Transcriptions of the May 17, 2000 Hearing Statements

• AIM = American Indian Movement
• WKNLDOC = Wounded Knee Legal Defense Offense Committee
• BIA = Bureau of Indian Affairs
• GOONs = Guardians of Our Oglala Nation -- an organization whose members opposed the the Traditionalists and the American Indian Movement.

Rigoberta Menchu, 1992 Nobel Peace Prize, English Translation

Introduction:
Our first panelist is our distinguished Nobel Laureate Prize Winner Rigoberta Menchu. Rigoberta is a Mayan citizen and survivor of the civil war in Guatemala. She was forced to leave her country after her father, mother, and brother were all killed. She has spent much of her time working tirelessly to bring human rights to Guatemala. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 as the youngest person ever to win the prize, and I welcome her here today.

Rigoberta Menchu:

In the first place, I would like to give my deepest thanks to the Human Rights Commission of the Congress, and in a special way to Mr. John Porter, who has made an extraordinary effort in order to achieve this hearing before the people. I’d also like to give a very special greeting to the North American congress people who have accompanied my people throughout our struggle to gain human rights in Guatemala.

The reason for my presence here is Leonard Peltier. I have known about the case of Leonard Peltier since 1982. [Before] I could never manifest my solidarity in a concrete way in order to free him from prison. This time I come hopeful, asking for clemency for Leonard Peltier -- or at least a measure of parole in order that he will be able to achieve full freedom from this day forward.

I think in the case of Leonard Peltier there are an enormous number of anomalies and a lot of data that does not match up. There are some pieces of “evidence” that are not legitimate, and no one is testifying in an affirmative way that he is the one who killed the FBI agents. He was simply a young man who got sent to jail, and at this point he is much older and suffering from health problems.

I think the most important thing is to obtain full freedom for him. His case, which has been in process for 24 years, needs to be reviewed. We ask for the judicial system of the United States of North America to be put into practice, and that it, in some measure, will be able to compensate for the damages caused to Leonard Peltier.

I have been with many indigenous sisters and brothers here in the United States, and they are willing to offer Leonard Peltier home, food, and employment -- all that he needs -- as soon as he is out of prison.

Leonard is a person full of humanity, and for this reason, I am here. Is it an honor for me to share the struggle with such distinguished people of the United States. I will be with you until we see Leonard free. We want clemency or we want parole -- but we want him to be freed.

I am also very honored to be here today, especially to be able to sit next to Rigoberta Menchu, an old friend, at this desk. I’d like to especially thank the offices of Mr. Porter for helping us put together this briefing. Certainly I want to thank my friend Catherine Porter especially and also Jeanette for all of her hard work.

I think in understanding the case of Leonard Peltier it’s critical to understand the background or the context in which these events took place. The tragedy began in the early 1970’s when the Lakota Traditionalists invited members of AIM, the American Indian Movement, to Pine Ridge Reservation. There was increasing conflict with a corrupt tribal chairperson named Dick Wilson and his vigilante group, known as Guardians of the Oglala Nation, or literally the GOONs. In 1973 the Traditionalists together with their AIM supporters spontaneously seized the town of Wounded Knee to protest a number of violations. This resulted in a 70-day WACO-style siege during which the United States Government surrounded the town, cut off supplies, and fired hundreds of thousands of rounds of live ammunition at the men, women, children, and elders inside. The use of military force was later ruled illegal by the courts.

After White House intervention occurred and there were promises of investigation, the people returned to their homes across Pine Ridge Reservation. However, there was never any investigation of their original complaints and grievances. Instead, a massive FBI force arrived. During the next three years now known as the Reign of Terror to the Lakota People, some 64 AIM members and supporters were murdered. The FBI never investigated adequately these killings nor were there any indictments. Instead, they continued to collaborate with the GOONs responsible for the violence. Meanwhile, in many prosecutions of the AIM members, the FBI was rebuked again and again by the courts for coercing witnesses and otherwise tampering with the process.

In this atmosphere the tragic shoot-out of June 26th, 1975 occurred. The Jumping Bull family, seeking protection, had invited a small contingent of AIM members to camp on their ranch. Others were present as well that day.

The two agents, Ron Williams and Jack Coler, were traveling in unmarked cars when they chased a red pickup truck out to the private property. Shooting broke out between the two vehicles and people across the ranch began to scream that they were under attack. Everyone returned fire. In the uproar, the agents were killed. They were wounded and then shot at close range.

We understand the FBI concerns here. But it’s important to remember that even the United States Prosecutor now admits that nobody knows who fired the fatal shots.

