Я была одной из получателей этого письма, разослал его Harvey Arden старейшина совета племени из Роузбад. К сожалению помещаю в оригинале, нет времени перевести, может кто посвободней сделает доброе дело... заранее благодарна. Это стоит того.
IT’S AMAZING—though rarely reported—that, had President Bill Clinton granted executive clemency to Leonard Peltier in 2001—which, of course, he spinelessly did not—Senator Hillary Clinton would now be the Democratic nominee and likely next President of the United States of America .
WELL BEFORE the January 2008 Iowa caucuses that propelled Barack Obama to his stunning win over Hillary in the primaries, Hollywood mogul David Geffen—a longtime Clinton supporter—announced he was putting his money in 2008 on Obama, for whom he threw a lavish Hollywood fundraiser in Dec. '07 —because Spineless Bill, cowering before overt FBI pressure, had refused to grant long-expected executive clemency to Leonard Peltier, a man both he—and especially the FBI—KNEW and KNOW to be INNOCENT of the FBI’s illegally trumped-up charges of killing two FBI agents in the 1976 so-called “Incident at Oglala.”
PRISON LIFE is Leonard's Sun Dance, his sacrificial suffering on behalf of his People. He will be 64 next week (Sept.12, 2008), has been falsely imprisoned since he was 31, and every one of the 11,000-plus days he's spent in prison has left its mark on his soul. His very life is an ACCUSATION against those who put him—a man they know to be innocent—where he is for 3-plus decades now. He should not suffer another hour for the 'crime' of being an Indian.
I SAY TO THE FBI, pleading from my deepest Soul, allow this innocent man to spend the final years of his life with his People. No admissions need be made. Give Leonard and his People the release that millions around the world have prayed and worked for and continue praying and working for. He's been a Symbol for long enough. Let him go. Practice a bit of Redemption and you may receive some yet for yourselves.
I HAVE LONG CALLED for a BLANKET PARDON from the President for ALL PERSONS involved in the 'Reign of Terror' at Pine Ridge during the years 1973 (Wounded Knee II) to 1976 (Oglala firefight) and after--whether Indians, AIMsters, GOONs, paramilitary, FBI, BIA, whomever--lift ALL potential charges on ALL the individuals involved. Let those involved in those tragic days breath free air again--retired Special Agents fearing prosecution if the truth were revealed, as well as Mr. Peltier and even newer victims of ongoing judicial/govt misconduct such as Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham.
MR PRESIDENT, tear down this WALL OF SHAME! Let's cleanse ourselves--ALL of us. Let's turn to the new millennium while a dwindling number of old-timers, guilty or not, concern themselves with Eternity and not the "Reign of Terror."
PLEASE, if you care, FWD this email to
comments@whitehouse.gov
Add your own comments and please CC a copy to me as well as to
info@barackobama.com .
Blessings & Strength to all—we’ll be needing plenty of both in the weeks and months ahead. Leonard has a rare formal parole hearing in December 2008—last month of Bush’s reign. Should he be denied, his next parole hearing will not be until 2017. Please act NOW!!
And DO check out
www.whoisleonardpeltier.info
/Harvey Arden
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August 28, 2008
An Open Letter to Barack Obama
Symbolism Alone Will Not Bring Change
By LEONARD PELTIER
I have watched with keen interest and renewed hope as your campaign has mobilized millions of Americans behind your message of changing a political system that serves a small economic elite at the expense of the peoples of the United States and the world. Your election as president of the United States, where slaves and Indians were long considered less than human under the law, will undoubtedly constitute a historic moment in race relations in the United States.
Yet symbolism alone will not bring about change. Our young people, black and Native alike, suffer from police brutality and racial profiling, underfunded schools, and discrimination in employment and housing.. I sincerely hope your campaign will inspire some hope among our youth to struggle for a better future. I am, however, concerned that your recent statement on the Sean Bell verdict, in which the New York police officers who fired 50 shots at a young man on the eve of his wedding were acquitted of criminal charges, displays a rather myopic view of the law. Until the law is harnessed to protect the victims of state violence and racism, it will serve as an instrument of repression, just as the slave codes functioned to sustain and legitimize an inhuman institution.
