Minister responsible for Natural Resources, for some recent, intolerable claim that the Massai were burning their own villages.

The NGO's are further calling:
* Compensation which "can be paid by the government and OBC";
* "For the process of degazetting Game Controlled Areas on village land to be accelerated so the people of Loliondo can use their land without obstruction";
* That "all the leaders involved in this injustice and brutality be pursued and administrative and legal steps taken of prosecuting them in court"; and
* That "OBC's hunting license be withdrawn and the company ordered to leave Loliondo Game Controlled Area".


What You Can Do

If you would like to speak out in support of the Masaai and the Hadzabe (whose situation has received next to no attention), send an email to:
* President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, United Republic of Tanzania - State House Luthuli Road, Box 9120, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Tel 00 255 22 2 116 898 / 00 255 22 2 116 899 / 00 255 22 2 113 425 info@ikulu.go.tz
* Private Secretary to Mizengo Pinda, Prime Minister of Tanzania, Email: pm@pmo.go.tz; privatesec@pmo.go.tz
* Mr. Yacoub El Hillo, UNHCR Representative to Tanzania, elhillo@unhcr.org
* Tanzanian Embassy in your country: http://www.embassiesabroad.com/embassies-of/Tanzania

DEMOCRACY NOW!
August 24, 2009

Imprisoned Native American Activist Leonard Peltier Again Denied Parole


The imprisoned Native American activist Leonard Peltier has been denied parole again. The US Parole Commission told the sixty-four-year-old Peltier on Friday that his release would "depreciate the seriousness of [his] offenses" and "promote disrespect for the law". It was Peltier's first full parole hearing in fifteen years, and he will not be eligible for parole again until July 2024, at the age of seventy-nine. We speak with Eric Seitz, Leonard Peltier's attorney. [includes rush transcript]

Guest:
Eric Seitz, Leonard Peltier's attorney.


AMY GOODMAN: The imprisoned Native American activist Leonard Peltier has been denied parole again. The US Parole Commission told the sixty-four-year-old Peltier Friday his release would, quote, "depreciate the seriousness of [his] offenses" and, quote, "promote disrespect for the law". It was Peltier's first full parole hearing in fifteen years. He will not be eligible again for parole until July 2024 at the age of seventy-nine.

Leonard Peltier has been in prison for thirty-three years, convicted of killing two police-two FBI agents during a shootout on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. Peltier has long maintained his innocence and has been widely considered a political prisoner who was not granted a fair trial. He is now being held at the Lewisburg prison in Pennsylvania.

I'm joined on the phone by his attorney, Eric Seitz. He represented Peltier at his parole hearing, joining us on the phone from his home in Hawaii.

Welcome to Democracy Now! Thank you for waking up very early, Eric. Describe what happened, what you learned on Friday.

ERIC SEITZ: Well, what we learned was that the Parole Commission, which is a holdover group of people from the Bush administration and an agency of the Justice Department, is never going to parole Leonard Peltier. They adopted in full the position of the FBI that if you kill an FBI agent, you should spend the rest of your life in jail, even if there are serious questions about the conduct of the FBI itself and of the government in prosecuting him.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the questions in this case and the other men who were tried separately who were acquitted years ago.

ERIC SEITZ: There was a trial of two people who were indicted with Leonard. It was held in Cedar Rapids, Iowa before a jury that acquitted them on grounds of self-defense.

The FBI, after that case, decided they couldn't risk a reoccurrence of the same outcome, so they came up with some ballistics evidence, which purported to link Leonard to the fatal shots by which the FBI agents were killed after this shootout had occurred for some period of time and the two agents had been fatally wounded. So they convicted Leonard of firing the fatal shots, according to the jury.

And afterwards, it turned out that the ballistics evidence was questionable, at best. But the courts have refused to set aside or disturb the outcome since then. So Leonard has actually been in prison now for more than thirty-three years for a crime of which the only other two people who were actually put on trial were acquitted, and that raises all kinds of questions about the fairness of the proceedings and of, in particular, the fairness of the judgment in his case.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, in Leonard Peltier's case, he would have been tried with these men, but he, fearing he would not get a fair trial, had fled to Canada, so he was not tried and then tried separately.

ERIC SEITZ: That's right. And then there were all kinds of questions about the proceedings by which he was returned to this country from Canada. It is an admitted fact that in the extradition proceedings, the FBI used a series of affidavits that they themselves wrote, purporting to be from a witness who was an eyewitness who wasn't even there. So the affidavits were perjured, and yet the Canadian government readily agreed at some point to send Leonard back. And after that evidence about the perjury came out, the United States government refused to take any action to correct the situation.

So there have been all kinds of issues about this case which have percolated for more than thirty-four, thirty-five years. And we were hoping at this point in time that we could get a fair consideration from the Parole Commission. We had a very good six-hour hearing before an examiner, not the commission itself, but on their review of the examiner's recommendations, which we still have never even seen, the Parole Commission basically adopted the position of the FBI. And in some sense, that's actually helpful to us, because it makes it clear that they are violating the law and the guidelines, and they are basically succumbing to this whole theory that if you kill an FBI agent, you should never be paroled, and that's not what the law requires.

AMY GOODMAN: The documents that have not been released in Leonard Peltier's case, how many are there?

ERIC SEITZ: Well, there are thousands of documents from the investigation itself going back to the mid-1970s and beyond that. And a lot of those documents have been shrouded in various levels of secrecy, and there have been Freedom of Information Act cases that have been filed. And many of them have been flushed out, and at various times that's how we learned about the ballistics evidence that was fraudulent, and that's how we also learned about the nature of the FBI's investigation and the fact that they focused on Leonard and the way in which they did after losing the first trial.