The red pickup escaped, leaving Leonard Peltier with a group of mostly teenagers surrounded by and under a reign of automatic gunfire from law enforcement officers. A young native man named Joe Stuntz was killed. Peltier was able to lead the rest to safety by crawling with them through an underground pipeline through the massive gunfire.

Two of the adults with Leonard that day were captured and immediately brought to trial. Mr. Butler and Mr. Robideau were acquitted since there was no evidence that they were the ones that fired the close range shots, and because the act of returning fire was deemed by the jury under that context to be a matter of self-defense.

Leonard was then extradited from Canada on the basis of an affidavit signed by Myrtle Poor Bear, who claimed she had been his girlfriend and had witnessed the killing. She later told the judge she had never met Mr. Peltier, but signed only after being terrorized by the FBI. The judge did not release Leonard, nor did he even allow the jury to know about this matter.

At the trial, three of the teenagers gave inconclusive and contradictory testimonies and later admitted that they too had been heavily coerced and terrorized by the FBI.

The FBI ballistics expert stated Peltier’s rifle had been damaged in a fire precluding the best and most precise firing pin test from being performed. He therefore performed a less precise test and claimed that the bullet casing was compatible to the rifle. It was later discovered that the firing pin test had been performed by the same ballistics expert and the results had been concealed. The results of that ballistics test? That bullet casing did not come from that rifle. This report had also been concealed, as are still 6,000 FBI documents.

Lastly, at Leonard’s trial, the long-held description by the FBI that it was a red pickup they chased onto the ranch suddenly turned into an orange-and-white striped van so it could be more closely linked to Mr. Peltier.

Despite all of this, all of these abuses of our judicial situation, Mr. Peltier was denied a new trial and he is now long overdue for parole. After 24 years in prison, he suffers from a heart condition, high blood pressure, he’s diabetic and near blind in one eye from poor medical care. Time is running out. And I would just like to remind everyone that in the past time did run out for my husband in Guatemala: by the time the United States Government told the truth, he’d been tortured for two years, held in a full body cast, and then either dismembered or thrown out of a helicopter. This time I would like to see it not be too late. Thank you.

Introduction:
Carlos Salinas is the acting legislative director for Amnesty International here in Washington DC -- and he is going to give us Amnesty International’s perspective on the case.

Carlos Salinas:

I have been asked to be brief and I think I will actually achieve that. Amnesty International is an independent worldwide movement working impartially for the release of all prisoners of conscience, fair and prompt trials for political prisoners, and an end to torture and executions.

Just last April, Amnesty International called for the immediate and unconditional release of Leonard Peltier -- an Anishinabeg-Lakota Indian and a leading member of the American Indian Movement. Peltier was serving two consecutive life sentences at Leavenworth Penitentiary for the murders of two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, who were killed on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota in 1975. Court and parole application decisions over the years failed to dispel substantial and lingering doubts about the fairness of the legal proceedings against Mr. Peltier.

Amnesty International has reviewed this case extensively over many years. We have sent observers to his trial in 1977 and to subsequent appeal and evidentiary hearings in 1978, 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1991. Indeed Amnesty International has long expressed concerns about the fairness of Peltier’s trial in 1977 and the subsequent hearings which we have witnessed ourselves.

Some of the points that we have noted: (1) the FBI knowingly used perjured testimony to obtain Peltier’s extradition from Canada to the United States, (2) Peltier’s attorneys were denied the right to call relevant defense witnesses, and (3) prosecutors withheld vital evidence. Amnesty International is further concerned that Peltier’s political activities and beliefs may have influenced the circumstances of his arrest and subsequent trial.

Amnesty International for many years advocated that Leonard Peltier should be granted a fair retrial. We are disappointed at the authorities’ failure to initiate such a proceeding. At this point after so many years of imprisonment and having exhausted all available legal appeals we recognize a retrial is no longer a feasible option.

Leonard Peltier has now spent 23 years in prison. Amnesty International considers Leonard Peltier to be a political prisoner and again we further recognize that the legal redress opportunities have been exhausted. The United States Government continues to deny request for a special executive review; Amnesty International believes that Leonard Peltier should be immediately and unconditionally released. Thank you very much.

Introduction:
Kevin Mckiernan, freelance journalist, formerly of NPR, veteran journalist who corresponded for National Public Radio's All Things Considered and the only journalist who stayed at the Pine Ridge Reservation during the entire 71 days of siege. He also continued to cover issues at the Pine Ridge during the three-year Reign of Terror.

