seattle indymedia center

Feb 4th: 13th Annual NW Leonard Peltier March in Tacoma

author: Tacoma LPSG
Jan 28, 2006 10:06

Next Sat. Feb. 4th, will be the 13th Annual NW Regional International Day in Solidarity With Leonard Peltier March and Rally. The event is in Tacoma. Bus and car pools are available.

12:00 NOON: MARCH FOR JUSTICE
Portland Ave. Park (on Portland Ave. between E. 35th and E. Fairbanks Ave. Take Portland Ave. exit off I-5 and head east)

1:00 PM: RALLY FOR JUSTICE
U.S. Federal Court House, 1717 Pacific Ave.

AFTER RALLY POTLUCK MEAL AND GET TOGETHER—YOUTH EMERGING

As individual fingers we can easily be broken, but all together we make a mighty fist.
--Sitting Bull—


“I have no doubt whatsoever that the real motivation behind both Wounded Knee II and the Oglala firefight, and much of the turmoil throughout Indian Country since the early 1970s, was—and is—the mining companies’ desire to muffle AIM and all traditional Indian people, who sought—and still seek—to protect the land, water, and air from their thefts and depredations. In this sad and tragic age we live in, to come to the defense of Mother Earth is to be branded a criminal.”
-- Leonard Peltier, Prison Writings --

I’M STILL HERE. I am all at once saddened, exhilarated, angry, proud, defiant, and puzzled by that fact. Here in prison, after 28 years (30 years now) of unjust incarceration, I am a living example of the injustice, racism, fear, and inequity that still exists in some parts of the United States of America. This is particularly true when it comes to America’s views and actions towards Indian people. Residing in the best hopes of all of us is the dream that America has moved away from the days of hostility towards the Indigenous people of this land. And yet, we are shown with daily regularity, a reality that defies this dream. A reality that American Indians are incarcerated at a disproportionately high rate. A reality that American Indians are denied decent health care, housing, and education. A reality so dire, that the United States Civil Rights Commission has had to address it, calling it “A Quiet Crisis.”
Leonard Peltier

13th ANNUAL NORTHWEST REGIONAL
INTERNATIONAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH LEONARD PELTIER
MARCH AND RALLY FOR JUSTICE
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2006, TACOMA

12:00 NOON: MARCH FOR JUSTICE
Portland Ave. Park (on Portland Ave. between E. 35th and E. Fairbanks Ave. Take Portland Ave. exit off I-5 and head east)

1:00 PM: RALLY FOR JUSTICE
U.S. Federal Court House, 1717 Pacific Ave.

AFTER RALLY POTLUCK MEAL AND GET TOGETHER—YOUTH EMERGING
Around 4:00 pm. At the First United Methodist Church, 423 Martin Luther King Jr Way. From the rally go south up the hill to Martin Luther King Jr Way and turn right. The church is right next to a large hospital. The meal and gathering is hosted in support of Leonard by the local Tacoma group People for Peace, Justice and Healing. We will be providing a Spaghetti dinner as previously. We welcome salad, desserts and traditional foods, or other foods that people would like to contribute to the dinner. Please contact Sol Riou at  sparkingwaves@hotmail.com or 253-377-6078. if you plan to bring food for the meal and for other information on how you can help. SALMON MUST BE COOKED. We will have three places that you may bring the food, our preference is that you bring it to the beginning of the March, by 11:30 am if possible. However, we will have a pickup location at the Courthouse, by 12:30 pm if possible, with the exact corner to be announced later. We will accept donations at the Church also.
PROGRAM FOR RALLY AND AFTER RALLY MEAL

Co-MC’s:
Harold Belmont: Coastal Native Elder, Native People’s Alliance With Friends and Allies
Pete Sanchez; Ktunaxa (Kutenai)

Spiritual Opening and Closing Words:
Dorothy Ackerman; Lakota Elder

NW AIM Drum

Performances by:
The Aztec Dancers
United Nations: Native Rap Activists

Speakers:

Opening:
Shelly Vendiola: Indigenous Women’s Network.

