Leonard Peltier Parole Denied

[Comment on behalf of Big Mountain Dineh for Leonard: Ch'i'dii'tah'goh shii'n da'do'lee', Washiindon!! Ni'do'h, Haastin Obama! The right (English) words are hard to find and say about how this 'free' country, the U.S., makes itself free to buy into racism and demoralizing the red nations. Our warrior brother, Leonard Peltier, has been denied freedom again because the red peoples have always spoken the truth about being human on this Earth. They have spoken the truth about our sovereignty --not the sovereignty that corporate America hands out to PUPPET tribal governments and to the APPLE Indians!! Maybe it is our last stand in the 21st Century, but at Big Mountain we will continue to defy corporate America and pray for Leonard's immediate freedom. To All My Relations.]


FROM: http://aimwest.info/ August 22, 2009:

PELTIER ATTORNEY RESPONSE TO PAROLE DENIAL


The Bush Administration holdovers on the U.S. Parole Commission today

adopted the position of the FBI that anyone who may be implicated in the

killings of its agents should never be paroled and should be left to die in

prison. Despite judicial determinations that the unrepentant FBI fabricated

evidence and presented perjured testimony in Leonard Peltier's prosecution;

despite a jury's acquittal on grounds of self-defense of two co-defendants

who were found to have engaged in the same conduct of which Mr. Peltier was

convicted; despite Mr. Peltier's exemplary record during his incarceration

for more than 33 years and his clearly demonstrated eligibility for parole;

despite letters and petitions calling for his release submitted by millions

of people in this country and around the world including one of the judges

who ruled on his earlier appeals; and despite his advanced age and

deteriorating health, the Parole Commission today informed Mr. Peltier that

his "release on parole would depreciate the seriousness of your offenses and

would promote disrespect for the law," and set a reconsideration hearing in

July 2024. This is the extreme action of the same law enforcement community

that brought us the indefinite imprisonment of suspected teenage terrorists,

tortures, and killings in CIA prisons around the world and promoted

widespread disrespect for the democratic concepts of justice upon which this

country supposedly was founded. These are the same institutions that have

never treated indigenous peoples with dignity or respect or accepted any

responsibility for centuries of intolerence and abuse. At his parole hearing

on July 28th, Leonard Peltier expressed regret and accepted responsibility

for his role in the incident in which the two FBI agents and one Native

American activist died as the result of a shootout on the Pine Ridge

Reservation. Mr. Peltier emphasized that the shootout occurred in

circumstances where there literally was a war going on between corrupt

tribal leaders, supported by the government, on the one hand, and Native

American traditionalists and young activists on the other. He again denied

-- as he has always denied -- that he intended the deaths of anyone or that

he fired the fatal shots that killed the two agents, and he reminded the

hearing officer that one of his former co-defendants recently admitted to

having fired the fatal shots, himself. Accordingly, it is not true that

Leonard Peltier participated in "the execution style murders of two FBI

agents," as the Parole Commission asserts, and there never has been credible

evidence of Mr. Peltier's responsibility for the fatal shots as the FBI

continues to allege. Moreover, given the corrupt practices of the FBI,

itself, it is entirely untrue that Leonard Peltier's parole at this juncture

will in any way "depreciate the seriousness" of his conduct and/or "promote

disrespect for the law." We will continue to seek parole and clemency for

Mr. Peltier and to eventually bring this prolonged injustice to a prompt and

fair resolution.

American Indian activist denied parole

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley says imprisoned American Indian activist Leonard Peltier has once again been denied parole.

Wrigley says the next scheduled hearing for Peltier is 2024, when Peltier would be 79 years old.

Peltier is serving two life sentences for the execution-style deaths of FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams during a June 26, 1975, standoff on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

He was convicted in Fargo, N.D., in 1977. He has claimed the FBI framed him, which the agency denies, and unsuccessfully appealed his conviction numerous times.