Kevin McKiernan:

Good Afternoon. I am a journalist. I was inside Wounded Knee during the 1973 71-day occupation... it was a long time ago, but it seems like yesterday in many respects. In those days, the Pine Ridge Reservation was a place of great violence with little or no law enforcement. If you wanted as a reporter to gather information about the American Indian Movement (AIM) or the Lakota Traditional, there was a price to pay. I was one of a number of journalists personally threatened and even assaulted physically by vigilantes associated with Wilson’s tribal government: my pickup truck on one occasion was hit by a bullet and another time the breaks on my car were cut.

At that time most of the traditional people on Pine Ridge believed that the FBI targeted the AIM Indians -- as they were called -- and overlooked crimes committed by Wilson and his followers. George O’Clock, the special agent in charge of the Rapid City office, once told me some years later, that the FBI got its SWAT team from Pine Ridge -- that during this period from 1973 to 1976, the FBI used Pine Ridge as a SWAT training ground for as many as 2,600 FBI agents. That’s a period of only three years and that’s when most of the abuses took place.

There is strong evidence of a relationship between the GOONs* and the FBI; US Federal Judge Fred Nichol once told me that the FBI and the GOONs worked together because both were against the American Indian Movement. In another interview, then Senator James Abourzek told me the FBI chose sides in the Pine Ridge conflict, failed to investigate an epidemic of Indian killings, and engaged in the selective prosecution of AIM members.

In the 1970’s I myself saw an illegal GOON roadblock on the Pine Ridge Reservation and I filmed the armed vigilantes taking property from AIM attorneys at gunpoint. At other times I saw the FBI pass easily through these roadblocks making small talk with the armed men, shaking hands, and then going on their way. And once I was with federal agents in a government van which drove off the road, into a ditch, and around such a GOON roadblock. No attempt was made to confront or question the armed vigilantes.

In 1976 I investigated the murder of Byron DeSersa, an unarmed resident who was ambushed and killed on a highway near the town of Wanblee. The survivors of that incident said that several vehicles associated with Wilson’s GOONs had driven by their car and then opened fire on the DeSersa car. The survivors in the car identified the vehicles only less than an hour after the incident and gave the license numbers to the FBI in Wanblee. Although the killers had gathered to drink, celebrate, party, and discharge weapons in the direction of houses owned by AIM sympathizers in Wanblee, FBI agents in town refused to approach the house. Instead of making arrests, they allowed the party to continue all weekend and permitted the Wilson caravan the next day to leave town. Despite the many vehicles involved, only one Wilson man was eventually charged, and he served only two-to-three years on a reduced manslaughter charge.

I investigated other assaults as well, including the GOON caravan that attacked AIM lawyers and destroyed an airplane they had rented and flown to Pine Ridge. They had come there to gather evidence in several legal cases... The GOONs sliced open the top of one lawyer’s car, beating the occupants and cutting a paralegal with a knife. Wilson himself commanded that operation and later he told me that he considered it a “justifiable stomping”. He was indicted on a misdemeanor by the judge and then acquitted by an all-white jury.

Years later I interview the commander of the GOON squad Dwayne Burr (sp) who was also involved in that attack. He was well known on the reservation. In fact, he was a member of the tribal police. On camera, he told me that the FBI had provided him with intelligence on the activities of AIM members and that FBI agents had supplied him with armor-piercing bullets to use against the American Indian Movement.

That is my statement.

Deborah White Plume:

Welcome. Good afternoon. My thanks to the people who made this day possible for Leonard. My name if Deborah White Plume. I am an Oglala-Lakota mother and grandmother. I came here from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. On Pine Ridge, while Dick Wilson was the Oglala-Sioux tribal chairman, our Traditional People suffered much violence. This time period is referred to as the Reign of Terror. Wilson and his GOONs targeted Traditional People, American Indian Movement people, and people who supported Lakota traditions and AIM. During that violent period, probably 90 percent of the violence was enacted by the GOONs. My family was directly impacted by such violence. I came here today to tell you about a tragedy that has befallen my family.

On November 17, 1974 the home of my mother was attacked by an off-duty Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs police officer who was known to be a Wilson supporter. He drove up to my mother’s home and opened fire. My mother and I were preparing a meal. I heard a voice yell, “He has a gun!” Rapid-fire gunshots exploded all around me. I grabbed my three-year-old son and turned to protect him. I saw my mother fall, shot in the back, lay unmoving at my feet. As I dove for the door holding my son, I saw his arm explode. I felt a burning in my own arm and a burning on my right temple. As we hit the floor, I felt another burning -- this time on my left temple. I saw the thumb of my son’s left hand explode and disappear. I lay on my son, covering him with my body. From the floor, I saw my step-dad lay unconscious, blood pouring from a chest wound. I saw Lou, a family friend, laying across the doorway, blood spilling from his leg.