Carter Camp; Wounded Knee II Vet, Oklahoma AIM
Matilaja: Yu’Pik/Yakama
Wolverine: Shuswap Elder
Arthur J. Miller, Tacoma Leonard Peltier Support Group
Kerwin Hemlock: Longtime Native Activist
Vic Camp: Owe Aku, Pine Ridge
Juan Jose Bocanegra: Every Worker’s Movement
Donna Denina: Coordinator for the Gabriela Network Seattle Chapter
Zoltan Grossman: Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace, Faculty Evergreen's Native American Studies
Fr. Bill Bichsel: Catholic Worker, JWJ, IWW, SOAW
Josh Reisberg: Spoken Word Artist
Gifted Grizzly

AFTER RALLY MEAL: YOUTH EMERGING

Steve Hapy: MC, Tacoma Leonard Peltier Support Group
Poj Camp; Pine Ridge
B.J. Gleason: Turtle Mountain Anishinabe
Billie Pierre: Vancouver Native Youth Movement
Performance by:
United Nations: Native Rap Activists
Closing words:
Dorothy Ackerman; Lakota Elder.

CARVANS FOR JUSTICE (Carpools)

The Caravans for Justice are open to all people who want rides or can provide rides or who wish to join the caravans. Bring “Free Leonard Peltier” signs for car windows if possible.

BELLINGHAM: Will be meeting at Fairhaven College parking lot at 9am, and leaving at 9:30am. Directions: When approaching Bellingham from the north or south on Interstate 5, take Exit #252, marked Samish Way and W.W.U. Turn west onto Samish Way and follow the signs to Bill McDonald Parkway. At South College Drive, take a right. Fairhaven College and its gravel parking lot will be on the right.

SEATTLE: Meet at the Red Apple parking lot at 23rd and Jackson. Will be leaving at 10:00 am.

OLYMPIA: There will be a carpool leaving from the parking lot at Harrison and Division at 10:30.

EUGENE: Drivers and people needing rides meet at the Grower's Market parking lot (454 Willamette, by the Amtrak station) at 7:30 am. (The Eugene Caravan will be meeting up with the Portland Caravan).

PORTLAND: Drivers and people needing rides, meet in the main parking lot (entrance just north of Killingworth from Albina, parking lot entrance on the right, behind the student services building) at PCC Cascade Campus at 9:30 am.

BUS INFORMATION: FROM SEATTLE: Bus #594 at 2nd and University, downtown Seattle, at 10:41 am. Get off at the Tacoma Dome Station. Either walk north to Portland Ave take a right and walk up to Portland Ave Park which is on the left. Or take the Portland Ave Bus. To return to Seattle: At 10th and Commerce, a few blocks down the hill from the After rally meal, there is a #594 bus leaving at every 15 minutes or 45 minutes after each hour until 9:45 pm. For more information go to piercetransit.org.

PARKING: If you can come early, 11:30 am, we organize cars to be moved up by the rally site. Or a good place to park is at the Tacoma Dome Station and either walk or take the Portland Ave bus to Portland Ave Park and in returning take the trolley or any bus going back to the Tacoma Dome Station. Back to Portland Ave Park you can take the Portland Ave bus across the street from the rally, at 3:43 pm.

HELP NEEDED

E-MAIL AND WEB SITES:

We need people to forward information on the event to their families, friends, fellow activists, e-mail lists and post information on web sites. All you need to do is take what is sent out, like this message, and pass it on.

DONATIONS

We received no grants or any other money than what we get from grassroots supporters. Donations are needed each year to pay for the needs of the event. No one gets paid for their work so every cent goes directly into such needs as printing fliers and posters and our mailings. We are also trying to raise money for vans of speakers and supporters coming from Pine Ridge. Some times supporters are able to organize benefits for the event. If you are willing to make a donation please send it to: Tacoma Leonard Peltier Support Group, P.O. Box 5464, Tacoma, WA 98415-0464, (please make checks out to the Tacoma Leonard Peltier Support Group).

VIDEO:

We need people to video tape the march, rally and the program at the after rally meal. Please if you can do this contact us ( bayou@blarg.net) and send us a copy of the video tape at our address. The video tapes are used by supporters across the country and they help us with our legal case. Thank you.

