Leonard Peltier

Poster for Peltier's release, Detroit 2009

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Leonard Peltier (born September 12, 1944 in Grand Forks , North Dakota ) is a Native American activist of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the United States . In 1977, despite controversial evidence, he was sentenced to two life imprisonment for aiding and abetting murder and has been in various prisons in the United States since then.

In 1975 he was on behalf of the AIM because of the internal Indian conflicts over Dick Wilson in the Pine Ridge Reservation . At the time, Peltier was already wanted by the police with an arrest warrant because of a suspicion of murder that was later cleared. There was an execution-style murder of two FBI agents in Pine Ridge after a shooting with another dead person. After fleeing to Canada, Peltier was extradited, found guilty, convicted and imprisoned in a complex and controversial process.

The AIM , Incomindios Switzerland and the Society for Threatened Peoples see him as a prisoner of conscience or political prisoner. Amnesty International does not share this classification, but sees doubts about the process as well as political factors influencing the process and, like other human rights organizations, has repeatedly advocated his release.

The American judiciary has confirmed the guilty verdict several times. In 2009, the United States Parole Commission held a hearing , denying a pardon. The next possible early release hearing is scheduled for 2024, and the release date is October 11, 2040.

Childhood and youth

Born the eleventh of 13 children, he grew up with his paternal grandparents after his parents divorced. He dropped out of school after the 9th grade. Peltier grew up as a member of the Lakota and Anishinabe with his grandparents on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa reservation in North Dakota. At the age of nine he attended the school in Wahpeton operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) for three years . He returned to the Turtle Mountain Reservation in 1957 after graduating from high school in Flandreau, South Dakota. As a spectator, he took part in a sun dance that was then forbidden . He was arrested by BIA police. Some time later he was arrested a second time, this time for trying to run diesel oil from an Army storage truck to heat his grandmother's house. Peltier became increasingly politicized.

The AIM activist

In 1968 the American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in Minneapolis . After the sensational occupation of the former prison island of Alcatraz , Peltier joined the resistance movement. On March 8, 1970, he and other activists occupied the vacant Fort Lawton near Seattle . The occupation ended with the imprisonment of those involved. Later, however, the fort was handed over to the activists and a cultural center was set up there.

In 1972 Peltier took part in the March of Broken Treaties ("Trail of Broken Treaties") to Washington DC . AIM members occupied and devastated the BIA building. They also destroyed receipts and documents that sanctioned the centuries-long theft of Indian property. During the occupation, Peltier coordinated the militant approach. Supporters of Peltier like Ward Churchill suspect a systematic campaign by the FBI since then, for example as part of a continuation of the COINTELPRO program. The Pine Ridge Reservation is one of the poorest areas in the United States. During the tenure of the elected Reserve Board member Richard A. "Dick" Wilson on the Pine Ridge Reservation from 1972 to 1976, there were significant arguments. Around 60 AIM members and sympathizers were murdered. Wilson had built up the violent Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOONs). Despite substantial allegations of corruption and extortion, several dismissal proceedings failed. Protests against it led to the occupation of Wounded Knee. The American Indian Movement and the protest movement, whose members came less from the reservations than from the big cities, were repeatedly called for help by the beleaguered traditionalists in Pine Ridge.

Course of action

In June 1975, Peltier went into hiding on a warrant for suspicion of murder of a police officer. He was later acquitted of this suspicion. On June 26, 1975, FBI agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams were looking for Pine Ridge resident Jimmy Eagle, who was suspected of robbing two farm workers.

Under the pretext of solving the theft of cowboy boots, the FBI broke into the Jumping Bull grounds. Williams and Coler drove in two different civilian vehicles and chased a red pickup truck that resembled the Eagles' vehicle and drove to the Jumping Bull Ranch. In the vicinity of the ranch, the officers came under heavy fire from various directions, including automatic weapons. According to the AIM, the officers drove unauthorized into the farm premises, which is why the approximately 20 activists on the farm acted in self-defense. FBI Special Agent Gary Adams came to the scene and was also shot at.