The firing lasted perhaps two minutes. I heard at least two different kinds of rounds going off. When the firing stopped, the house was filled with smoke and debris clouded the air. I stepped over the bodies and ran outside, carrying my son who lay very still in my arms, his eyes glazed and scaring me. I saw the car of the off-duty Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs police officer pulling away very very fast.

A neighbor drove me with my son to the emergency room. From the ER, we were flown to the Fitzsimmons (sp) Army Hospital in Denver. They said we would be sent there because no hospitals in the area could handle the type of gunshot wound my son had taken, and to save his arm, his only chance was a military hospital.

While we were being treated at the ER and waiting for the airplane to come after us, the federal officer who shot us was brought in with a gunshot wound to the head. While I did not know it until much later, he died that day. To this day, it is unknown who shot him.

While I was at the hospital in Denver, an individual in a nurse’s uniform wheeled me to a room where a white man was sitting. He questioned me, but I didn’t know anything. Later I learned he was probably FBI and people began to guard my hospital room.

On the day of the shooting, I saw another person in the back seat of the car [of the off-duty BIA police officer] shooting at us as the car drove away. I am unaware of any investigation identifying who that second person was.

The violence that was taken against my family is one example of many terrifying and sad things that happened on our reservation. During the years of Wilson’s tenure as Oglala-Sioux tribal chairman, our people suffered violence on a daily basis. Most of the crimes were never solved. There was no justice shown to the victims of the crimes done against us. For those of us who lived there, it was common knowledge that Traditional People and AIM people were usually the victims of the beatings, shootings, car crashes, [and] destruction of property. Our people did not trust the tribal government, we did not trust the BIA police, we did not trust the FBI. Dick Wilson had the support of tribal government, tribal government had the support of the BIA, and the BIA had the support of the FBI.

From then until today, many of our people have maintained vigilant observation of what occurs around us every minute of every day. We do this because we do not know if and when the BIA and the FBI may lash out again against us. Living with such conditions creates much hardship for many of our people.

We are old, and we die before our time, and we want Leonard to be free. That is my statement.

Ernie Stevens Jr.:

Thank you for having me here this afternoon. I wanted to let you know that I speak in advocacy for Mr. Peltier, who I look upon as an adopted father -- someone I meet and talk with regularly, and who my children have accepted as their adopted grandfather. I have known Leonard Peltier since childhood.

My parents were divorced at a young age. My mother was an AIM activist, and my father was a high-ranking BIA deputy and lobbyist and later worked for the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. So I had a combination of both sides of advocacy in Indian Country; my roots are through the activist movement as well as the Washington, D.C. era going back to the late 1960’s.

I was at the Wounded Knee Siege in 1973, in which we engaged in battle with the United States Government. On many occasions, I would see bullets land just inches from me. Some might call that combat; with the lack of fire power that we had to the United States Government’s, it was hardly a combat -- it was a struggle. It was a struggle of defense of women and children in tribal sovereignty. And I am at peace with that struggle. I feel that Indian people needed to take a stand and Indian people needed to protect their women and children, their elders and their culture. [Missing few words] unfortunately, death resulted, and we do not justify nor do we condone violence -- not then and not now. The many deaths -- many of which went unsolved -- were a very serious scar to what happened on that day and on the many other days that some might call the Reign of Terror.

I struggle with some of the negative terms that we used in that era, because I would like to leave that era behind. I would like for it to move on. And we do need to move beyond that era, but in order to do so, we need to free a victim -- a victim named Mr. Peltier. As many have stated, Mr. Peltier is an innocent man. Mr. Peltier did nothing except for defend women and children.

Janet Reno has asserted the need to utilize more federal officials in Indian Country with the concern of crime, drugs, and violence in Indian County. We believe in law and order, and we think that’s a good recommendation. But in order to do that, Indian Country must have a reconciliation with the FBI and other federal officials to move out of that era. And in order to move out of that era, we need to free Leonard Peltier. Mr. Peltier is a victim, and he needs to be freed so we can move out of that era, so we can be free of that era, and work together.

You have heard today’s examples of violence that were regular in Indian Country. But today is one of the very few times that you hear those. Mostly, you hear of violence to non-Indians. You don’t hear the many examples. The examples you hear today are some of many -- many of which went uninvestigated and certainly unsolved. It’s unfortunate that so many people had to suffer whether it was Indian Country or whether it was federal officers. It scares me to think that we even lived through that era -- but we must move on. And we must forgive and we must try to forget that era of violence. And let’s live in now -- let’s live in today.

