President Joe Biden! Do The Right Thing, Free Leonard Peltier

Richard S. Dunn - December 24, 2021

Recently Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) chair of the Appropriations Committee said in an interview with the Huffington Post that, it is time for the Native American activist Leonard Peltier to be released from federal prison and go home. Leonard Peltier has now been in prison for 44 years and from all informed suggestions, he may very well be the longest imprisoned person in the United States. The US has continually championed itself as the beacon of democracy and judicial fairness, and espoused false claims that the United States has no political prisoners. That statement is furthest from the truth as the east is from the west.

In less than 100 years after the massacre of the Sioux people at Wounded Knee in December 1890; the Pine Ridge Reservation was again the site of government encroachment, injustice, and murder. The American Indian Movement (AIM) and their supporters occupied the site for 71 days in 1975 to protest deplorable socio-economic conditions on the reservation. From credible accounts, civil unrest on the reservation resulted in the deaths of approximately 100 Native people. The shootout that occurred on the reservation on June 26, 1975 resulted in the deaths of 2 FBI agents who were killed in the milieu. A number of Native protesters including Leonard Peltier were arrested and charged. The other defendants were acquitted based on their self-defense Argument. The only person who was not acquitted was Peltier because of his work with the AIM organization and its influence among the Native peoples. In 1977 Leonard Peltier was convicted and sentenced to two life sentences for the killing of the two FBI agents, who from reports no one definitively knows who killed them.

From the outset, the incident at the Reservation and the subsequent arrest, conviction and imprisonment of Peltier was politically motivated, executed and culminated in a trial fraught with prosecutorial misconduct, for which there are few parallels. The American Indian Movement of which Peltier was a member, is a group of Native activists involved in struggle to improve the socio-economic conditions of their people as well as challenging the Government on its Violation of Treaties with the Native peoples. Just like COINTELPRO the government through the FBI carried out constant harassment and intimidation of Native peoples struggling for their Rights as indigenous people and as enshrined in the Constitution of the United States.

The prosecutorial misconduct covered everything from intimidation and coercion of witnesses, withholding evidence, tainted jury pool, lack of evidence to conflicting testimony by FBI agents. By arresting, charging, and imprisoning Peltier, the attempt was to destroy the American Indian Movement and reduce its growing influence among the Native peoples, who from their first encounter with settlers; have been continuously struggling to defend and preserve their land, humanity, and culture. This tactic is not new to the Peltier case; the United States government through its various Law Enforcement agencies have repeatedly carried out a policy of frame-ups,  intimidation, demonization, false arrests, and imprisonment, bombing and assassination of dissidents.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed after being convicted as spies in a case that was filled with inconsistencies and testimony from dubious ‘witnesses;’ Paul Robeson’s passport was revoked; Angela Davis had to go in hiding and eventually escaped the electric chair because of domestic and international protests; the Black Panther Party was surveilled and disrupted and its leadership imprisoned on trumped up and frivolous charges; George Jackson was killed under the pretext that he was attempting to escape from prison; the MOVE compound in Philadelphia was bombed; Fred Hampton was assassinated in his bed; Joanne Chesimard (Assata Shakur) had to escape from prison and go into exile because of being sentenced to life  imprisonment for a crime the State has yet to prove she committed. To this day Mumia Abu Jamal is still in prison charged with the murder of a police officer, a case so riddled with prosecutorial and judicial bias and misconduct, that it is a gross disgrace to the legal profession, and an affront to the judicial system and worst, tramples on the provisions of the Constitution. At the same time, we must not overlook what has happened and is happening to Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange.

Leonard Peltier is now 77 years old and has serious health issues that is best addressed in an outside medical facility, not within the confines of a prison system that is grossly inadequate and answers to the FBI who wants him dead by all intents and purposes. Peltier represents defiance and a willingness not to compromise on principles or sell out the interests of his people; this is counter to the ideology of exploitation and oppression. What rationale is there to keep Peltier in prison after 44 years?

What ever he was accused of has been paid for tenfold over; this is best described as cruel and unusual punishment, tantamount to torture physically and emotionally. It is illegal, immoral, and unjust. Although it was not said aloud, but the government’s intent is for Leonard Peltier to die in prison as revenge for his defense of his people and refusal to capitulate to the enemies of peace, democracy, and social progress.

Over the years several prominent social and political people, human rights activists and organizations, and entertainers, have called for his release citing the injustice and politically motivated basis for his arrest, trial, and conviction. Even James Reynolds a member of the prosecution team responsible for Peltier’s imprisonment have admitted the pressure they were under from the FBI to secure a conviction against Peltier. Reynolds have since expressed regret and have reversed his position on the “guilt” of Leonard Peltier and have written to the President to commute Peltier’s sentence.

President Joe Biden throughout his presidential campaign and since in office have paraded himself as the voice of reason and compassion, who wants to set himself apart from his predecessors as the inclusive and diversified President. In the interest of justice and if the Biden Administration really wants to set a new narrative regarding the Rights of indigenous people; if it wants to set a new course in the dispensation of justice and how its meted out to its citizens; if it really wants to honor the Constitution and if it wants to set moral leadership in the world, there is only one recourse surrounding this issue. President Joe Biden must review and pay attention to the numerous petitions, resolutions, letters and calls for clemency; President Joe Biden must do the right thing. Free Leonard Peltier.

 Richard Dunn can be contacted at makingitplain.net