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Monday, September 14th 2009

5:49 PM

Leonard Peltier Vigil in London, Ontario, Sept. 12th 2009

Leonard Peltier Vigil in London, Ontario, September 12th,  2009

 

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Monday, September 14th 2009

5:47 PM

A missed chance for compassion

www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20090914_A_missed_chance_for_compassion.html?referrer=facebook

A missed chance for compassion
An American Indian activist is denied parole. The sad fact: Nobody notices.

By David Biddle
Sept. 14, 2009


Saturday was Leonard Peltier's 65th birthday, and he has spent almost half his life in jail.

Peltier, an American Indian Movement (AIM) activist, has been in prison since 1977, found guilty of executing two FBI agents during a shootout at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

His case is marred by allegations of witness coercion, judicial fiat, FBI incompetence, and an anti-Indian vigilante mentality. Those of us who followed the militant days of AIM waited hopefully on July 28 for the parole commission to determine whether Peltier had finally paid his dues to society.

Federal parole eligibility for life sentence offenders does not mean freedom or exoneration; it means serving the remainder of a life sentence under supervision of one's community. Eric Seitz, Peltier's attorney, said that his client spoke for more than an hour with "great eloquence ... we thought it went very well."

Peltier represents one of America's most complex and controversial face-offs between the law-and-order perspective and minority community rights. June 26, 1975, was the culmination of a three-year mini-war between traditionalist and assimilationist factions on the reservation. The assimilationists were using vigilante enforcers to terrorize the traditionalists. AIM, a nationally recognized Indian's rights group that used civil disobedience - and, in those days, weapons - was called in to protect the traditionalists.

The details of that day are twisted now in myth, legend, and distortion - on both sides. We know that two young FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, followed a truck in separate cars onto the Jumping Bull compound and that the truck's occupants eventually jumped out and opened fire on the agents from high ground. Both agents were wounded in this first volley. The truck occupants were joined by a number of AIM members staying in tents on the compound. All were armed, many with high-powered rifles.

Some time after wounding the agents, Peltier and two other AIM members went down to the cars. This is where the story gets twisted up. The government prosecuted Peltier using circumstantial evidence to prove he executed the agents at point-blank range. Peltier and others who were there that day say the agents had already been shot. An AIM member was also killed in the shootout. His death was never investigated. There is no question that this was a senseless, destructive scene arising out of a time of great frustration and fear.

On Aug. 21, we learned that Peltier had been denied parole. The Associated Press offered a brief synopsis of the decision, but few mainstream publications printed this. Most national broadcast outlets posted the AP story online, but offered no TV or radio coverage.

How could Peltier's parole hearing not stir the national media into at least a small frenzy? Forget which side is right. The outcome of that hearing was real news. Peltier's case is the most poignant and powerful reminder of what this society has done to Indian tribes for nearly half a millennium - also what Indians have done to themselves. And we choose, sadly, to ignore all of this.

To grant Peltier parole was an opportunity, albeit very small, for the United States to begin to turn the page on its history with Native America - to show mercy and compassion. Why was this opportunity not news?

But even the denial of parole was a story: law and order trumps human rights; punishment vs. rehabilitation; forgetting the FBI's dark record; one man's political prisoner is another's thug.

What does virtually ignoring this case say about the media? About us as a nation? Do we just not care? Is all that Indian stuff now just water under the bridge?

Media companies are very concerned about profits these days. Maybe if there were more concern about covering issues that no one knows about, rather than issues where everyone thinks he knows everything, people would buy more papers.

____
David Biddle writes the blog "The Formality of Occurrence" at www.formalityoccurrence.blogspot.com.

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Monday, September 14th 2009

5:38 PM

Peltier Vigil in Berlin, Germany - Sept. 11, 2009

Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:20:41 +0200
From: Yvonne Bangert publikationen@gfbv.de
Subject: Peltier vigil in Berlin


Dear all,

here are some infos about our vigil on September 11: we were in Berlin just in front of the US-Embassy, which is very close to the famous Brandenburger Tor, "the" tourist spot close to the Parliament Building and to the Federal Chancellery in the very heart of our capital. We were about 20 to 30 people - sometimes more and sometimes less -  who stayed there in very nice and sunny weather between about 10 am and 1 pm. Unfortunately we had our flyer printed only in German, next time we need to be bi-lingual because there were many tourists around who did not speak German and therefore would not take the info. But nevertheless we could distribute almost all of our 600 flyers, which is quite a lot. There was a small local radio station from Halle (Sachsen Anhalt), one of the East German Republic of our Federal Republic, which made an interview with me a week before the vigil, that was broadcasted on Friday (Sept. 11) in the afternoon. The journalist who made it joined us in Berlin for a follow up interview, that was broadcasted today. We even had two participants from Poland, Marek and Ewa, who found out about the vigil via internet and joined us.

Unfortunately we were not successful to hand out an appeal to the Embassy in which we ask President Obama to pardon Leonard Peltier. Someone from the staff told us after several replys I made during the week before the event that they are not allowed to accept appeals person to person, but that we will have to go through the regular mail. They were not even permitted to come out of the Embassy, which was within range of sight from where we were, to meet us at the vigil and receive our appeal. I will send it with regular mail now as advised.


All the best for you and please stay in contact
Yvonne / STP

--
Yvonne Bangert
Referat indigene Voelker / Indigenous Peoples Dpt.
Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker e.V. (GfbV)
Society for Threatened Peoples (STP)
P.O.Box 2024
D - 37010 Göttingen
Fon: +49 (0)551 499 06 -14
Fax: +49 (0)551 58 028
E-Mail: indigene@gfbv.de
Internet: www.gfbv.de


 

GfBV - Berlin - 11 sept 2009

GfBV - Berlin - 11 sept 2009

GfBV - Berlin - 11 sept 2009

(upper left corner: Yvonne Bangert)

GfBV - Berlin - 11 sept 2009

(Marek Nowocien & Ewa Stanska-Bugaj of LPSG Poland)

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