(Fwd) Clinton può concedere la clemenza a Leonard Peltier

["Olivier Turquet" <turquet@dada.it>]

------- Forwarded message follows -------
From:           	"Andrea Benetton" <andbene@tin.it>
To:             	<turquet@dada.it>
Subject:        	Clinton può concedere la clemenza a Leonard Peltier
Date sent:      	Thu, 16 Nov 2000 01:50:28 +0100

AGIAMO ORA! LIBERIAMO LEONARD PELTIER!
http://www.freepeltier.org

Salve
   Come potrai leggere nell'articolo allegato sotto, Clinton potrebbe
decidere presto se concedere la clemenza a Leonard Peltier. Coloro che 
hanno
lavorato contro questo gesto si sono dati da fare parecchio nelle ultime
settimane. L' FBI ha comprato spazi sui giornali, fatto circolare petizioni e il
Senatore Repubblicano Hyde ha tentato di far tenere una sessione illegale di 
una
commissione del senato nella quale si sarebbe sentita la voce solo dell' FBI.
Dal nostro lato di questa battaglia, noi abbiamo solo le persone dalla nostra.
Questa è chiaramente una lotta tra le forze della repressione e le forze che
stanno dalla parte della giustizia sociale. Abbiamo bisogno anche del tuo 
aiuto
! Abbiamo bisogno che tu faccia sentire la tua voce in supporto della giustizia
e della clemenza per Leonard peltier. Ora !

  Per favore aiutaci inviando messaggi in supporto della clemenza per
Leonard Peltier a :

         President Bill Clinton
         The White House
         1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
         Washington, D.C. 20500
          Fax: (202) 456-2461
          e-mail: president@whitehouse.gov
          White  House Comments  Line: (202) 456-1111

   Se puoi per favore contatta sindacati, chiese, associazioni, gruppi per i
diritti umani e altri per fargli approvare ordini del giorno e risoluzioni in
favore della clemenza per Leonard Peltier. Invia in copia conoscenza a :

         NWLPSN,
         P.O. Box 5464, Tacoma,
         WA 98415-0464.

Per maggiori informazioni sul caso di Leonard puoi visitare il sito
http://www.freepeltier.org

                    Nello spirito di Cavallo Pazzo
                    Robert Free  Susan Morales  Arthur J.Miller
                    Co-Coordinatori
                    NORTHWEST LEONARD PELTIER SUPPORT NETWORK
                    (rete di supporto a leonard peltier del nordovest)

--------------------------
Subject: Clinton May Grant Clemency to Peltier


CLEMENCY AT HAND?
Clinton may aid AIM member serving 2 life terms

By PETER WORTHINGTON, TORONTO SUN

On election day, Nov. 7, U.S. President Bill Clinton pledged to personally
review the case of Leonard Peltier for possible executive clemency "in the
last 10 weeks of office after the election."

He made the promise to Amy Goodman on the radio show, Democracy Now, which
is syndicated to stations across America.

It is the most encouraging signal yet that Peltier might get executive
clemency after being found guilty in the deaths of two FBI agents in 1975,
during a violent war between the US and AIM on South Dakota's Pine Ridge
Reserve, near  Wounded Knee. While urging support for Al Gore, Clinton told
Goodman he didn't have a position on clemency for Peltier "that I can announce
yet,"  but did say he'll review the case "and will try to do what I think the
right thing to do is."

IMPORTANT

He said the case was important to a lot of people "and I owe it to them to
give it an honest look-see." He said he'd also review what those who oppose
clemency have to say, and "decide one way or the other" before the inauguration.

Interpret that as you will, but the fact that Clinton is commenting at all
gives optimism to Peltier supporters -- and makes the FBI nervous. Prior to the
election there was growing euphoria among Leonard Peltier  Defence Committees
(LPDC) around the world that "something big, something  good" is likely to
happen in the hiatus between the election of a new  president and his
inauguration in January.

A couple of weeks before the U.S. vote, there was one significant
development: Myrtle Poor Bear, the Sioux Indian woman whose sworn affidavits got
 Peltier extradited from Canada to stand trial in the U.S., came to Toronto  and
not only recanted her affidavits before a Canadian judge, but swore that  the
FBI held her incommunicado for nine months after the deaths of the FBI  agents.

THREATS

She testified agents threatened and intimidated her into signing (but not
reading) three different and often contradictory affidavits that she was
Peltier's girlfriend and that she'd witnessed him kill agents Ron Williams
and Jack Coler on June 25, 1975 at Wounded Knee.

It turns out she'd never been to that area in her life, was at home 75 km
away washing clothes at the time (her sister Elaine's sworn testimony) and
that she wasn't Peltier's girlfriend and had never laid eyes on him in her
life. She added the FBI would in a subsequent case have her claim she was
another AIM members girlfriend to get him convicted in another murder case.

She swore the FBI agents wrote the affidavits, wouldn't let her read them,
and said she'd be killed unless she signed.

