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LPDCUpDates and Announcements!
Saturday, January 14, 2006Subj: Message from the LPDC Team Date: 1/14/2006 10:33:51 PM Eastern Standard Time From: info@leonardpeltier.org On behalf of Leonard Peltier, and the LPDC team, Legal team, and KOLA we would like to THANK YOU for the overwhelming support regarding our announcement, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING FEB 6?” We have received an overwhelming amount of emails from supporters telling us about the events, rallies and support that will be held in honor of our beloved warrior, Leonard Peltier. We, at the LPDC are currently working on an announcement providing information on events, and activities throughout the nation and world. Please bear with us as we update our website announcing the events and activities sponsored by supporters. The announcement and update on the website will be posted soon! Leonard will be sending a message to all supporters regarding activities and support for him on Feb 6, 2005 soon! Thank you Leonard Peltier supporters! Let’s all write Leonard and let him know that he is not forgotten. We are not going away! Please take a few minutes and send him a short note or card to his address at: Leonard Peltier #89637-132 USP Penitentiary PO Box 1000 Lewisburg PA 17837 For those of you who would like to send money for Leonard’s commissary account please send your US Postal money order to the following address: Federal Bureau of Prisons Leonard Peltier # 89637-132 PO BOX 474701 Des Moines Iowa 50747-0001 Note: Leonard can not receive gifts or CDs. Books magazines must be sent from a book store. No hardback books are allowed. Newspaper articles are not allowed however Xerox copies of the articles are allowed. Note: Please let us know what you will be doing for Leonard on FEB 6. We look forward to hearing from you! Leonard Peltier Defense Committee Team WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON FEB 6, 2006? We, the LPDC team, the Leonard Peltier Legal team and KOLA/IPF would like to know what are YOU doing on February 6, 2006? February 6th, marks the 30th anniversary of Leonard’s illegal extradition to the United States from Canada. Supporters all around the world are getting together in honor of our warrior-Leonard. Will you be meeting with friends to view “Incident of Oglala?” Attend a candlelight vigil? Get together with friends to write letters to our Politicians? Coordinate a benefit event? Call your favorite radio station and request a special song dedicated to our Warrior? Place an order with our Café Press online store @http://www.cafepress.com/leonardpeltier Proudly wear your Leonard Peltier T-shirt and hand out information brochures? (available via our website) Sign the online petition to George Bush? @http://users.skynet.be/kola//ppet.htm (online cards to George W. Bush also available) Be AN Army OF ONE, and plan an event for Leonard! Get others to join you and lets us know what you’ll be doing for Leonard on Feb 6, 2006? Call the LPDC @ 915-533-6655 Email us at:info@leonardpeltier.org and share with us your plans and ideas. Join Us! We would love to hear from you and LET US put your name on the Map! Please see our website at <http://www.leonardpeltier.org/> www.leonardpeltier.org WE WILL BE POSTING A MAP/ANNOUNCEMENT of all the activities so keeping checking our website….to see what supporters are doing on FEB 6, 2005. LOOKING FORWARD TO HEARING FROM YOU! Leonard Peltier Defense Committee Posted by Webmaster@AIMSupport.org 10:41 PM  Date: 1/14/2006 10:25:10 PM Eastern Standard Time From: info@leonardpeltier.org PROGRAM The Rhode Island Civil Rights Roundtable Celebrating the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (& the 8th anniversary of the birth of the Roundtable in 1998) The Providence Black Repertory Theater, 276 Westminster St., Prov. Sunday, January 15, 2006 4:00pm to 6:00pm Education Forum --- Followed by 6:00-7:00 socializing 4:00pm: Opening - Prism of Praise Community Gospel Choir Ensemble Director Michael Evora 4:10pm: Welcome - Onna Moniz, Moderator * Welcome from The Black Repertory Theater (Raidge*) * Brief remarks by any dignitaries present * Purpose (Joe Fowlkes and Toby Ayers, Roundtable co-facilitators) * Dramatic Reading: Dr. King's Nobel Speech, by actor Raidge* 4:30pm: Educational Presentations with Q&A/Discussion (Onna Moniz, Moderator) 1) Rep. Joe Almeida and Maria Lopes: The RI Minority Legislative Caucus: the organization and its legislative agenda. 2) Andres Idarrage, RI Family Life Center: Voting disenfranchisement of formerly incarcerated. Upcoming ballot issue, video presentation. 