I wanted to just briefly tell you, on behalf of the tribal leadership in Indian Country, their feelings. Many people have asserted that Leonard does not have support. Well, you have heard today’s examples of support, and I represent the National Congress of American Indians -- and we have drafted several resolutions of support of clemency for Mr. Peltier. Those represent more than 250 Indian Tribes of the United States. And you have also heard that the Assembly of First Nations in Canada has not only drafted support for Leonard, but offered him home and work. Leonard has a tremendous amount of support.

Nilak Butler:

I would like to give thanks to everybody that we can speak here today on behalf of Leonard Peltier. I truly believe that Leonard Peltier is a prisoner of war, because at the time we came to the Pine Ridge Reservation, a state of war existed. A lot of information was put out following the events of June 26th, 1975. It was characterized by the media that the people who lived there and why were there -- that we were violent terrorists. That is and never has been anything to do with the truth.

We were living at Grandma and Grandpa Jumping Bull’s land. They were Elders of the Oglala-Lakota Nation. They had just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, which we had celebrated with a community event and dance. They had, on the property, their granddaughter, who was there with her husband-- and they had three small children under the age of three. They also had another grandchild living their with a partner -- and they had three small children under the age of three. At that time, Dennis Banks was going to trial in Custer -- I believe -- and his wife who was pregnant was there [on the Jumping Bull property], his sister-in-law who was pregnant, and their children.

Our group had been invited by the Traditional People to come to give support. The piece that has always been looked at is the security aspect of why we were there. But you need to understand that was only one part of what we were doing while we were there. We worked with the communities doing community gardening. We were working on looking at the educational system for culturally appropriate work. We were working to raise funds. We were working to be -- cooperatively to be -- a nation of peoples. We also were not supportive of uranium mining, which is destruction of Mother Earth and all life.

In our group, the people who are familiar to the public are Dino, Leonard, and Bob Robideau. But that was not the whole group. At that time, I had just turned 21 -- when I was married with Dino. We had two young girls who were 14-years-old with us. We [also] had two young boys with us who were 14, and one 16-year-old.

Now I have always found it interesting how they [FBI] chose to prosecute -- who they did, how they did, and the tactics which they used. The younger people that I mentioned who were part of our group -- some of them were tied to chairs by federal agents and told they would be murdered if they did not cooperate -- and is it not true that events took place in a certain way in a certain manner.

Myself, I have had different members of the FBI through a number of years say that they will kill me -- that this I can depend upon -- and it’s just when they decide to do it. I am sorry, but when I used to watch the FBI with ______________ (transcriber could not make out words) this isn’t how they conducted themselves. And I also have to say on that day when the events took place, they were not looking to seek to serve the law; they were seeking to kill us! It was proven in the trial in Cedar Rapids that we acted in self-defense. That is a natural right which has been given to any human being -- the right to self-defense.

When they chose to prosecute and the way they did it (and I attended all of Leonard’s trials through all the years and all the appellate hearings; I worked as a paralegal on the cases) -- I watched how they did it and again, they could not bring a 14-year-old child up before a jury of people and say, “Hey -- this is a terrorist!” It would not have worked for them. So they chose the only three people who were adult males to prosecute.

I have to say on a personal level -- Leonard and Dino and the young men stood between me and bullets -- and I am very grateful for that to this very day.

The final thing I think I would like to bring up is that there has been a great deal of vengeance which has been directed towards Native Peoples following the events which took place on Pine Ridge. This resulted in numerous arrests, this resulted in jail, this resulted in courts. It continued in my family until 1985. And I also need to bring the number of people who worked on Leonard’s case -- co-defendants or part of the situation -- who were murdered. And I would like to say these people are: Joseph Stuntz who was killed at Oglala that day (there has yet to be a trial on who killed him!), Anna Mae Aquash Pictou, Dallas Thundershield, Roque Duenas, Bobby Garcia, Kevin Henry, Leah Manning, Tina Manning Trudell, Ricarda Star Trudell, Sunshine Karma Trudell, Eli Changing Sun Trudell and Hosea (sp) Hawk Trudell. These people were all murdered and they all supported freedom for Leonard Peltier.

Through the years, there has been a great deal of support built around Leonard’s case. It has been presented to the Russel Tribunal in Amsterdam. It has been presented to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland. It was brought up at the Reagan-Gorbachev Summit in Moscow as one of the items on the agenda. There have been sixty members of Congress who have supported Leonard in the past. There have been members of Canadian Parliament who have supported Leonard in the past. So we come before you today for freedom for Leonard Peltier. Thank you.

Introduction:
Our next survivor is Jean Day...she is the coordinator and spokesperson for the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, and she is a member of the American Indian Movement.

