Leonard Peltier: Put a Close to This Sad Chapter

Michael Pugliese debsian at pacbell.net
Sun Jan 14 18:58:31 PST 2001


Courtesy of Dave Anderson in Boulder. andersd at spot.colorado.edu

Michael Pugliese ............................................................................ ...........................................................................

For those interested there is an online petition at http://www.PetitionOnline.com/Release/petition.html

Leonard Peltier: Put a Close to This Sad Chapter by Kevin McKiernan

SANTA BARBARA -- I don't know which American Indian killed FBI agents Jack Coler and

Ronald Williams in a notorious South Dakota shoot-out 25 years ago. Nor do I know the

identity of the federal lawman who shot and killed Joe Stuntz, the American Indian

Movement (AIM) member, whose body I photographed afterward. But I was there on June

25, 1975, outside the Jumping Bull ranch on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, when some

of the bullets were flying. A stray round hit my pickup, and my memory is still fresh of

crouching low behind the truck with my portable tape deck, recording the exchange of

gunfire for a National Public Radio broadcast.

The government has never produced an eyewitness in the deaths of the agents, and

prosecutors admit they still don't know who actually killed Coler and Williams. But AIM

leader Leonard Peltier, one of the estimated two dozen Indians present on the 40-acre

reservation that day, has admitted that he participated in the firefight. A U.S. appellate court

upheld his murder conviction as an aider and abettor, but the court chastised the FBI for its

use of "fabricated" evidence in securing Peltier's extradition from Canada and for withholding

from the jury an exculpatory ballistics test conducted on a rifle attributed to Peltier.

Amnesty International maintains that Peltier, who is 56 and has been in jail for the last 25

years, did not get a fair trial. Now, in the waning days of the Clinton administration, the

organization is one of several groups petitioning the president to commute Peltier's

sentence.

Two other AIM members were acquitted in the case, on grounds of self-defense, despite

testimony that they had fired in the direction of the agents. The jury also heard evidence

about COINTELPRO, the FBI's counterinsurgency program used against AIM, and a

representative of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission testified to the "climate of fear" on the

reservation before the 1975 shootings. Other testimony challenged FBI assertions of

neutrality in the tribal civil war that followed AIM's takeover of the historic reservation village

of Wounded Knee two years earlier. Two Indians were shot to death at Wounded Knee; a

dozen Indians and two lawmen also received gunshot injuries during the 10-week takeover.

There have long been allegations that the FBI chose sides in the internecineconflict that

took place from 1973-75 be tween AIM-led traditionalists and a vigilante group of mostly

mixed bloods who called themselves the GOONs (Guardians of the Oglala Nation). But

testimony concerning FBI activities on the reservation before the 1975 killings was excluded

by the judge in the case of Peltier, who was tried separately from the other two defendants.

In fact, the climate of fear back then was all too real, and it matched anything I have

experienced reporting from war zones like El Salvador and the Middle East. In those days,

the reservation seemed like the Wild West, and almost everyone was armed. I once was

threatened with guns in my face when I tried to film a GOON squad roadblock; another time

I was slammed up against a wall by GOONs, who tended to perceive the entire press corps

as AIM sympathizers. The brakes on my car were cut, and, on one occasion, a

high-powered rifle blew a hole in an automobile in which I was riding. My experiences pale

by comparison to the beatings, fire-bombings and drive-by shootings were common during

the period; at least 25 murders of Indians still remain unsolved. Former South Dakota state

Sen. James Abourzek said that the near-lawless atmosphere on the reservation approached

"total anarchy."

District U.S. Judge Fred Nichol, who tried many of the Wounded Knee cases, once told me

in a filmed interview that "The FBI and the GOON squad worked pretty much together . . .

because they were against AIM." In a 1984 televised interview, which I conducted for PBS's

"Frontline," a leader of the GOON squad claimed that FBI agents provided his group with

intelligence on AIM and, in one instance, "armor piercing" bullets for use against AIM

members who, like the GOONs, were heavily armed at the time.

A few years ago, Gerald W. Heaney, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals that upheld

Peltier's conviction, petitioned the White House to commute Peltier's sentence. Heaney

stated in a letter that the FBI shared the blame for the two agents and one Indian killed in

the South Dakota shoot-out. He said that the government "overreacted" to the 1973

occupation at Wounded Knee. Instead of "carefully considering the legitimate grievances of

Native Americans," he said, "the response was essentially a military one that culminated in

a deadly firefight on June 26, 1975.

Before he leaves office, President Bill Clinton can provide closure to a difficult and divisive

period in Indian history. As Heaney wrote in his clemency plea, "At some time, the healing

process must begin. We as a nation must recognize their unique culture and their great

contribution to our nation."

- - -

Kevin McKiernan covered the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for National Public Radio from

1973-1976. He was the Co-producer of the PBS "Frontline" Program "The Spirit of Crazy

Horse."



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