The FBI, Native American security forces from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and local police spent considerable time in the vicinity of US Route 18 until additional reinforcements arrived. At around 2:30 p.m., the BIA forces shot an AIM activist (Joe Stuntz). At 4:31 pm, the bodies of Williams and Coler were found on one of their vehicles. Both were fatally hit by gunfire. In total, the officers' vehicles bore 125 bullets, most from a .223 Remington (5.56 mm) rifle.

At 6:00 p.m., the farm was stormed after massive tear gas use. Joe Stuntz's body was found wearing Coler's jacket. The other people in the house managed to escape; the search for them lasted over eight months.

After the fact

In September 1975, a car exploded near Wichita , Kansas. The vehicle had been loaded with firearms and explosives, the latter so close to the rusted exhaust system that it exploded. In the car sat Robert Robideau, Peltiers' cousin, and Norman Charles and Michael Anderson, Peltiers acquaintances. A charred and bent AR-15 assault rifle and its breech were later identified in a controversial circumstantial evidence as a weapon of the shooting on Pine Ridge and assigned to Peltier. Coler's revolver was also found in the vehicle.

Expulsion from Canada

Peltier fled to Canada and was arrested there. In the spring of 1976 Peltier was extradited, the extradition request was based largely on the testimony of Myrtle Poor Bear , a Native American from Pine Ridge. The woman had testified to have been Peltier's girlfriend at the time of the crime and named him as a murderer. It was later revealed that she was not on the reservation at the time of the crime. According to others, Bear was not acquainted with Peltier; Myrtle Poor Bear was put under massive pressure by the FBI.

Trial and Imprisonment

"Free Leonard Peltier" at a demonstration in Berlin

In the controversial trial that followed, he was found guilty in 1977 and sentenced to twice life imprisonment for murder.

In addition to human rights organizations and institutions such as the OHCHR , the Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights , the European , Belgian and Italian parliaments, personalities such as Nelson Mandela , Rigoberta Menchú , the Dalai Lama , Desmond Tutu and Jesse Jackson are demanding his release. At a hearing on the case on February 11, 1986, federal appeals judge Gerald Heaney said, “Once the pros and cons have been discussed, a few important facts remain. A central bullet case as evidence came from the Wichita AR-15 (Peltier's weapon). “Peltier also admitted to having fired at the officers, but not to having shot the seriously injured at close range.

Political Consequences and Controversies

In 2004, Peltier was nominated together with Janice Jordan in the state of California by the Peace and Freedom Party as a candidate for the US presidential election, which is not prohibited in the US for prison inmates. The Peace and Freedom Party received 27,607 votes with Peltier, which was 0.02% across the United States.

In 2007, Peltier was the subject of the American presidential election campaign. Billionaire David Geffen , a supporter of Peltier, stopped supporting Hillary Clinton's campaign and turned to Barack Obama . In the Clinton camp, this move was taken with great reluctance, and according to Geffen it changed because Bill Clinton left out Peltier in the traditional pardons at the end of the presidency.

The Indian activist and former professor Ward Churchill suspected a secret FBI action against Peltier. In the case of Peltier's supporters, as in the case of Peltier himself, there are two basic versions of the crime as well as the main motives for demanding his release. On the one hand, it is argued that Peltier did not commit the murders and that he himself did not know anything about them (as he himself portrayed in a CNN interview in 1999) or that he had knowledge of the truth which he would never reveal, according to Peter Matthiessens In the Spirit of Crazy Horse , and he shot the two FBI men but didn't execute them. On the other hand, it is argued that the killings, regardless of who committed them, took place in a civil war-like environment and that the same applies to Peltier as to the other two defendants. The primary violence emanated from systematic terror by FBI agents and corrupt security forces of the tribal government, which fueled and exacerbated internal Indian conflicts and thus triggered the Pine Ridge Uprising of 1973.

Malcolm McLaren († 2010), manager of the Sex Pistols , is said to have demanded with his last words: "Free Leonard Peltier!"