Peltier had a full parole hearing for the first time in 15 years last month at the Lewisburg, Pa., federal prison where he is being held.

Defense attorney Eric Seitz declined comment on the U.S. Parole Commission decision Friday, saying the Justice Department had not informed him.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press.

The Big Mtn. Struggle Impacts You Daily: Support the Dineh

[Top] Peabody and BTU (white) draglines eating up acres of Mother Earth

[Above] 250 to 300 feet (100 M) deep cut made by the BTU dragline

THE MOST CRUCIAL CAUSE: AN EMPHASIS ON CULTURAL DEFIANCE AT BIG MOUNTAIN ON BLACK MESA TO BE PRIORITIZED

Big Mountain, Black Mesa August 2009 – On the dusty and dry plateau lands of Big Mountain where the monsoon is absent almost as a prophetic gesture, there exist a calmness even though BIA Indian Police and Rangers continue their low-key surveillances of scattered pockets of traditional Dineh families. They are the left-over families from the hundreds of other families who have been (forcibly) relocated in the last 40 years under another harsh U.S. government Indian policy. Also, they are families still left to resist BIA Indian policing and the encroachment of Peabody Energy’s coal mines. This traditional-led resistance is widely known to many but its importance and how it impacts our daily lives are not understood.

Among all the peace-loving, environmentally sensible and green minded societies, there is a broader awareness about the US’s treaty violations through its corporate and military occupation of foreign lands. It seems that folks in ‘the states’ cannot comprehend that the low-scale militarism at Big Mountain, sponsored by the U.S. Justice Department and British TU’s Peabody Energy, does affect all of us more than the Afghanistan or the Iraq occupation. This federal, subversive form of occupation is happening, here, in northern Arizona, and it is happening to the last aboriginal tribal community on Turtle Island (North America).

How does it impact you, us?

This is a repeat: At Big Mountain, the 34 traditional Dineh elders that are still refusing to leave their ancestral lands are actually putting a stop to the Peabody mining expansions and the construction of a half dozen more coal-fired power plants in the western United States.

While the well-financially-fed, special interest groups like the Sierra Club of Grand Canyon and the Black Mesa Water Coalition are attempting to adjust government languages about the environment, the traditional Hopi and Dineh elders of Black Mesa have merely prayed with their corn meals and pollen. They have, for over forty years now, prayed in this way to asked the Deities of the earth and sky to preserve the homelands and that mother earth continue to nurture us despite the butchering of her body. Things are more crucial now. We as the newer generation failed to learn these ways of spiritual communication, and we fail to make the sacred white corn meals or gather the sacred pollen.

The ancient ways of these types of ritual prayers encompassed more than individuality. It encompassed reverence for community, foods, health, prosperity, clan unity, eco-system, and the future generations.

It is crucial also in that we are all part of this atmosphere of environmental and cultural devastation. So, only a few Dineh elders at Big Mountain have kept earth’s atmosphere clean so far, and you can imagine what it would have been like if half of the Black Mesa coal fields was being mined, today, and if more power plants were emitting extra tons of pollutants. Before it becomes an emergency with loss of the human connection to nature and to the spiritual realm, give a prayer of forgiveness and thanks, and start supporting the Big Mountain resistance.

Up-coming Big Mountain support agendas for Fall and Winter 2009 & 2010:

The elders still need help to maintain their cultural lifestyles of sheepherding, processing the vegetable harvests, improvements of area remote roads and most important, wood fuel gathering and hauling. These projects can only be initiated through good and humble spirited volunteering and commitments. Also this requires not only raising awareness but by providing the resources to make all this happen. Currently, the Black Mesa Indigenous Support’s volunteer collective are organizing activities and logistics to make these projects happen for November 09. We hope you will be interested, bring physical support and be inspired by resiliency of these traditional indigenous elders.

Visit http://www.blackmesais.org/ or leave a detail voice message at 928-773-8086.

Thank you for your time.

In the spirit Chief Barboncito,

Kat-the-Bahe