"Peltier Campaign in Ireland,"
by Dave Bailey, LPDC Representative for Ireland and England
On February 6, 1976, Leonard Peltier was arrested at the home of Cree Indian traditional leader Robert Smallboy, just outside of the town of Hinton, Alberta, Canada. Peltier was tried for the crime of killing two FBI agents in a shoot-out provoked by those same two agents on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota on June 26, 1975. Peltier’s conviction followed the not-guilty verdict of two fellow American Indian Movement (AIM) members, Bob Robideau and Darrell “Dino” Butler, who were originally charged with the same offence. Thirty years later, Leonard Peltier continues to sit in prison, despite the fact that Lynn Crooks, the prosecuting attorney against Peltier, has since stated in an appeals court in 1992, “Your Honour, at this time we have no idea who killed the agents or what role Leonard Peltier may have played in it.” Leonard Peltier is now 62, and the majority of his adult life has been spent in prison for a crime he did not commit.
Former political prisoner Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, the Archbishop of Canterbury Desmond Tutu, the late Mother Theresa, and millions of world leaders, human rights advocates, and Peltier supporters from around the globe have campaigned for his release. Over 20 million signatures were gathered on petitions calling for the immediate release of Leonard Peltier by Executive Clemency during the Clinton administration. In the US, members of the House and the Senate, as well as numerous state Governors beseeched former President Bill Clinton to grant Mr. Peltier clemency. In Ireland, Leonard Peltier has received the support of Nobel Prize winner John Hume of the SDLP, former MP Bernadette Devlin-McAliskey, Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, “Bloody Sunday” author Don Mullen, and many, many more. In 1991, famed actor Robert Redford produced and narrated a documentary about Leonard Peltier’s case entitled, “Incident at Oglala.” Sadly, he remains in prison to this day. He has now spent more time in prison than the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, and even Nelson Mandela himself.
On June 25th and 26th, 1994, at an event labelled, “Peltier Weekend,” thousands of Leonard Peltier supporters from around the world joined with AIM members in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House in Washington, D.C. I was only twenty-one years old and this was to be my first major event as a part of the struggle for Leonard Peltier. It would be another year before I was recognized as a member of the American Indian Movement. At the time, I was in attendance as a member of a Leonard Peltier Support Group. While there, I saw people like Bob Robideau, David Hill, David Chief, Joe Chasing Horse, and even Dennis Banks, among others. I looked up to many of these individuals, veterans of the original generation of AIM. People like Bob Robideau, David Hill, Leonard Peltier, Carter Camp and others were heroes to me and many from my generation of young Native American activists. I was young, full of adrenaline, and aching to prove myself. I wanted to get into the thick of the action and prove that I could be as strong and as committed as they were. They were role models, a barometer by which my own strength of conviction could be measured. I was armed to the teeth with ideals, naiveté, and information I’d read from books. I had no practical understanding as to what the struggle was really about. All of that changed when I met and spent time with one of Leonard Peltier’s daughters.
Standing on a stage that was erected for the day’s events and speakers, Leonard’s daughter spoke with tears in her eyes about how she would be finishing school that year while her father would be unable to attend her graduation. I felt sorry for her. A real sense of sadness washed over me during that heartfelt moment. Over a year later, at the conclusion of an AIM tribunal against several former members, I worked security alongside Colorado AIM in what was my first ‘action’ as a newly acknowledged AIM member. Leonard’s daughter and her mother lived in Colorado at the time, so I got the chance to spend some time with them. Throughout the next month I had many occasions to sit and talk with them both. Once, his daughter told me that the following summer would be the completion of her four-year Sundance commitment. I was impressed that someone so young would have already Sundanced for three years. She was only nineteen, which meant she had to have begun when she was sixteen. Her father, as with her graduation, would not be present at what is the most significant moment in the lives of Native Americans from northern pains nations. It was then that I realized something I could’ve never learned from any book or documentary.