3) Brenda Clement, representing HousingWorksRI Coalition and Noreen Shawcross, Chief of RI Office of Housing & Community Development Affordable housing, homelessness & civil rights -- 4) Panel of Roundtable groups: 2006 Priority Legislation. Laura Wood , American Friends Service Committee of SE NE: National Peace Tax Campaign Toby Ayers, RICJ and Steve Brown, ACLU Racial Profiling - Recommendations and Legislation Bob Cooper, Governor's Commission on Disabilities Apply Medicaid "medically needy" definition to disabilities Michael DiLauro, Public Defenders Office: Mental health advocacy for prisoners Eyewitness identification procedures Joe Fowlkes, Urban League Tax lien sales legislation CLOSING 5:50: Cut the Birthday Cake 6:00: Network and Party at the Black Rep! *(Raidge is the stage name for actor Anthony Burton) Posted by Webmaster@AIMSupport.org 10:31 PM Date: 1/14/2006 12:15:26 PM Eastern Standard Time From: info@leonardpeltier.org 30 years later, Peltier still battles for justice Author: John <johnniecakes59@yahoo.com> Gallagher People's Weekly World Newspaper 01/12/06 Leonard Peltier, the long-imprisoned American Indian Movement activist, sent out a recent message to supporters: "We are all geared up to file more appeals on new information my legal team has found while reviewing withheld documents. I want you to know that we will continue to fight for my freedom."In addition to the lift provided by newly released documents that may ultimately exonerate him, Peltier's optimism was also fueled by his defense team's plans to challenge the legality of his trial under the provisions of the Indian Crimes Act. The case has more than just historical interest, given the persistence of U.S. government racism and neglect toward Indian peoples and the disproportionately high rates of imprisonment of Indian youth in South Dakota and elsewhere. Peltier, 61, was convicted of killing two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota on June 26, 1975, a crime he says he did not commit. Feb. 6 will mark the 30th anniversary of his imprisonment. He remains incarcerated even though the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals recognized in 1984 that (1) the prosecution withheld evidence from Peltier's defense team, (2) the prosecutor admitted the government doesn't know who shot the agents and (3) FBI expert Evan Hodge may have lied about ballistics tests allegedly linking Peltier to the crime. Two other AIM activists were found not guilty of killing those agents on the grounds of self-defense in a separate trial. In the early 1980s, Peltier's attorneys submitted a request for his FBI files under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Initially, 12,000 pages were released in full or in part, with another 6,000 pages withheld on grounds of "national security." Not until 2004 did it emerge that the FBI actually has at least 142,579 pages never made available to Peltier or his attorneys. Among other things, the newly released documents reveal that Peltier's defense team in the late 1970s may have been infiltrated by the FBI. At a recent East Coast campus showing of "Incident at Oglala, a documentary about the 1975 events at Pine Ridge, one of Peltier's current lawyers, Barry Bachrach, urged the audience to listen carefully to former U.S. Attorney Evan Hultman. Hultman states that there was no evidence to suggest that statements by an Indian woman, Myrtle Poor Bear, were false. Recently released documents, however, suggest that Hultman knew they were false and selectively presented excerpts from her statements to Canadian authorities in order to extradite Peltier. Poor Bear states in the 1992 documentary that she was intimidated by FBI agents into claiming she was Peltier's girlfriend and into testifying that she saw him shoot the two FBI agents. She said she feared being put through a meat grinder if she didn't do so. In actual fact, Poor Bear didn't even know what Peltier looked like until he walked into the courtroom. When it came time for the trial, she could not testify because the judge ruled her incompetent. In another development, Peltier's defense team has filed an appeal of a July 2005 decision by the U.S. District Court of North Dakota that endorsed federal jurisdiction over Indian territory. Peltier's attorneys argue that no such jurisdiction exists, and that the trial and sentence imposed on their client were therefore illegal. "We feel that the court blatantly ignored jurisdiction laws when it denied Leonard's original motion, wrote Bachrach. We hope that this appeal will convince the court that it had no jurisdiction to convict Mr. Peltier under the crimes for which he was convicted, those convictions must be set aside as a matter of law. The history of the Constitution, and the statutes implicated, unequivocally establish that Mr. Peltier was not convicted under the Indian Crimes Act, which is the only possible authority under which the government could have tried and convicted Mr. Peltier." Russ Redner, former director of the El Paso, Texas-based Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, said the outcome of this argument will not just affect Leonard Peltier, but the Lakota Nation and all sovereign nations that have a relationship with the U.S. After an unaccountably abrupt transfer from Leavenworth Prison to the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., last June, where he spent weeks in solitary confinement, Peltier was moved in mid-August to the federal prison at Lewisburg, Pa., where he has regained the rights he previously had. Mass protest forced the improvement, his supporters say. For more information or to contribute to Peltier's legal defense fund, visit www.leonardpeltier.org <http://www.leonardpeltier.org/> . Posted by Webmaster@AIMSupport.org 12:33 PM Date: 1/7/2006 8:22:56 PM Eastern Standard Time From: info@leonardpeltier.org