> The case of Leonard Peltier: notorious frame-up of Native American
> activist returns to public spotlight
>
> By Cory Johnson
> 14 December 2000
>
> Earlier this fall, in a downtown Toronto office, a Native American
> woman recanted her 1976 testimony that served as the basis for
> extraditing American Indian Movement (AIM) activist Leonard Peltier
> from Canada to the United States.
>
> Peltier had been present on June 26, 1975 near Oglala on South
> Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian reservation when a fire-fight erupted
> between Indians and two FBI agents who died in the fighting. The FBI
> launched the largest manhunt in its history to capture the small
> group of Indians involved.
>
> Peltier ultimately escaped to Canada, secure in the thought he was
> out of the vindictive reach of the FBI. It was at that point the US
> government produced affidavits that gave the Canadian government the
> excuse to extradite Peltier. A year later in a Fargo, North Dakota
> courtroom Peltier was subjected to a travesty of justice when he was
> found guilty of murder for the deaths of the two FBI agents. He was
> sentenced to two consecutive life terms and is serving time in
> Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas.
>
> Some 25 years later, Myrtle Poor Bear, choked with emotion,
> declared, "I was forced into this, and I feel very awful. I just
> wish that Leonard Peltier will get out of prison."
>
> Poor Bear, now 48, related how FBI agents came to her shortly after
> the June 26, 1975 shoot-out. On more than one occasion she was taken
> away and sequestered in hotel rooms for days or even weeks. FBI
> agents subjected her to a steady barrage of threats aimed at
> pressuring her into signing affidavits that would implicate Peltier,
> whom she had never known, in the deaths of FBI agents Ray Williams
> and Jack Coler.
>
> In testimony reprinted in the Toronto Globe and Mail, Poor Bear
> stated, "They told me they were going to take my child away from me.
> They told me they were going to get me for conspiracy, and I would
> face 15 years in prison if I didn't co-operate. They said they had
> witnesses who placed me at the scene."
>
> According to Poor Bear, what ultimately led her to capitulate was a
> grisly display engineered by FBI agents. She was shown autopsy
> pictures of Anna Mae Aquash. Aquash, an Indian activist, had been
> found on the reservation with a bullet fired into the back of her
> skull. Supposedly for identification purposes, Aquash's hands were
> sawed off and sent to FBI labs. These pictures were shown to Poor
> Bear as well.
>
> "They showed me certain parts of her body that were decomposed. They
> said that's how I was going to end up if I didn't co-operate with
> them. They said they could kill me and get away with it. I was very
> scared. I got to a point where I believed they would do it."
>
> Myrtle Poor Bear's first affidavit is dated February 19, 1976. In
> it, she claimed to be Peltier's girlfriend but made no claim to
> being at the scene when the FBI agents were killed. Four days later
> a new affidavit was produced. This one was substantially the same,
> except it now claimed that Poor Bear had been present at the scene
> and saw Peltier shoot the agents. A third affidavit, dated March 31,
> 1976, embellished upon the second with greater detail.
>
> The first affidavit was illegally withheld from Peltier's attorneys
> and the court during his extradition trial in Vancouver. When later
> discovered, an argument erupted over whether Canadian authorities
> might have been aware of it before or during the proceedings.
>
> The recent hearing in Toronto is an attempt by the Leonard Peltier
> Defense Committee to get Myrtle Poor Bear's testimony on record. The
> Globe and Mail described the hearing as "unique." It was presided
> over by former Quebec Court of Appeal Judge Fred Kaufman, a
> "commissioner of several high profile inquiries," according to the
> Globe and Mail. Former federal prosecutor Scott Fenton and Michael
> Code, a onetime assistant deputy attorney general from Ontario,
> questioned witnesses.
