leonard peletier

a new dispatch has come from leonard peltier via his support team, and it has a ring of optimism to it!

Sisters, brothers, friends and supporters:

I would like to share with you the good feelings I am experiencing right now. On the 16th of October, I met with my team of lawyers, my dream team. I can't reveal the details of this meeting, but I'll tell you this -- It was a great meeting and many positive ideas were discussed. Decisions were made about how best to prepare and file new court actions.

I'm very excited about our plans. We have at the very least 6 more constitutional violations to address. As some of you might know, in these 35 years, I have learned a lot about the law. The legal issues we have to raise now are very serious and the arguments are strong.

We'll file cases very soon, but we have a lot of work ahead of us. This time around, we all must be prepared with not only the legal work, but the political work. We need to be unified in everything we do.

I'm ready to go to battle and hope you'll join with us ­ me, the legal team and my defense committee. We can and will win this time.

you can always write leonard a letter:

Leonard Peltier #89637-132
US Penitentiary ­ Lewisburg
PO Box 1000
Lewisburg, PA 
17837

The United States Department of Justice has once again made a mockery of its lofty and pretentious title.

After releasing an original and continuing disciple of death cult leader Charles Manson who attempted to shoot President Gerald Ford, an admitted Croatian terrorist, and another attempted assassin of President Ford under the mandatory 30-year parole law, the U.S. Parole Commission deemed that my release would “promote disrespect for the law.”

If only the federal government would have respected its own laws, not to mention the treaties that are, under the U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of the land, I would never have been convicted nor forced to spend more than half my life in captivity. Not to mention the fact that every law in this country was created without the consent of Native peoples and is applied unequally at our expense. If nothing else, my experience should raise serious questions about the FBI's supposed jurisdiction in Indian Country.

The parole commission's phrase was lifted from soon-to-be former U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley, who apparently hopes to ride with the FBI cavalry into the office of North Dakota governor. In this Wrigley is following in the footsteps of William Janklow, who built his political career on his reputation as an Indian fighter, moving on up from tribal attorney (and alleged rapist of a Native minor) to state attorney general, South Dakota governor, and U.S. Congressman. Some might recall that Janklow claimed responsibility for dissuading President Clinton from pardoning me before he was convicted of manslaughter. Janklow's historical predecessor, George Armstrong Custer, similarly hoped that a glorious massacre of the Sioux would propel him to the White House, and we all know what happened to him.

Unlike the barbarians that bay for my blood in the corridors of power, however, Native people are true humanitarians who pray for our enemies. Yet we must be realistic enough to organize for our own freedom and equality as nations. We constitute 5% of the population of North Dakota and 10% of South Dakota and we could utilize that influence to promote our own power on the reservations, where our focus should be. If we organized as a voting bloc, we could defeat the entire premise of the competition between the Dakotas as to which is the most racist. In the 1970s we were forced to take up arms to affirm our right to survival and self-defense, but today the war is one of ideas. We must now stand up to armed oppression and colonization with our bodies and our minds. International law is on our side.

Original statement can be found here:http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20090911183654246

This message was sent to us by ABCF LA

We are sad to announce that yesterday Leonard Peltier was denied parole. He was not only denied his freedom but was given a 15 year hit.

On September 12th, Peltier will be 65. It will be his 33rd birthday behind bars. Held captive for a crime he did not commit. Imprisoned because of his sense of duty to protect his people and their culture. Sadly, he is just one of many held in US prisons because of their determination to fight injustice.