Subject: (1) Up-Date: 13th Annual NW Leonard Peltier March Please post widely UP-DATED INFORMATION: Jan. 7th From: TACOMA LEONARD PELTIER SUPPORT GROUP P.O. BOX 5464 TACOMA, WA 98415-0464 Tacoma-lpsg@ojibwe.us or bayou@blarg.net> As individual fingers we can easily be broken, but all together we make a mighty fist. --Sitting Bull- 13th ANNUAL NORTHWEST REGIONAL INTERNATIONAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH LEONARD PELTIER MARCH AND RALLY FOR JUSTICE SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2006, TACOMA 12:00 NOON: MARCH FOR JUSTICE Portland Ave. Park (on Portland Ave. between E. 35th and E. Fairbanks Ave. Take Portland Ave. exit off I-5 and head east) 1:00 PM: RALLY FOR JUSTICE U.S. Federal Court House, 1717 Pacific Ave. AFTER RALLY POTLUCK MEAL AND GET TOGETHER-YOUTH EMERGING Around 4:00 pm. At the First United Methodist Church, 423 Martin Luther King Jr Way. >From the rally go south up the hill to Martin Luther King Jr Way and turn right. The church is right next to a large hospital. The meal and gathering is hosted in support of Leonard by the local Tacoma group People for Peace, Justice and Healing. We will be providing a Spaghetti dinner as previously. We welcome salad, desserts and traditional foods, or other foods that people would like to contribute to the dinner. Please contact Sol Riou at sparkingwaves@hotmail.com or 253-377-6078. if you plan to bring food for the meal and for other information on how you can help. SALMON MUST BE COOKED. We will have three places that you may bring the food, our preference is that you bring it to the beginning of the March, by 11:30 am if possible. However, we will have a pickup location at the Courthouse, by 12:30 pm if possible, with the exact corner to be announced later. We will accept donations at the Church also. PROGRAM FOR RALLY AND AFTER RALLY MEAL Co-MC's: Harold Belmont: Coastal Native Elder, Native People's Alliance With Friends and Allies Pete Sanchez; Ktunaxa (Kutenai) Spiritual Opening and Closing Words: Dorothy Ackerman; Lakota Elder NW AIM Drum Performances by: The Aztec Dancers United Nations: Native Rap Activists Speakers: Opening: Shelly Vendiola: Indigenous Women's Network. Carter Camp; Wounded Knee II Vet, Oklahoma AIM Matilaja: Yu'Pik/Yakama Arthur J. Miller, Tacoma Leonard Peltier Support Group Kerwin Hemlock: Longtime Native Activist Debbie White Plume: survivor of the "Reign of Terror" on Pine Ridge Juan Jose Bocanegra: Every Worker's Movement Donna Denina: Chair of the Gabriela Network Zoltan Grossman: Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace, Faculty Evergreen's Native American Studies Fr. Bill Bichsel: Catholic Worker, JWJ, IWW, SOAW Radimus: Spoken Word Artist AFTER RALLY MEAL: YOUTH EMERGING Steve Hapy: MC, Tacoma Leonard Peltier Support Group Vic Camp: Youth leader of Owe Aku, Pine Ridge B.J. Gleason: Turtle Mountain Anishinabe Performance by: United Nations: Native Rap Activists Closing words: Dorothy Ackerman; Lakota Elder. CARVANS FOR JUSTICE (Carpools) The Caravans for Justice are open to all people who want rides or can provide rides or who wish to join the caravans. Bring "Free Leonard Peltier" signs for car windows if possible. BELLINGHAM: Will be meeting at Fairhaven College parking lot at 9am, and leaving at 9:30am. Directions: When approaching Bellingham from the north or south on Interstate 5, take Exit #252, marked Samish Way and W.W.U. Turn west onto Samish Way and follow the signs to Bill McDonald Parkway. At South College Drive, take a right. Fairhaven College and its gravel parking lot will be on the right. SEATTLE: Meet at the Red Apple parking lot at 23rd and Jackson. Will be leaving at 10:00 am. OLYMPIA: There will be a carpool leaving from the parking lot at Harrison and Division at 10:30. EUGENE: Drivers and people needing rides meet at the Grower's Market parking lot (454 Willamette, by the Amtrak station) at 7:30 am. (The Eugene Caravan will be meeting up with the Portland Caravan). PORTLAND: Drivers and people needing rides, meet in the main parking lot (entrance just north of Killingworth from Albina, parking lot entrance on the right, behind the student services building)at PCC Cascade Campus at 9:30 am. The Case Of Leonard Peltier After a conflict between the Lakota people and the U.S. government and corporate interests a peace treaty was signed and the great Lakota reservation was created in the late 19th century. That peace treaty meant nothing to U.S. interests, for its terms were violated from almost the moment it was signed. Those interests continued to steal more Lakota land wherever they found gold and other minerals that they wanted. At the same time, they sought to destroy the Lakota way of life. U.S. interests outlawed Lakota religion and massacred the Lakota at Wounded Knee in an act of religious suppression. U.S. interests kidnapped Lakota children and placed them in internment, in schools where they were held for years away from their families, while their language and traditions were being beaten out of them. U.S. interests carried out a secret forced program of sterilization of Lakota women. Then, in the 1920s, acting upon the interests of oil and mineral companies, the U.S. forced a 'government' entity upon the Lakota people, to be