>
> Twenty-five years later the Peltier extradition is still capable of
> provoking unease among authorities. Globe and Mail reporter Kirk
> Makin wrote in his article, "Organizers asked The Globe and Mail to
> delay coverage of the hearing until the US election campaign was
> over, lest Ms. Poor Bear's testimony spark an inflamed campaign
> debate." In a period when even apparently secure dictators like
> Augusto Pinochet narrowly escape accounting for the rule of blood
> and terror, there is a heightened concern over the implications of
> the exposure of injustice, cruel oppression and state-sanctioned
> terror. And all these are contained in the case of Leonard Peltier.
>
> This is not the first time Myrtle Poor Bear has spoken out about her
> role in Peltier's extradition. She renounced her affidavits as early
> as 1977. In Robert Redford's 1991 film documentary on Peltier,
> Incident at Oglala, Poor Bear again recanted her testimony.
>
> Poor Bear also made public her troubling medical records, something
> the FBI must have been aware of when they used her as a witness. Her
> father said of her, "Since she was a little girl, Myrtle lived in
> her own fantasy world. She always made up stories. She is a good
> girl, generous ... but ever since her fever, the one that almost
> killed her, her mind is like that." The fever, believed to have been
> typhoid, was contracted from drinking contaminated reservation
> water.
>
> Peter Matthiessen, who wrote the classic and devastating exposure of
> the Peltier frame-up In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, quotes a lawyer
> on the subject of Myrtle Poor Bear: "Myrtle is not stupid. She is a
> person of average intelligence, but she is a weak woman, very easily
> confused, and very suggestible, which is just the kind the FBI likes
> to work with: 'You were there, weren't you, Myrtle?' And after a
> while, she actually believes it herself."
>
> Peltier, speaking of Poor Bear, has said, "She is a poor, sick
> woman. I have no bad thoughts for her. She was a pawn to them, and
> they used her like they have used so many Indian people."
>
> The case of Leonard Peltier cannot be understood apart from the past
> history of American Indians. After its victory in the 1861-65 Civil
> War, Northern capitalism turned its attention to completing the
> settlement of the West. This movement clashed violently with the
> Indian tribal societies and led to the US government launching a
> bitter genocidal war against Indians.
>
> The defeat of the Indians and the establishment of reservations did
> not resolve the question. Into the twentieth century, it was
> discovered that these reservations were perched atop rich minerals
> and contained other resources and the Indian lands were further
> reduced, oftentimes through fraud and deceit. To maintain control on
> the reservations the government, through the mechanism of the Bureau
> of Indian Affairs (BIA), kept Indian tribal councils subservient by
> way of monetary and other inducements.
>
> But in the 1960s and 70s, protests against the violation of Indian
> treaties and the government manipulation of tribal councils
> abounded. Indians both on and off reservations suffered from
> joblessness, poverty and lack of health care, contributing to the
> unrest.
>
> In 1968 an organization called the American Indian Movement (AIM)
> was established and it soon mushroomed into the predominant protest
> organization among Native Americans. In 1973 some 200 AIM members
> and traditional Indians occupied the village of Wounded Knee, site
> of the 1890 massacre of 300 Indians by the US 7th Cavalry. Among
> their demands was the request for a Senate investigation into the
> conditions of Native Americans.
>
> The occupation turned into 69-day standoff against BIA police, FBI
> agents and other civilian law enforcement police armed with a
> prodigious amount of weaponry and armored vehicles. At its
> conclusion the US Justice Department unleashed a legal assault on
> AIM members and their supporters. There were over 500 arrests and
> 185 federal indictments.
>
> Nowhere did the oppression of Native Americans surpass conditions
> plaguing the residents of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South
> Dakota. Some 10,000 Lakota Sioux resided there during the 1970s,
> many living in tarpaper shacks without electricity or running water.
> The annual median income was $800, the lowest of all Indian tribes.
>
> In 1972 Dick Wilson was elected chairman of the Oglala Sioux tribal
> council. Using BIA resources, he surrounded himself with relatives
> and an extended group of some 800 to 900 people as a base to
> maintain power. He cracked down violently on Indians who protested
> the cheap land leases granted to outside entities. Using federal
> highway funds, Wilson organized a vigilante force and adopted the
> name GOON (Guardian of the Oglala Nation).