As I can testify from experience, the legal institutions of this nation are far from racial and political neutrality. When judges align with the repressive actions and policies of the executive branch, injustice is rationalized and cloaked in judicial platitudes. As you may know, I have now served more than three decades of my life as a political prisoner of the federal government for a crime I did not commit. I have served more time than the maximum sentence under the guidelines under which I was sentenced, yet my parole is continually denied (on the rare occasions when I am afforded a hearing) because I refuse to falsely confess. Amnesty International, South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama of Tibet, my Guatemalan sister Rigoberta Menchu, and many of your friends and supporters have recognized me as a political prisoner and called for my immediate release. Millions of people around the world view me as a symbol of injustice against the indigenous peoples of this land, and I have no doubt that I will go down in history as one of a long line of victims of U.S. government repression, along with Sacco and Vanzetti, the Haymarket Square martyrs, Eugene Debs, Bill Haywood, and others targeted by for their political beliefs. But neither I nor my people can afford to wait for history to rectify the crimes of the past.
As a member of the American Indian Movement, I came to the Pine Ridge Oglala reservation to defend the traditional people there from human rights violations carried out by tribal police and goon squads backed by the FBI and the highest offices of the federal government. Our symbolic occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973 inspired Indians across the Americas to struggle for their freedom and treaty rights, but it was also met by a fierce federal siege and a wave of violent repression on Pine Ridge. In 1974, AIM leader Russell Means campaigned for tribal chairman while being tried by the federal government for his role at Wounded Knee. Although Means was barred from the reservation by decree of the U.S.-client regime of Richard Wilson, he won the popular vote, only to be denied office by extensive vote fraud and control of the electoral mechanisms. Wilson’s goons proceeded to shoot up pro-Means villages such as Wanblee and terrorize traditional supporters throughout the reservation, killing at least 60 people between 1973 and 1975.
It is long past time for a congressional investigation to examine the degree of federal complicity in the violent counterinsurgency that followed the occupation of Wounded Knee. The tragic shootout that led to the deaths of two FBI agents and one Native man also led not only to my false conviction, but also the termination of the Church Committee, which was investigating abuses by federal intelligence and law enforcement agents, before it could hold hearings on FBI infiltration of AIM. Despite decades of attempts by my attorneys to obtain government documents related to my case, the FBI continues to withhold thousands of documents that might tend to exonerate me or reveal compromising evidence of judicial collusion with the prosecution.
I truly believe the truth will set me free, but it will also signify a symbolic break from America’s undeclared war on indigenous peoples. I hope and pray that you possess the courage and integrity to seek out the truth and the wisdom to recognize the inherent right of all peoples to self-determination, as acknowledged by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. While your statements on federal Indian policy sound promising, your vision of “one America” has an ominous ring for Native peoples struggling to define their own national visions. If freed from colonial constraints and external intervention, indigenous nations might well serve as functioning models of the freedom and democracy to which the United States aspires.
Yours in the struggle.
Until freedom is won,
Leonard Peltier
Special Note:
Please Help Support the LPDOC for Leonard's Freedom
As Leonard Peltier marks his 64th birthday on Sept. 12, the LPDOC is redoubling its efforts to win his freedom. We are planning an ambitious organizing drive in our new Fargo office to persuade North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan, chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, to investigate the federal government's role in the violent counterinsurgency on the Pine Ridge Reservation from 1973-1976, the FBI's withholding of thousands of pages of documents related to the AIM activist, and the unfair federal trial in Fargo which led to Leonard's conviction in 1977.
Leonard is suffering from partial blindness, diabetes, a heart condition, high blood pressure, and prostate problems. He needs your help.
We need your help too, if we are to do the work that needs to be done to obtain justice for one of the longest-serving political prisoners in the world. At the moment, we are barely keeping up with our rent and phone bills, our two full-time staff members are working without pay, and we badly need a new photocopier. Due to the damaging actions of a former LPDC employee, who removed valuable office equipment and contributor records, we are rebuilding our committee virtually from scratch. We have found an experienced volunteer editor for our Spirit of Crazy Horse newspaper, but in order to resume publication, we will need your support.
If you are able to contribute $20 or more for this campaign, you will receive a free subscription to the newsletter to keep abreast on developments in Peltier's campaign and in Indian Country generally. Please contribute as generously as you are able, and also take the time to write and/or call Sen. Dorgan With your help, we can win Leonard's freedom from the same city in which it was taken away. Even if you are unable to contribute at this time, please send us your name and address to help us rebuild our list of supporters at the state and national level.
Please send your donation to:
LPDOC
PO Box 7488
Fargo, ND 58106
701-235-2206
Thank You,
Betty Ann Peltier-Solano,
Executive Director
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
www.whoisleonardpeltier.info
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