Now we're going to try to get some more of those documents and, in particular, the documents at the Parole Commission, and we're contemplating the possibility of further litigation, although I think probably much more fruitful at this point is going to be an effort to try to get clemency for Leonard, in terms of his advanced age, in consideration of his health, and because of the fact that this just simply is a case that needs to be brought to resolution properly.

AMY GOODMAN: Have you spoken to Leonard? And what is his response?

ERIC SEITZ: I have not been able to speak with him, because I can't get calls in to him over the weekend. Other people have talked to him. And I have not yet really found out from them what the results of their visits were over the weekend. But I am hoping to speak with him either today or tomorrow.

AMY GOODMAN: And again, while we reported that he doesn't have - he's not eligible for parole again until July 2024, when he's seventy-nine, his chances before then?

ERIC SEITZ: Well, as far as the parole board is concerned, there are no chances, because they're not going to change their position unless the personnel of the parole board changes dramatically.

Basically they have taken a hard-line position. He qualifies for parole, which was the difference this time around. He's served the minimum time that's necessary. He's done everything in prison that he needs to do to make himself qualified. He came up with a parole plan prospectively for where he's going to live and work for the rest of his life, with people to take care of him. All of those things are requirements, which he met. The only requirement he didn't meet, according to them, which he can't change, is the fact that he committed a crime that they regard as so heinous that he should never be released from prison. So, as far as the parole board is concerned, we will file a mandatory appeal to exhaust the channels there, but we have virtually no sense that they are going to change their position ever.

AMY GOODMAN: Eric Seitz, we're going to leave it there, because we have to move quickly on to our last segment. Again, commenting on Leonard Peltier, who was denied parole once again, Eric Seitz, his attorney.

____
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This message is from Ben Carnes, LPDOC support group coordinator and national spokesperson; it was posted on MySpace and Facebook, d.d. August 24th, 2009

- - -


I wish to offer my personal thanks to everyone for your continuous work and dedication. I was at my computer Friday morning when my google alert brought me the first news of the denial, and then I received an email from Wanbli containing the same news. It was like the dam busted, I received several hundred within the first hour and a half from many of you expressing your sense of outrage at the injustice done to Leonard.

One of my friends wrote something to the effect that a new movement was born today. I really want to see this and so does Leonard, I know we can all agree the White House needs to feel it.

So what is it going to take? It is going to take everything we got - 101%! And trust me - this kind of commitment demands sacrifices and you will be challenged for your stand on this principle. When Leonard was convicted, the late Lew Gurwitz stated, "This is a case that is not going to go away!" Lew lived his words traveling and sleeping in his car to create the awareness of this case. When he passed on, his brother Shep took up the cause. There are many of us who have been here supporting Leonard for years.

Last year, we made a commitment to do what we can to bring Leonard home before his birthday next month. We have less than three weeks to really put our hearts into this, and some of us have personal responsibilities and burdens to overcome and it comes down to making some hard decisions. It isn't going to be easy. So as a National Branch Support Group Coordinator, I want to ask everyone if they would consider again forming a branch support group in your area. We have a lot of organizing and networking to do with the clock ticking.

We have to overcome the media turning a blind eye to Leonard's plight. They are more than happy to spread detrimental news of his parole, as you have noticed recently. Let's turn this into something positive for us, each of you can write letters to the editor in your local respective paper. Sit down and write a letter expressing your disgust and outrage.

As most everyone has heard, the White House phone lines were shut down today immediately after the news came out. The fact they shut down the lines is proof of how they were overwhelmed. You know that was brought to the president's attention. I hope he leaned back in his chair and looked out the window of the Oval Office, and really thought that day about Leonard Peltier. And how much he obviously means to the people to shut down his hi-tech phone system.

And relatives, we only flinch! We've known the system has not treated Peltier fairly in the 33 years of his imprisonment. Imagined what would happened if we shouted? So yes, we need a revitalized and disciplined movement, not only for Peltier or other native prisoners, but also for all of us.

Once, we were a movement of people who traveled around the country to help put out fires of racism, greed and abuse. We have learned a lot from those days of protesting, civil disobedience or conducting roadblocks and occupations of government offices some valuable lessons. We also know that we are now in the day of hi-tech surveillance capabilities and out of control police powers. We don't need more people going to jail. The government is doing a good job as it is, so be mindful of what you do and say, but always speak from the heart and act with your conscience. Don't allow oppression to silence your voice of dissent - not now.

When there is a call to action, we can be more effective in organizing in our own communities, you know what resources are available to you there and it is going to take solidarity actions across this country, including developing media contacts, mainstream/alternative, in your locale. That is a good place to start because we will grow in numbers quickly, whereas, if we attempted to travel across country at great expense, then we may cut our participating numbers down dramatically.

Those of us who have been doing the work had to start alone or we might have had help, but we all started somewhere. We had to, just as we have to keep building this up. So for now, go to www.whoisleonardpeltier.info and fill out the application to form a Leonard Peltier Branch Support Group (city or state), and then Monday morning, your first action is to ring the phone off the hooks at the White House, and start recruiting your friends and other organizations to follow this course of action. Do this as often as possible throughout the day, everyday.

We've been saying that we wanted to start a prairie fire of outrage to the Oval Office of the White House for Peltier, and now we have cause. Leonard Peltier should not have to spend one more birthday in prison for something the government admits they cannot prove.

Offer your prayers to the Creator to give you guidance, then join this international movement for our brother and lets bring him home.

We've got some work to do now.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse and Leonard Peltier,
Ben Carnes
bencarnes@eaglecouncil.com