Tacoma Leonard Peltier Support Group
P.O. BOX 5464
TACOMA, WA 98415-0464
 Tacoma-lpsg@ojibwe.us or  bayou@blarg.net

For up-dates and notices on helping Leonard Peltier please sign up on the NW Peltier Support e-mail list by sending an e-mail to:  nwpeltiersupport-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

The Case Of Leonard Peltier

After a conflict between the Lakota people and the U.S. government and corporate interests a peace treaty was signed and the great Lakota reservation was created in the late 19th century. That peace treaty meant nothing to U.S. interests, for its terms were violated from almost the moment it was signed. Those interests continued to steal more Lakota land wherever they found gold and other minerals that they wanted. At the same time, they sought to destroy the Lakota way of life. U.S. interests outlawed Lakota religion and massacred the Lakota at Wounded Knee in an act of religious suppression. U.S. interests kidnapped Lakota children and placed them in internment, in schools where they were held for years away from their families, while their language and traditions were being beaten out of them. U.S. interests carried out a secret forced program of sterilization of Lakota women. Then, in the 1920s, acting upon the interests of oil and mineral companies, the U.S. forced a 'government' entity upon the Lakota people, to be controlled by those corporate and U.S. interests.

In the late 1960s uranium was found in the northwest section of the Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation. The U.S. interests wanted that uranium for their weapons of mass destruction and nuclear power plants.

The U.S. interests knew that the Lakota people would not give up any more of their land willingly: they had already refused to take payment for the Black Hills, stolen from them for its gold. U.S. interests then set out to suppress all possible resistance to further theft. That led the resisters’ to request the help of the American Indian Movement (AIM). Upon a request by Lakota Elders, a stand was taken at Wounded Knee, on the Pine Ridge reservation of the Lakota people.

In the two and a half years after what became known as Wounded Knee II there was a 'Reign of Terror' the resisters on Pine Ridge was forced to suffer. Whole villages were shot up, people were run off the road, many Native people were wounded and over 67 of them were murdered. The Lakota people again asked AIM for help and an AIM encampment was set up. Most of the people in that encampment were from Northwest AIM. And Leonard Peltier was one of them.

The AIM people were under considerable oppression and lived there daily in danger from the death squad (they called themselves the Goon Squad). One day two cars came speeding onto the land of their encampment, in the same manner that earlier drive-by shootings by the death squad had taken place on Pine Ridge. The AIM members there that day defended themselves from what they saw as another murderous attack. In the firefight that took place two FBI agents and one AIM member died.

Norman Zigrossi, head of the local FBI office at the time, defended the illegal actions, saying, “Indians are a conquered nation and the FBI is merely acting as a colonial police force.” He went on, “When you’re conquered, the people you’re conquered by dictate your future.”

It is clear that the attack upon the AIM encampment was planned to start a conflict to draw away resistance to the illegal signing away of Lakota land that had taken place in Washington, D.C. at that time. Before the firefight, hundreds of U.S. Government agents were brought on to Pine Ridge reservation, the roads leading to the AIM encampment were blocked before the firefight and local hospitals were given notice to expect casualties.

In the first trial of two AIM members, who had been in the firefight at their encampment, the jury came back with a verdict of not guilty by reason of self-defense.

The U.S. interests then put all their efforts into convicting Leonard Peltier. They fabricated evidence, intimidated witnesses and illegally changed judges, settling on one who would not allow Leonard’s lawyers to present his case of self-defense.

Through appeals, Leonard’s lawyers have been able to disprove the case against him to the point that the U.S. Government prosecutors have stated that they don’t know what role Leonard played in the firefight -- he was just there that day and thus by default aided and abetted in the deaths of the agents. It can be reasoned that since the first two AIM members were found not guilty by reason of self-defense, then Leonard has been in prison all these years for aiding and abetting an act of self-defense!

Much of our focus should be on FBI political repression, COINTELPRO, and how they are connected to Leonard’s case, for the FBI has been and continues to be used as the U.S. Government’s and corporate interests’ Political Police Force.

As you read this, Leonard’s lawyers struggle to get all the documents that the FBI has withheld in his case. The FBI claims it needs to withhold those documents to protect national security. We need to ask, “Whose national security needs to be protected from the truth?” Given that documents already received by the defense team have exposed the U.S. Government’s frame-up of Leonard to the point that the government’s lawyers have had to admit that there is no evidence connecting him directly to the deaths of the FBI agents, and have shown that the FBI took illegal, aggressive actions to suppress the right of Native people to organize to air their grievances, there is no doubt that documents still withheld will show further evidence of FBI illegal actions.

Even the courts have recognized the repressive nature of the government actions against AIM and Leonard. Judge Heaney stated, “The United States Government overreacted at Wounded Knee. Instead of carefully considering the legitimate grievances of the Native Americans, the response was essentially a military one, which culminated in the deadly firefight on June 26, 1975.”