>
> A situation which paralleled US government policy in Central America
> emerged. Wilson operated with impunity, and the GOONs launched death
> squad-style attacks on his opponents. In the years preceding the
> 1975 shoot-out that left the two FBI agents dead, the reservation
> had the highest per capita murder rate in the United States. Instead
> of halting Wilson's siege of terror, BIA police and FBI agents
> entered the reservation to support the attacks on his victims.
>
> Dick Wilson didn't hide his hatred of AIM. AIM founder Russell Means
> had planned to run against Wilson for the position of tribal
> chairman. Apparently, one of the great fears concerning AIM was its
> agitation for tribal sovereignty under US government treaties and
> the threat this posed to Black Hills mining leases. (During the
> Wounded Knee standoff, Northern Cheyenne and Crow Indians had
> canceled mining leases on their reservations.)
>
> At Oglala, the elders-especially the women-appealed to AIM to
> provide their community with protection. Among the group of AIM
> members who came to defend Indians around Oglala was Leonard
> Peltier.
>
> It was under these conditions that a fire-fight erupted when two FBI
> agents came racing in pursuit of two Indians driving a red pickup
> onto the Jumping Bull property where Peltier and his fellow AIM
> members had their camp. AIM members deny initiating hostilities.
> Regardless, the two agents ended up dead. When Wilson's GOONs, BIA
> police and FBI agents along with their SWAT teams arrived on the
> scene, more shots were fired and an Indian, Joe Killsright Stuntz,
> was shot dead. Miraculously, the group of 15 Indians managed to
> elude the dragnet that was forming and escaped with the aid of local
> residents.
>
> In 1976, two of the AIM members involved in the Oglala incident were
> put on trial in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Lawyers representing Bob
> Robideau and Dino Butler were initially afraid that their clients
> would not be able to get a fair trial in a community that was 98
> percent white. But the lawyers were able to introduce witnesses and
> evidence that conveyed the state of terror that existed on Pine
> Ridge.
>
> The predominantly working class jury accepted the defense's argument
> that the two FBI agents were killed in self-defense and found Butler
> and Robideau not guilty. Robert Bolin, who served as jury foreman at
> the trial, appeared in the film documentary Incident at Oglala and
> expressed a combination of contempt and bafflement over the role of
> the federal prosecutors and the FBI in the trial of Butler and
> Robideau.
>
> It was during the Cedar Rapids trial that defense lawyers became
> aware of Myrtle Poor Bear's first affidavit in which she attests she
> was not present on the day of the shooting of the two FBI agents.
> Prosecutors had planned calling her as a witness. The government now
> refused to put Poor Bear on the stand fearing she would be
> discredited or, worse, that their witness tampering might be
> exposed. Defense attorney William Kunstler had the following
> exchange with prosecutors before the judge.
>
> Mr. Kunstler: They don't want to call her because they know she is a
> fake, but they have put us in the position of having worked all
> weekend on this witness and I think they should be required to call
> this witness to the stand. This is part of the offensive
> fabrication.
>
> Mr. Sikma: She is not a fake...
>
> Mr. Kunstler: Put her on the stand and we will show you. She is an
> FBI fake. Just as they did in the Means-Banks trial. That is why
> they are reneging about calling her.
>
> Mr. Hultman: You have seen the record and what the record shows.
>
> Mr. Kunstler: They know it is a fake, too. Part of our defense is
> fabrication by the FBI. That is why this witness becomes so crucial.
> That is why they don't want to call her.
>
> (quoted in Matthiessen's In the Spirit of Crazy Horse)
>
> Peltier was to have been placed on trial with Robideau and Butler.
> But the delays involving extradition caused the court to press ahead
> without him. Due to the dismissal of the case against another AIM
> member involved in the shoot-out, and the fact that some members had
> agreed to turn state's evidence, Peltier became the last possible
> suspect on whom the government could pin responsibility for the
> shooting deaths of Coler and Williams. No measures would be sparred
> in the undertaking.