Jean Day:

Good afternoon and greetings to each and everyone of you. I want to thank everyone who put this together -- and [ask] for you to listen to our stories because they are not only our stories, they are a piece of our history. And ... I don’t know where to begin. I am Ho-Chunk from Wisconsin. I am a mother and a grandmother now.

And at the time, I lived at Pine Ridge on the Jumping Bull Ranch, along with Nilak and many other people We were a family.

And when I came to Pine Ridge, it was very hard for me, because I came from a very middle-class Native American family. It was hard for me to understand how people could live in a home, knowing you had to have weapons in your home to protect yourself. And at that time it didn’t matter who you were -- man, woman, child, young, old -- [to] the GOONs and the FBI -- it didn’t matter -- you were a target if you supported the American Indian Movement [or] if you were a Traditionalist on the reservation. So it was really hard -- it was a new experience for me to come there -- and yet it was a very rewarding experience for me to come there.

On the day of the shoot-out I wasn’t there. I was in Cedar Rapids, Iowa with a dear friend, one I will never forget. [Jean begins to cry]. I always thought I’d heal, but I haven’t. And [what] you need to understand about us is that we’ve tried real hard to heal but we haven’t been able to. Anna Mae Aquash Pictou. And it was really hard because we [Anna Mae and Jean Day] were there [at Cedar Rapids], and all of a sudden somebody told us that the shoot-out happened, and we didn’t know what was really going on. By the time we found out, we found out that there were two FBI agents who were killed and a Native American man -- we didn’t know who he was, either. We didn’t know who it was.

We did go back [to the Pine Ridge Reservation], but during that time, the FBI were really beginning to look for all of us. Even the ones who were not living there that day -- they were being hunted down. One of the tactics the FBI used is to go look for our family members and people who supported us there in Oglala -- and they went and told them: We will buy you a new car if you tell us where they are. We will do this for you if you tell us where they are. None of the people of Oglala went and said this is where they are, and to this day some of those people are still being persecuted for supporting us and for helping us during that time. They truly did save our lives -- back there (and they still have to live through that today).

There was another thing that happened during that time -- there was a man named Bill Muldrow from the US Civil Rights Commission. He went there and did an investigation of what was going on at Pine Ridge. This is a non-biased person -- he had nothing that he would go and say: well this-is-this-way or this-is-that-way. He can tell you of the atrocities that happened at that time at Pine Ridge. If you can’t hear it from us, I ask you to look for his documents and read those documents. And you will see from a non-biased [point of view], because people ask, is there anything from a non-biased [person] -- yes there is!

During that time, I had two daughters, and they were living with my parents in Wisconsin. My father was working for the Federal Government and the Bureau of Prisons. When they found that I was involved with the shoot-out at Oglala, the FBI came to visit my father at work, and they told him, we want you to bring her back or bring her in. They said, if you don’t do that, were are going to make sure your two granddaughters are taken away from you.

My father did go out to Pine Ridge, South Dakota; and he did bring me home. And I must say to this day I regretted it. I didn’t want to leave again. But during that time, I was more concerned about my children and making sure they did not get taken away, so I went home.

And then the extradition hearings were going on in Canada. I tried very hard to get up there, but I just couldn’t get up there. It just wasn’t working out. Then all of a sudden I got this phone call saying, hey Leonard is being extradited back to the United States on the grounds that his girl friend wrote a statement saying he did this and she saw him do that... I said, well, how did that happen? I am here in Wisconsin!

Well, it turned out to be Myrtle Poor Bear -- we didn’t even know who she was. Later on after talking to Myrtle, we found out what happened. She, too was terrorized by the FBI. She was shown pictures of Anna Mae Aquash Pictou. When they found her [Anna Mae Aquash Pictou’s] body, the investigating agents said they couldn’t identify her. So what they did was cut her hands off and sent them here to Washington, DC to be identified. These are the pictures they showed to Myrtle. I guess if I was Myrtle and I saw those pictures and they said if you don’t sign these [affidavits] this is the way you’re going to end up, I think maybe I might have signed them too. I don’t know. But she did, and that’s how Leonard was extradited back to the United States.

There were many things that happened to the young boys during the trial. Mike Anderson was one of the young boys who testified against Leonard. He, too, was tied to a chair and terrorized. In America I didn’t think that would ever happen -- and part of me didn’t want to believe that it did happen -- until last summer when I was able to read some of the statements from Michael, and some of the things that he wrote in his statement I knew were lies, and those were documents written up by the FBI for him to sign.