And in 2003 the Tenth Circuit Court found that, “Much of the government’s behavior at the Pine Ridge Reservation and in its prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed.”

Even with this acknowledgment Leonard has been in prison for over 28 years. Leonard is not in prison based upon the laws of this land, for the courts have stated over and over again that the U.S. government has violated those laws in Leonard’s case. Leonard Peltier is in prison for one reason and one reason alone, and that is because it is in the interests of the few to keep him locked up: because he represents the essence of this land, the wrong upon which the United States was established, a simple truth which has to be recognized before the country can ever be sound. Leonard suffers under the same interests that hung Chief Leschi, the same interests that massacred the Lakota at Wounded Knee, the same interests that are behind many of the wars around the world, the same interest behind the WTO, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the same interests that strips our schools of basic funds, that strip you of your unemployment benefits and overtime pay, and the same interests that we all find ourselves struggling against in our common pursuit of peace and well-being. Justice for Leonard and the end to political repression by the FBI will only come from the organized spirit of solidarity of all people struggling in their true interests.

Illegal actions by the FBI should be the concern of all American people who believe in social justice, because Leonard was not and will not be the only victim of political repression. Among those that were targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO were: Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights activists and organizations including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Jesse Jackson (note that the FBI also carried out intimidation of Jackson supporters in the south when he ran for U.S. president), Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW), the National Lawyer’s Guild, antinuclear weapons campaigns (SANE-Freeze), the National Council of Churches, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), antiwar organizations, the alternative press, student organizations including the National Students Association (TNSA) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), environmental, anti-racism and feminist organizations, GI organizations, socialist and communist parties, the Industrial
Workers of the World, organizations of self-determination for people of color such as the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, the Brown Berets, and Native organizations such as the American Indian Movement (AIM).

The political repression carried out by the FBI has never ended. It was seen this year with the FBI’s intimidation of antiwar protesters who planned to protest at the national conventions of the two major political parties. Though the FBI claimed it needed more power, money and agents to deal with the threat of terrorism after 9-11, the agency still had the time, money, and forces to harass people who questioned
the war in Iraq.

The same drive to acquire enormous profits that keep this country in Iraq over the opposition of its own people is also what led to the U.S. Government’s suppression of traditional indigenous people, AIM and in its frame-up of Leonard Peltier.

And as to making connections, the infliction of war on Iraq was justified by using false documents, lies about weapons of mass destruction and sham connections to terrorists. That is the same tactic the U.S. Government used in its suppression of AIM and in its frame-up of Leonard Peltier. The government used the war in Iraq in the interest of bringing global U.S. company’s huge profits, and on the Pine Ridge reservation that same government carried out its repression in the interest of U.S. energy corporations.

The Oglala People are unconquered -- We will not, and Leonard Peltier will not give up the fight for justice.

In today’s world it is more important than ever to stand up to political persecution. Over the past three years the City of Tacoma has tried to stop our march and has tried to intimidate us with a massive show of police force. It was the support of many good people and a legal team that upheld our right to march in Tacoma.

Our annual focus for 13 years has been to hold a peaceful march in solidarity with Leonard Peltier's struggle. We will not stop marching, we will not be intimidated and we maintain the right to come out in public in support of Leonard Peltier without persecution.

We call on you as sisters and brothers to join us at our Annual Regional Tacoma March and Rally in Solidarity with Leonard Peltier, as we send the message: We will not give up! We will not surrender! We will continue to stand for justice for Leonard Peltier and for justice for all that he represents for as long as it takes to set him free! Our strength is building and time is on our side, the sweep of justice is moving throughout the world and we are a part of that great wave of truth and justice. Please join with us on Feb.4, 2006 for a tremendous show of solidarity, a march and rally in Unified Solidarity for Justice for Leonard Peltier. All of us working together will free Leonard Peltier.

The Tacoma Leonard Peltier Support needs your help. We need donations to help pay for the publicity for the march and rally. Please send donations to the address below (make checks out to the Tacoma Leonard Peltier Support Group.

In The Spirit of Crazy Horse,
Steve Hapy, Jr.
Arthur J. Miller
Tacoma Leonard Peltier Support Group
P.O. BOX 5464
TACOMA, WA 98415-0464
 Tacoma-lpsg@ojibwe.us or  bayou@blarg.net

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