>
> Peltier's trial was moved to Fargo, North Dakota before Judge Paul
> Benson. Unlike the judge in Cedar Rapids, Benson forbid the
> introduction of any evidence on the past reign of terror on the Pine
> Ridge Indian reservation and how that related to the case, the role
> of the FBI or any testimony from the trial in Cedar Rapids.
>
> The jury had the bloody autopsy pictures of Coler and Williams, in
> living color, as a constant reminder in the courtroom. When entering
> and leaving the courtroom, three SWAT teams rushed to surround them
> as an escort. The jury was shuttled back and forth to the trial in a
> curtained bus, supposedly to raise the specter of AIM snipers
> picking off jury members. The courtroom was periodically swept for
> bugs. Under these conditions the prosecutors got their conviction
> despite the fact that their case was riddled with contradictions.
>
> The prosecution had prepared Myrtle Poor Bear to testify at Fargo.
> But during the trial she decided to change her testimony and moved
> to the side of the defense. The prosecution now railed against her
> appearance as a witness. She was brought to testify by the defense,
> but out of the presence of the jury.
>
> After the defense made initial inroads, Assistant US Attorney Lynn
> Crooks, wearing dark glasses, questioned a terrified Myrtle Poor
> Bear and attempted to sway her course for the prosecution. Her
> hesitation in response to his questioning spoke as loud as her
> ultimate answer:
>
> Q: (by Mr. Crooks) Why were you signing these affidavits?
>
> A: I don't know.
>
> Q: Well, did [FBI agent] Bill Wood threaten to harm you or hurt you
> if you didn't sign?
>
> A: (No response.)
>
> Q: Can you answer that question?
>
> Mr. Taikeff (For the defense): Your Honor, I'd like the record to
> reflect a 45-second pause measured by the courtroom clock between
> the last question and the following question.
>
> Q: (By Mr. Crooks) Can you answer the question, Myrtle?
>
> A: I was forced to sign both of these papers.
>
> Q: By whom?...
>
> A: They said one of my family members was going to be hurt if I
> didn't do it. By [FBI agents] Dave Price and Bill Wood ...
>
> Despite this devastating exposure, Judge Benson ruled that Myrtle
> Poor Bear's testimony was "irrelevant."
>
> There are many contradictions in the government's case, but one
> eventually led to an appeal. In the early 1980s, under the Freedom
> of Information Act, Peltier's attorneys obtained documents that
> demonstrated the FBI had lied about ballistics tests used to link an
> expended casing found near the agents to the AR-15 rifle that
> Peltier was alleged to have used in the shooting.
>
> This information was critical. In the Cedar Rapids trial, the
> fire-fight that Butler and Robideau were to have engaged in was over
> a wide expanse that corresponded well with the self-defense theory.
> In the Fargo trial, the government prosecution changed this. They
> now had Peltier approaching the two wounded agents and shooting them
> at close range-literally executing them.
>
> But the Federal Appeals Court found that while the new evidence
> might possibly have influenced the jury, it did not meet the
> required legal standard for a new trial: that it was reasonably
> probable that the jury would have reached an opposite conclusion
> based on this new evidence. The Federal Appeals Court was not
> convinced, and Leonard Peltier continues to languish in the
> Leavenworth penitentiary.
>
> In the late 1980s an AIM member stepped forward, without revealing
> his identity, to admit that he had been the one driving the red
> pickup being chased by agents onto the Jumping Bull property. After
> the agents had been wounded, he approached them. When one agent
> raised his .38, he reacted and shot them both. In 1990 Oliver Stone
> filmed an interview between this AIM member, known as "X," and
> author Peter Matthiessen. But Peltier has refused to allow X to
> expose himself, believing it will not further the cause of his
> freedom.
>
> Besides the hearing in Canada dealing with Myrtle Poor Bear's false
> affidavits, the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee is appealing for
> support in another campaign. President Bill Clinton is considering
> Peltier's clemency petition and his staff has said he will decide
> whether or not to grant him clemency sometime during his remaining
> days in office.
>
> For more information, see the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee at:
> http://www.freepeltier.org
>
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