It’s been 25 years now -- June 26th [2000] will be 25 years. We need to heal, we need to get all these tears out that we have been holding back for so many years. This year we are hopefully -- all of us -- gathering together who had been there at Oglala. There is something else we are going to be doing: this week I hand-delivered some letters to the US Department of Justice Janet Reno’s office and also to the FBI director, asking that they contact the families of the agents Williams and Coler, asking them if they would please escort them if need be down to Oglala on June 26th, so that we can begin the healing that Ernie’s been talking about -- so that we can do the ceremonies that need to be done.

And with this, we ask that people pray for us and help us in a bid for freedom for Leonard Peltier. Thank you.

Introduction
Our final panelist is Bruce Ellison. Mr. Ellison is an attorney who has work with Leonard Peltier since his trial in 1977. He is a member of the Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee, and witnessed the Reign of Terror on the Pine Ridge Reservation during the 70’s.

Bruce Ellison:

Thank you. ... my name is Bruce Ellison. I have been a criminal defense lawyer based in Western South Dakota for some 25 years. On behalf of Leonard Peltier who is now a grandfather and on behalf of my own children I want to thank the members of the Human Rights Caucus and particularly Congressman John Porter for allowing for this briefing. You have done what the Senate Intelligence Committee under Senator Frank Church decided not to do, and what Congress has failed to do despite the strong recommendation of the necessity of such an inquiry by the Chairman of the US Commission on Civil Rights and by Amnesty International.

I came to Western South Dakota to become an AIM lawyer with the Wounded Knee Defense Committee. I replaced a lawyer on the staff of WKLDOC by the name of Roger Finsel (sp) who Mr. McKiernan talked about who was attacked by the GOON Squad and was told that if he ever came back to the Pine Ridge Reservation the GOONs would kill him.

I came from an urban upbringing in the New York City area and Leonard Peltier became one of my early clients. I was raised to believe in our democracy and our fundamental rights to free speech, freedom of association, and freedom to seek redress of grievances. Educated as a lawyer, I was taught that our courts exist to promote and preserve justice, our Congress to enact responsible legislation, and our executive branch to enforce the laws of our country. What I have experienced since my move west has both shocked, amazed, and terrified me as a citizen of this country and more importantly as a father of young children and older children -- and I remain so today.

FBI documents and court records in the thousands together with eyewitness accounts show clearly that beginning in the late 1960’s the FBI began a campaign of infiltration and disruption of the treaty and human rights movement which called itself the American Indian Movement or AIM. FBI operations against AIM reached a magnitude which I submit threatens our democratic system and our way of life, especially if it remains uninvestigated and unexposed. Documents show the involvement as well during this period -- of agencies including the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and various departments of Military Intelligence Services.

After the 71-day Siege at Wounded Knee in 1973, our criminal justice system became an improper tool of the Domestic Security section of the intelligence division of the FBI -- under Richard Held who is an associate director in its efforts to destroy AIM.

Citing the case of Leonard Peltier, Amnesty International has urged an independent inquiry into the use of our criminal justice system for political purposes by the FBI. It has never occurred.

The FBI concluded after many of the Wounded Knee prosecutions and I quote, “There are indications that the Indian militant problem in the area will not be resolved or discontinued with the prosecution of these insurgents.”

Most of the Wounded Knee criminal cases brought against hundreds of AIM members and supporters were eventually dismissed by various federal judges for the illegal use of the United States Military. The FBI then armed and equipped a group calling itself the GOON Squad on the Pine Ridge Reservation and more than 60 men, women, and children were killed in the political violence which followed. You have heard witnessed of some of this violence today. One woman who was talked about was a woman named Anna Mae Pictou. When her body was found, it was immediately examined at the behest of the FBI by a forensic pathologist; the FBI and the pathologist concluded that she had died of exposure. The FBI then -- as it was mentioned [earlier in the hearings] -- cut off her hands and sent them to Washington ostensibly to identify her. When she was identified, at the behest of the family, we sought an independent exhumation and forensic examination, and very quickly it was found her “death by exposure” was actually the placing of a pistol at the back of her head and pulling the trigger. The bullet was found within moments of the examination by chief medical examiner of Hennepin (sp) County which is Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Most of the violence perpetrated by the GOON Squad on the Pine Ridge Reservation against the Traditional People has never been investigated, despite the fact the FBI, through the Major Crimes Act, has asserted criminal jurisdiction over such matters on Indian reservations. I myself have been personally and directly threatened by agents of the FBI for my efforts to expose what the bureau did on the Pine Ridge Reservation and within the courts of our country.

