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The
International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee will be in Washington,
DC, in December 2016. Two events have been scheduled (one at the
National Press Club and a conference on Human Rights Day at American
University) with much more to come. We've reached 35 percent of our
fundraising goal, to date, for which we are very grateful. But we still
need your help. If each of you donate just $5.00, we'll easily reach
our goal. Please give what you can. Donate now: http://www.plumfund.com/charity-fundraising/2016-Peltier-Week-DC. You may also donate via our Web site at www,whoisleonardpeltier.info.
If you prefer, send a check or money order made payable to the ILPDC
to PO Box 24, Hillsboro, OR 97123. Please write "Peltier Week" on the
comment line. Thank you for your generous support.
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On Solidarity with Standing Rock, Executive Clemency and the International Indigenous Struggle
Greeting Sisters and Brothers:
I
have been asked to write a SOLIDARITY statement to everyone about the
Camp of the Sacred Stones on Standing Rock. Thank you for this great
honor. I must admit it is very difficult for me to even begin this
statement as my eyes get so blurred from tears and my heart swells with
pride, as chills run up and down my neck and back. I’m so proud of all
of you young people and others there.
I
am grateful to have survived to see the rebirth of the united and
undefeated Sioux Nation at Standing Rock in the resistance to the
poisonous pipeline that threatens the life source of the Missouri and
Mississippi Rivers. It is an honor to have been alive to see this happen
with you young people. You are nothing but awesome in my eyes.
It
has been a long, hard road these 40 years of being caged by an inhuman
system for a crime I did not commit. I could not have survived
physically or mentally without your support, and I thank you from the
bottom of my heart and the depths of my soul for encouraging me to
endure and maintain a spiritual and legal resistance.
We
are now coming to the end of that road, soon arriving at a destination
which will at least in part be determined by you. Along the lines of
what Martin Luther King said shortly before his death, I may not get
there with you, but I only hope and pray that my life, and if necessary,
my death, will lead my Native peoples closer to the Promise Land.
I
refer here not to the Promise Land of the Christian bible, but to the
modest promises of the Treaties our ancestors secured from enemies bent
on their destruction; in order to enable us to survive as distinct
peoples and live in a dignified manner. Our elders knew the value of
written words and laws to the white man, even as they knew the lengths
the invaders would go to try to get around them.
Our
ancestors did not benefit from these Treaties, but they shrewdly and
persistently negotiated the best terms they could get, to protect us
from wars which could only end in our destruction, no matter how
courageously and effectively we fought. No, the Treaties were to the
benefit of the Americans, this upstart nation needed the Treaties to put
a veneer of legitimacy on its conquest of the land and its rebellion
against its own countrymen and king.
It
should be remembered that Standing Rock was the site of the 1974
conference of the international indigenous movement that spread
throughout the Americas and beyond, the starting point for the United
Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The UNDRIP was
resisted by the United States for three decades until its adoption by
the UN in 2007. The US was one of just four nations to vote against
ratification, with President Obama acknowledging the Declaration as an
aspirational document without binding force under international law.
While
some of the leaders of this movement are veterans of the 1970s
resistance at Pine Ridge; they share the wisdom of our past elders in
perceiving the moral and political symbolism of peaceful protest today
is as necessary for us as was necessary for the people of Pine Ridge in
the 1970s. The 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee ended with an agreement
to investigate human rights and treaty abuses; that inquiry and promise
were never implemented nor honored by the United States. The Wounded
Knee Agreement should be honored with a Truth and Reconciliation
Commission established to thoroughly examine the US government’s role in
the “Reign of Terror” on Pine Ridge in the 1970s. This project should
be coordinated with the cooperation of the many international human
rights organizations that have called for my immediate and unconditional
release for more than four decades.
I
have to caution you young people to be careful, for you are up against a
very evil group of people whose only concern is to fill their pockets
with even more gold and wealth. They could not care less how many of you
they have to kill or bury in a prison cell. They don’t care if you are a
young child or an old grandmother, and you better believe they are and
have been recruiting our own people to be snitches and traitors. They
will look to the drunks, the addicts, and child molesters, those who
prey on our old and our children; they look for the weak-minded
individuals. You must remember to be very cautious about falsely
accusing people based more on personal opinion than on evidence. Be
smart.
I
call on all my supporters and allies to join the struggle at Standing
Rock in the spirit of peaceful spiritual resistance and to work together
to protect Unci Maka, Grandmother Earth. I also call upon my supporters
and all people who share this Earth to join together to insist that the
US complies with and honors the provisions of international law as
expressed in the UNDRIP, International Human Rights Treaties and the
long-neglected Treaties and trust agreements with the Sioux Nation. I
particularly appeal to Jill Stein and the Green Parties of the US and
the world to join this struggle by calling for my release and adopting
the UNDRIP as the new legal framework for relations with indigenous
peoples.
Finally,
I also urge my supporters to immediately and urgently call upon
President Obama to grant my petition for clemency, to permit me to live
my final years on the Turtle Mountain Reservation. Scholars, political
grassroots leaders, humanitarians and Nobel Peace Laureates have
demanded my release for more than four decades. My Clemency Petition
asks President Obama to commute, or end, my prison term now in order for
our nation to make progress healing its fractured relations with Native
communities. By facing and addressing the injustices of the past,
together we can build a better future for our children and our
children’s children.
Again, my heartfelt thanks to all of you for working together to protect the water. Water is Life.
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse…
Doksha,
Leonard Peltier
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