She had recanted the affidavits during Peltier's trial, but the judge
wouldn't let the jury hear her evidence. In fact, no jury has ever heard her
testimony. She's never spoken for the record until now.

At age 22, Poor Bear had mental and drinking problems, and was used by the
FBI only to get Peltier extradited from Canada. Then she was dumped. Earlier
this year, Justice Minister Anne McClellan insisted the extradition, based on
the perjured affidavit, was fair and proper -- contrary to a review by former
Solicitor-General Warren Allmand, who found that the system was abused and
Peltier railroaded.

Back in the 1970s I thought Peltier guilty, and wrote editorials to this
effect. I've since looked into his case and believe he was framed. I've
visited the Ojibwa Indian three times in the federal prison at Leavenworth,
Kan., now in his 25th year of two consecutive life sentences . During the US-AIM
war at Pine Ridge, there were some 600 shootings, 18 law enforcement officers
killed and 260 unsolved shooting deaths of Indians over a five-year period in
the wake of the 1973 71-day siege at Wounded Knee, SD

To many, Peltier is a fall guy -- a North American Nelson Mandela, serene
and dignified. Even the FBI has since admitted they don't know who actually
killed the two agents.

From the start, Peltier's case was grotesquely mishandled. Just about every
deceit a justice system can perpetrate has been used against him. Various judges
have determined that justice (not to mention law) was abused.

ACQUITTED

Two Indians initially charged with the murder of the FBI agents were
acquitted on grounds of self-defence.

Poor Bear and her sister Elaine testified under oath before former Quebec
Court of Appeal Judge Fred Kaufman during the extradition hearings. She was
examined by Michael Code, former assistant deputy attorney-general of Ontario,
and former federal prosecutor Scott Stanton. The videotape of her testimony (and
possibly Judge Kaufman's assessment) will be forwarded to President Clinton as
part of an amnesty submission, as well as to the Canadian government.

The unusual hearing was coordinated by Dianne Martin, a professor at the
Osgoode Hall law school and a member of the LPDC, which is headed in Toronto by
Frank and Anne Dreaver.

In sometimes halting and emotional testimony, Poor Bear told how FBI agents Dave
Price and Bill Wood kept her isolated for close to nine months, taking her to
the scene of the shootings, coaching her and insisting witnesses saw her at the
murder scene.

Myrtle was told she'd be killed by AIM unless they protected her, and that
if she didn't cooperate she might be charged with conspiracy and get 15
years if she didn't sign the affidavits.

Myrtle signed a series of three affidavits compiled by the FBI, the first
saying she wasn't at the scene but that Leonard told her, the others saying she
witnessed the murders. All were false. No action was ever taken against the
agents.

Before Peltier's trial was over, Myrtle recanted her perjury, but no jury
ever heard it.

Myrtle Poor Bear says she's testifying for clemency to atone for the harm
she did to Peltier, and hopes he can forgive her: "I was frightened, the FBI
scared me, for years I've wanted for years to undo damage I did. I was weak, but
I felt I had no choice. I feared for my life."

Peltier has repeatedly told me he holds no animosity towards Poor Bear.
"She's an unfortunate woman caught in a trap by those determined to find
someone guilty -- even someone they know in their hearts didn't do it."

Myrtle testified that Agent Price wrote the stuff she had to memorize in a
notebook. She was coached until she got it right.

DEMONIZED

AIM has long been demonized by the FBI as an anti-american terrorist group
instead of an Indian rights group -- complicated by the fact that Moscow and
Cuba used AIM for propaganda purposes.  And further complicated by AIM's
solidarity with international "terrorist" groups particularly the Palestine
Liberation Organization, African National Congress and Puerto Rican Liberation
Army.

As an oddity, the FBI had Myrtle sign another affidavit that she was the
girl friend of one Dick Marshall, and that he'd confessed to her that he
shot an Oglala Sioux Tribal Ranger, Martin Montileaux, in 1975. Myrtle's
false affidavit was almost a carbon copy of the one she signed about
Peltier, and helped get Marshall convicted.

During her testimony in Toronto, she insisted she'd never taken a lie
detector test that the FBI claimed she'd passed. Over the years, the Poor
Bear affidavits remain infamous examples of FBI deceit and fabrication --
acts more inconceivable 25 years ago than today, when many examples have
American justice being corrupted have emerged.

A succession of U.S. judges have blasted the FBI's abuses against AIM and
others, causing the FBI and its supporters to close ranks, attack critics
and oppose clemency -- even though Peltier has been a model prisoner.

At age 60, Peltier has had a stroke, is partially blind and is a symbol for
major Indian organizations in Canada and the U.S.; including the splintered but
still viable AIM, who have joined forces to urge clemency.

If clemency is finally granted, as some think (hope) is now inevitable, it
won't reflect credit on Canada where a succession of governments have not
only ignored Peltier's case, but have been collaborators and conspirators in
fabrication and framing him.

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