controlled by those corporate and U.S. interests. In the late 1960s uranium was found in the northwest section of the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation. The U.S. interests wanted that uranium for their weapons of mass destruction and nuclear power plants. The U.S. interests knew that the Lakota people would not give up any more of their land willingly: they had already refused to take payment for the Black Hills, stolen from them for its gold. U.S. interests then set out to suppress all possible resistance to further theft. That led the resisters' to request the help of the American Indian Movement (AIM). Upon a request by Lakota Elders, a stand was taken at Wounded Knee, on the Pine Ridge reservation of the Lakota people. In the two and a half years after what became known as Wounded Knee II there was a 'Reign of Terror' the resisters on Pine Ridge was forced to suffer. Whole villages were shot up, people were run off the road, many Native people were wounded and over 67 of them were murdered. The Lakota people again asked AIM for help and an AIM encampment was set up. Most of the people in that encampment were from Northwest AIM. And Leonard Peltier was one of them. The AIM people were under considerable oppression and lived there daily in danger from the death squad (they called themselves the Goon Squad). One day two cars came speeding onto the land of their encampment, in the same manner that earlier drive-by shootings by the death squad had taken place on Pine Ridge. The AIM members there that day defended themselves from what they saw as another murderous attack. In the firefight that took place two FBI agents and one AIM member died. Norman Zigrossi, head of the local FBI office at the time, defended the illegal actions, saying, "Indians are a conquered nation and the FBI is merely acting as a colonial police force." He went on, "When you're conquered, the people you're conquered by dictate your future." It is clear that the attack upon the AIM encampment was planned to start a conflict to draw away resistance to the illegal signing away of Lakota land that had taken place in Washington, D.C. at that time. Before the firefight, hundreds of U.S. Government agents were brought on to Pine Ridge reservation, the roads leading to the AIM encampment were blocked before the firefight and local hospitals were given notice to expect casualties. In the first trial of two AIM members, who had been in the firefight at their encampment, the jury came back with a verdict of not guilty by reason of self-defense. The U.S. interests then put all their efforts into convicting Leonard Peltier. They fabricated evidence, intimidated witnesses and illegally changed judges, settling on one who would not allow Leonard's lawyers to present his case of self-defense. Through appeals, Leonard's lawyers have been able to disprove the case against him to the point that the U.S. Government prosecutors have stated that they don't know what role Leonard played in the firefight -- he was just there that day and thus by default aided and abetted in the deaths of the agents. It can be reasoned that since the first two AIM members were found not guilty by reason of self-defense, then Leonard has been in prison all these years for aiding and abetting an act of self-defense! Much of our focus should be on FBI political repression, COINTELPRO, and how they are connected to Leonard's case, for the FBI has been and continues to be used as the U.S. Government's and corporate interests' Political Police Force. As you read this, Leonard's lawyers struggle to get all the documents that the FBI has withheld in his case. The FBI claims it needs to withhold those documents to protect national security. We need to ask, "Whose national security needs to be protected from the truth?" Given that documents already received by the defense team have exposed the U.S. Government's frame-up of Leonard to the point that the government's lawyers have had to admit that there is no evidence connecting him directly to the deaths of the FBI agents, and have shown that the FBI took illegal, aggressive actions to suppress the right of Native people to organize to air their grievances, there is no doubt that documents still withheld will show further evidence of FBI illegal actions. Even the courts have recognized the repressive nature of the government actions against AIM and Leonard. Judge Heaney stated, "The United States Government overreacted at Wounded Knee. Instead of carefully considering the legitimate grievances of the Native Americans, the response was essentially a military one, which culminated in the deadly firefight on June 26, 1975." And in 2003 the Tenth Circuit Court found that, "Much of the government's behavior at the Pine Ridge Reservation and in its prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed." Even with this acknowledgment Leonard has been in prison for over 28 years. Leonard is not in prison based upon the laws of this land, for the courts have stated over and over again that the U.S. government has violated those laws in Leonard's case. Leonard Peltier is in prison for one reason and one reason alone, and that is because it is in the interests of the few to keep him locked up: because he represents