The true tragedy associated with an innocent man or woman being wrongfully imprisoned can be felt no deeper than by members of their own family. While millions have cried out for Leonard Peltier’s release, it his own family and those who knew him as a free man who suffer the most because of his continued incarceration. This is not to discount the sincere and deep pain felt by his supporters or fellow AIM members. Rather, it is to make the following point. He is a human being. At the end of the day, he is a father, cousin, uncle, grandfather, loved one and friend who is sorely missed by a family that has been forced to live their lives without him. He is not present for birthdays, graduations, weddings, funerals, or ceremonies. His children have grown-up and now have children of their own, all while Leonard has remained in an iron box. Spokane and Coeur d’Alene Indian author Sherman Alexie possibly said it best when he stated, “Both Leonard’s supporters and detractors have seen him as a metaphor, as a public figure worthy of political rallies and bumper stickers, but very rarely as a private man who only wants to go home.”
Obviously, Leonard Peltier is both worthy of political rallies and bumper stickers, as well as a private man who wants to go home. Unfortunately, hopes that he will be allowed to go home have dwindled down to a sparse scarcity. While Clinton sat in the White’s House, hopes were high that Peltier would be shown the governmentally sanctioned mercy that has been denied him for so long. Up until the eleventh hour of the Clinton presidency, there was a wide-spread belief that Leonard Peltier’s name would be among the list of those given clemency. Unfortunately, we were to suffer one more heart break in a long litany of heart breaks. William Jefferson Clinton was the 42nd President of the United States of America. He was the 42nd person to supervise the continued decimation of the same people who originally yet mistakenly welcomed the first visitors to the North American continent with open arms.
It has been said that, “Evil prevails where good men fail to act.” The evil that conspired to frame an innocent man was allowed to prevail when Bill Clinton failed to act. Leonard Peltier and members of the American Indian Movement acted in defence of a helpless group of beleaguered indigenous people at a time when they were preyed on by their own corrupt tribal leadership with the complete backing and financial support of a government responsible for the biggest tourist attraction on that same reservation, the cemetery at Wounded Knee. He and the members of AIM from his generation have sacrificed with their very lives to defend and improve the lives of Indian people. It is far past the time when we should follow suite. If we sit idly by and do nothing while Leonard Peltier’s friends, supporters, and family mourn his absence, then we are also allowing evil to prevail.
For many years support for Leonard Peltier continued to gather a momentum that propelled it to international status. However, Bill Clinton’s stab into the heart of Indian Country by his refusal to pardon Mr. Peltier left many of his most ardent supporters gasping for breath. We are now engaged in an effort to rebuild and renew that support. Leonard Peltier is eligible for parole in the year 2008. He has been flatly refused parole in the past. The Parole Board have denied him parole without even looking at the facts of his case. Their reason for refusing parole is that he has failed to show remorse for his crimes… A more accurate way of putting that would be to say that he has failed to show remorse for actions that he did not commit. In fact, Leonard has expressed remorse, despite being innocent of killing the agents. Anyone who takes a brief glance through his book, “My Life is My Sundance,” will see that loud and clear. He has expressed his sorrow that the whole incident happened and that three men had to die. Of course, he’s taking into account the third person killed that day, an AIM member by the name of Joe “Killsright” Stuntz. To date, I’ve yet to see, hear, or read a government representative express remorse over his murder, which they (unlike Peltier and the deaths of the agents) are responsible for. It is essential that an international movement of support for Leonard Peltier begins to form their voices now so that the Parole Board will have no choice but to listen to our cries for justice in 2008. We have less than two years to accomplish this task.
In order to accomplish this task, new and renewed support is being solicited. It was in that capacity that Leonard Peltier’s cousin, co-defendant, fellow Oglala survivor, and long-standing AIM member Bob Robideau came to Ireland. While here, he spoke in Dublin, Derry and Belfast. At one point, he was given a brief meeting with Sinn Fein party president Gerry Adams. He outlined for Mr. Adams what is needed from the Irish for Leonard Peltier. During the meeting, Mr. Adams made a touching gesture by presenting Mr. Robideau, on Leonard Peltier’s behalf, with a wooden plaque featuring the images of the Hunger Strikers from 1981. In response, Bob Robideau, who is almost as well known as a traditional Native artist as he is for being a traditional Native activist, took a bear and eagle claw necklace from around his neck and presented it to Gerry Adams. Strength. Solidarity. Two warriors who’d each been incarcerated for their beliefs shared a moment of mutual respect that solidifies, in my mind, the ever present feeling that the struggle for Irish liberation directly parallels the struggle for Native nations in America who, like the citizens of ‘Northern Ireland,’ are occupied by a foreign invasion force. However, hand shakes, warm feelings, and expressions of solidarity are not enough. We need very real, very concrete, and very immediate action and we only have two years to get it.