One instance I personally witnessed was FBI agents and a BIA SWAT team escorting carloads of GOON Squad members and their weapons out of Wanblee, after a day and night of armed attacks on the community, which resulted in the ambush murder of a young AIM member and the burning and shooting up of several homes. One of the killers made a deal with the FBI and received a five year sentence -- for which he served far less -- and returned for his testimony that fellow GOON Squad members acted in self-defense against an unarmed victim and his friends. I investigated this murder at the request of tribal president elect and I was horrified by this deal. The killers were freed.

As US Court of Appeals Judge Gerald Heaney said after reviewing all of the evidence in this matter, “the United States Government overreacted at Wounded Knee. Instead of carefully considering the legitimate grievance of Native Americans, the response was essentially a military one which culminated in a deadly fire fight on June 26th, 1975 between the Native Americans and the FBI agents and the United States Marshals. While Judge Heaney believes that Native Americans had some culpability for the fire fight that day, he concluded “the United States must share the responsibility.” It never has. The FBI has never been held accountable or even publicly investigated for what one federal jury and Judge Heaney concluded was its complicity within the creation of a climate of fear and terror on the Pine Ridge Reservation which precipitated the fire fight that day and terrorized the community.

The FBI refers to the conflict that day as one in which only two young agents were killed. To the American Indian Movement members present that day, that tragic day, it has always been a day in which three young men were shot in the head and lost their lives -- the otherwise forgotten one being a young Native American father named Joseph Stuntz.

The government has used the incident to increase its disruptive campaign against the American Indian Movement. Noting Leonard Peltier’s regular presence and involvement in AIM activities, the FBI targeted Peltier for prosecution of the agents. According to the FBI documents, the Bureau was, within weeks of the fire fight, going to “develop information to lock Peltier into this case” and set out to do so. After Mr. Peltier’s co-defendants were acquitted on self-defense grounds by a federal jury in Cedar Rapids Iowa, the government decided to “put the full prosecutive weight of the Federal Government against Peltier”. The evidence shows the Government used now admittedly false eyewitness affidavits to extradite Leonard Peltier from Canada -- and this would catch the attention of Amnesty International and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals would call such conduct “a clear abuse of the investigative process by the FBI” and gives credence to the claims of Indian people that the government is willing to fabricate evidence to convict those branded as the enemy.

At Leonard Peltier’s trial, the Government presented evidence and argued to the jury that he personally shot and killed the two FBI agents. To do this, the Government presented (1) ballistics evidence purportedly connecting a shell casing found near the agents’ bodies with a rifle said to be possessed by Peltier and (2) the coerced and fabricated eyewitness account claiming the agents followed Peltier in a van precipitating the fire fight. Documents subsequently obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed that the ballistics evidence was a fraud and that the rifle could not have fired the expended shell casing found near the bodies. Further, the FBI’s surpressed evidence showed the agents followed a pickup, not a van, into the compound and thought someone else not Peltier was in that vehicle. The documents also show the FBI was planning a paramilitary assault on that particular portion of the reservation against AIM within weeks preceding this fire fight.

Upon disclosure of these documents, a renewed effort at a new trial was sought from the courts. While concluding that the surpressed evidence “cast a strong doubt” on the Government’s case, our appellate courts denied relief. The US Attorney’s Office has now admitted in court that it has no credible evidence that Leonard Peltier killed the agents. Under our system of justice, if there is a reasonable doubt, then Leonard Peltier is not guilty -- yet he has been in prison for over 24 years for a crime which he did not commit.

The FBI still withholds thousands of pages of documents of its investigation of the deaths of the FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation, claiming in many instances that disclosure would compromise the national security of the United States. In the absence of such disclosure, no new efforts at a new trial are possible.

Despite Congressional interest in an investigation of the tragic events at Ruby Ridge in Waco, this is the first time any member of congress has called for an airing of this issue, and it is with our thanks that we are here. It should only be the beginning of a Congressional effort to explore a threat by our principle federal investigative agency: as this agency is designed, it is supposed to protect our most fundamental freedom. The most recent response by the FBI, however, has been a concerted lobbying and media campaign to stop and interfere with prospects of clemency granted by the President of the United States. The FBI’s involvement in the politics of our country is a cause for great concern and alarm -- and along with all the other matters presented at this briefing here today -- they should be investigated and never allowed to happen again.

Judge Heaney, in a letter to Senator Inouye, urging executive clemency for Leonard Peltier, has urged that the process of healing begin. He stated: “favorable action by the President in the Leonard Peltier case would be an important step in this regard. It is time for America’s wars against the indigenous people of this hemisphere to stop. Freeing Leonard Peltier will be an important start of this process.”

And I thank you.