the essence of this land, the wrong upon which the United States was established, a simple truth which has to be recognized before the country can ever be sound. Leonard suffers under the same interests that hung Chief Leschi, the same interests that massacred the Lakota at Wounded Knee, the same interests that are behind many of the wars around the world, the same interest behind the WTO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the same interests that strips our schools of basic funds, that strip you of your unemployment benefits and overtime pay, and the same interests that we all find ourselves struggling against in our common pursuit of peace and well-being. Justice for Leonard and the end to political repression by the FBI will only come from the organized spirit of solidarity of all people struggling in their true interests. Illegal actions by the FBI should be the concern of all American people who believe in social justice, because Leonard was not and will not be the only victim of political repression. Among those that were targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO were: Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights activists and organizations including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Jesse Jackson (note that the FBI also carried out intimidation of Jackson supporters in the south when he ran for U.S. president), Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW), the National Lawyer's Guild, antinuclear weapons campaigns (SANE-Freeze), the National Council of Churches, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), antiwar organizations, the alternative press, student organizations including the National Students Association (TNSA) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), environmental, anti-racism and feminist organizations, GI organizations, socialist and communist parties, the Industrial Workers of the World, organizations of self-determination for people of color such as the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, the Brown Berets, and Native organizations such as the American Indian Movement (AIM). The political repression carried out by the FBI has never ended. It was seen this year with the FBI's intimidation of antiwar protesters who planned to protest at the national conventions of the two major political parties. Though the FBI claimed it needed more power, money and agents to deal with the threat of terrorism after 9-11, the agency still had the time, money, and forces to harass people who questioned the war in Iraq. The same drive to acquire enormous profits that keep this country in Iraq over the opposition of its own people is also what led to the U.S. Government's suppression of traditional indigenous people, AIM and in its frame-up of Leonard Peltier. And as to making connections, the infliction of war on Iraq was justified by using false documents, lies about weapons of mass destruction and sham connections to terrorists. That is the same tactic the U.S. Government used in its suppression of AIM and in its frame-up of Leonard Peltier. The government used the war in Iraq in the interest of bringing global U.S. company's huge profits, and on the Pine Ridge reservation that same government carried out its repression in the interest of U.S. energy corporations. The Oglala People are unconquered -- We will not, and Leonard Peltier will not give up the fight for justice. In today's world it is more important than ever to stand up to political persecution. Over the past three years the City of Tacoma has tried to stop our march and has tried to intimidate us with a massive show of police force. It was the support of many good people and a legal team that upheld our right to march in Tacoma. Our annual focus for 13 years has been to hold a peaceful march in solidarity with Leonard Peltier's struggle. We will not stop marching, we will not be intimidated and we maintain the right to come out in public in support of Leonard Peltier without persecution. We call on you as sisters and brothers to join us at our Annual Regional Tacoma March and Rally in Solidarity with Leonard Peltier, as we send the message: We will not give up! We will not surrender! We will continue to stand for justice for Leonard Peltier and for justice for all that he represents for as long as it takes to set him free! Our strength is building and time is on our side, the sweep of justice is moving throughout the world and we are a part of that great wave of truth and justice. Please join with us on Feb.4, 2006 for a tremendous show of solidarity, a march and rally in Unified Solidarity for Justice for Leonard Peltier. All of us working together will free Leonard Peltier. The Tacoma Leonard Peltier Support needs your help. We need donations to help pay for the publicity for the march and rally. Please send donations to the address below (make checks out to the Tacoma Leonard Peltier Support Group. We need help getting fliers and posters out and setting up video showings. Please contact us if you can help. Thank you. In The Spirit of Crazy Horse, Steve Hapy, Jr. Arthur J. Miller Tacoma Leonard Peltier Support Group Posted by Webmaster@AIMSupport.org 8:43 AM
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