I have recently been appointed as the officially designated “Representative for the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee in Ireland and England.” In that position, I hope to accomplish several things which will greatly enable and enhance Leonard’s chances of either receiving parole or clemency in 2008. I am currently negotiating an all-party meeting of representatives in the Dail in the interest of introducing a proposal that the Irish government pass an official resolution calling for the immediate release of Leonard Peltier. Many countries have already done this, as did the European Parliament prior to the formation of the European Union. In addition, it is my hope that the many political parties, as well as notable names in Irish politics, will pass similar resolutions in addition to writing letters of support for Leonard Peltier. Likewise, it is believed that Irish political groups have the potential of convincing British Parliament and Prime Minister Tony Blair to recognize Leonard Peltier as a political prisoner and draft their own resolution calling for his release.
Working for Leonard Peltier’s release is not limited to elected officials or political movers and shakers. Every single Irish person, and in fact, every single person from any country, can write letters of support for Mr. Peltier. Letters can be written to urge governments to pass formal resolutions in support of Leonard Peltier, as well as utilise their links of communication with the United States government in order to pressure the U.S. to release Mr. Peltier. Individuals can write to the United States government directly, to Leonard Peltier directly, as well as find-out through the LPDC how they can organize Leonard Peltier Support Groups in their own areas. In Ireland and England, as LPDC Representative, I will be more than happy to discuss the campaign for Leonard Peltier with anyone who wishes to get involved, be it in a Support Group or simply as an individual.
On Sunday, 21 May 2006, Richard McIlkenny of the Birmingham Six died at age 73 following a long illness. McIlkenny was charged for a bomb attack in Birmingham, England, in 1974. He along with five others were wrongfully tortured, tried, and convicted. In 1991, the convictions of the Birmingham Six were overturned and they were released from prison. As it turned out, the only crime they committed was the crime of being Irish in an English city. It was a crime for which the Birmingham Six served sixteen years in prison. Surviving members of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four joined Richard McIlkenny’s daughter Ann and other members of his family at his funeral. Perhaps their pain is a pain that they alone posses.
It was said that Richard McIlkenny never truly returned home, that he was never really free. One can only imagine the trauma he endured. It only goes to illustrate the depths of the damage done by official governments when they imprison a man who is guilty of nothing. The toll it takes on him or her, their families, and their friends can never be completely undone. Even after being released from prison, you simply can not give back to someone the years of their lives that were taken away. In that sense, justice can never be served for Leonard Peltier. No one knows how long it may take Leonard Peltier to adjust to outside life, to feel free, or to be the vibrant and jovial part of his families and friends’ lives as he was once before. One thing I do know is this. The longer he is allowed to sit in prison, the longer it will take him to become ‘de-institutionalised’ on the outside. This is why we have to act, and act fast. We can not allow an aging and unhealthy man to die in prison. As Indian people, we have history books full of martyrs. We don’t need another one! What we need is for Leonard Peltier to be home with his family so that he can enjoy what’s left his life. We need him to be sitting surrounded by loved ones, bouncing an ever increasing stream of grandchildren on his knee. We need him to be home, where he should be, where he should have always been.
Dave Bailey, LPDC representative for Ireland and England can be contacted at:
For more information on how you can help Leonard Peltier contact the LPDC at:
For more information regarding Leonard Peltier Support groups please contact the LPDC at:
A library of useful information, is available at the official web-site of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee. That address is:
http://www.leonardpeltier.net/.