Popular culture

Both the thriller Halbblut (1992) and the documentary Incident at Oglala (1992) created by Michael Apted with the assistance of Robert Redford are based on the Peltier case and the events in Pine Ridge. There are a number of songs that thematize Peltier's life, such as Freedom from Rage Against the Machine , Undestroyed from Free Salamander Exhibit, Sacrifice from Robbie Robertson, Crazy Life from Toad the Wet Sprocket, and Buffy Sainte-Marie's song Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee , Fight With Tools of the Flobots and Leonard Peltier by Steven Van Zandt .

literature

• Peter Matthiessen : In the spirit of Crazy Horse. The Viking Press, New York 1980.
• Leonard Peltier, Ramsey Clark , Harvey Arden : My life is my sun dance. Prison records . 1st edition. Two thousand and one; Book 2000, Frankfurt am Main / Affoltern a. A. 1999, ISBN 3-86150-324-7 (English: Prison writings. My life is my sun dance . New York 1999. Translated by Katrin Ehmke).
• Harvey Arden: Have you thought about Leonard Peltier lately? HYT Pub., Houston, TX 2004, ISBN 0-9754437-0-4 .
• Martin Ludwig Hofmann: Indian War. The case of the Indian civil rights activist Leonard Peltier. Atlantik Verlag, Bremen 2005, ISBN 3-926529-69-5 .
• Jim Messerschmidt: The Trial of Leonard Peltier. South End Press, Boston 1983.
• Joseph H. Trimbach: American Indian Mafia: An FBI Agent's True Story about Wounded Knee, Leonard Peltier, and the American Indian Movement (Aim). Outskirts Press, 2007, ISBN 0-9795855-0-3 .
• Michael Koch, Michael Schiffmann: A life for freedom. Leonard Peltier and the Indian Resistance. TraumFänger Verlag, Tuntenhausen 2016, ISBN 978-3-941485-49-5 .

Web links

Commons : Leonard Peltier  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Leonard Peltier in the catalog of the German National Library
• Official Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee (LP-DOC)
• After 38 Years, Time to Release Indigenous Leader Leonard Peltier. Amnesty International USA, February 10, 2014, accessed March 22, 2017 . 
• Native American activist Leonard Peltier Denied Clemency. Amnesty International USA, January 18, 2017, accessed March 22, 2017 . 

Individual evidence

1. ^ Information and actions of the German Amnesty Section on Leonard Peltier . Amnesty International. Retrieved May 15, 2017.
2. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: American Indian activist denied parole. ) August 21, 2009.
3. ↑ bop.gov
4. ↑ Caroline M. Woidat: The Truth Is on the Reservation: American Indians and Conspiracy Culture. In: The Journal of American Culture. 29 (4), 2006. pp. 454-467.
5. ↑ Leonard Peltier: Hero, Villain, Best Seller In: Chicago Tribune April 8, 1993.
6. ^ European Parliament: Resolution on the case of Leonard Peltier. February 11, 1999. ( Memento dated December 27, 2006 on WebCite )
7. ↑ Lode Vanoost (29 June 2000): Voorstel van concerned Leonard Peltier resolutie. Belgian Kamer van Volksvertegenwoordigers ( Memento from December 27, 2006 on WebCite )
8. ^ ^{A b} Ronald Kessler: The Bureau St. Martin's Press, 2003, p. 356.
9. ^ Peltier: Prison Writings. St. Martin's Press, New York 1999, p. 125
10. ^ Ward Churchill, Jim Vander Wall: Agents of Repression. The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement. South End Press, Cambridge, MA / USA 1988 a. 2002.
11. ↑ Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee: ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: history of the crime in the version of Peltier's Defense Committee )
12. ↑ Free Leonard Peltier! Malcolm McLaren uses last words to call for release of American Indian killer. In: Daily Mail Online, April 10, 2010.
13. ↑ Free Salamander Exhibit , accessed September 11, 2018.