Free Peltier - Man with a mission

Page 9

Frank Dreaver and Leonard Peltier have an extraordinary working relationship. Their destinies are bound together in a sacred trust, tied to a moral, spiritual duty that has become a life mission for one man seeking the freedom of the other.

Leonard Peltier, American Indian Movement activist, political prisoner and victim of Canada's most controversial extradition, has been behind bars in an American prison for 24 years.

Frank Dreaver, former prisoner and founder of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee in Canada, has been his lifeline to the outside world for 14 of those 24 years.

The relationship started with a powerful commitment. It was more than a promise, deeper than a vow. Frank Dreaver took an oath, sworn on the pipe in the sacred circle, taken before Elders, to never stop fighting until Leonard Peltier is free. A life sentence, willingly embraced, in the struggle to free all Aboriginal people from injustice and oppression.

"The oath that I made in Toronto in 1983 was to help organize and keep the struggle to free Leonard Peltier alive and take it to the people of the world. I made that promise and have stuck to it. It is a battle that many have given their lives for. How could I turn my back on that?"

Dreaver, a 46-year-old Plains Cree from the Mistawasis First Nation in Saskatchewan, is the great-great grandson of hereditary Chief Mistawasis (Big Child) of the Northern Plains Cree, who was one of the four original chiefs who signed Treaty 6 in 1876.

For 14 years, Dreaver has worked as the international spokesperson and Canada's national co-ordinator for the fight to free Peltier. He is also keeper of Peltier's drum, a position entrusted to him by its maker, Ojibway Elder, the late Art Solomon, who together with the late Ethel Pearson, revered Elder of the Kwakiutl Nation and Leonard Peltier's adopted mother, were a tremendous support to and members of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee advisory council.

In 1986, Frank founded the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee of Canada with his wife Anne, an editor and journalist who took on the job of national administrator.

The Dreavers have been actively co-ordinating support groups fighting for Peltier's freedom since 1980, the year Frank was released from the Prince Albert, Sask. federal penitentiary after serving a nine-year sentence and heading for Toronto.

"I had relatives in the AIM movement living in Toronto and that was the best opportunity open to me. Anne had been working for six months as editor of the centre's in-house newspaper. Covering stories that came with the job took her into the provincial jails, meeting with inmates and Elders. When she learned that Frank had just been released from federal prison, it sparked her interest.

"We had all these connections. We are still shocked today, call it fate and destiny. We say that God did it, brought us together," said Frank.

Frank had grown up in a broken family, losing his mother to drug and alcohol abuse in 1967. Raised by his traditional grandmother from 1953 until her death in 1967, Frank moved in with relatives at Mistawasis, before being sent to the All Saints Indian Boarding School in Prince Albert.

"The Indian boarding school was located just across from the pen in Prince Albert. I lasted until spring and was always hungry. I ran away after being caught stealing a sack of cookies from the school kitchen.

Tracked down by the RCMP, I also escaped from the boys' school reformatory, ending up streetwise, living on my own and in trouble.

"I ended up serving nine years in prison. I was not a violent offender, but suffered racial abuse, survived several riots, shutdowns and lockouts, and being beaten and left in a coma for 18 days. On Aug. 27, 1980 I was released and left for Toronto," said Frank.

It was in Toronto that the healing began.

Dreaver became a dedicated activist, petitioning for prisoner's rights and reform, counselling young people, speaking out about the brutal, dehumanizin reality of the prison industry. He also gathered his two boys in Edmonton, who are now men with families and children, and with Anne began raising a family with three children.

"Before his incarceration, Leonard was struggling to bring back our ways to the people, to the circle. It isn't about standing up with a rifle. Most people know about Leonard's case, that he stood up, defended his people and became a victim. They don't know him as a man who was going to sundances, talking to people in prison, working with youth in the streets. These are our traditional responsibilities, that's what I tell young people coming out of prison. We only have ourselves to blame for not being ready, not having the tools to support them," said Frank.

For almost 20 years, Frank and Anne Dreaver have been immersed in the struggle for Leonard Peltier's freedom, seeking out avenues for justice that would support clemency and Leonard's freedom. One of their most important achievements was to establish the LPDC Canada 14 years ago as one of two national defence committees, based on separate political and legal jurisdictions representing the two countries violated in this injustice. The U.S. international office is based in Lawrence, Kansas, close to Leonard who is confined in Leavenworth prison.

The LPDC Canada took part in several European tours and projects each year from 1990 to 1997, involving more than a dozen European and former East Bloc countries.

It was on the basis of international violation occurring in Canada, Leonard's extradition, that Frank, accompanied by Elders or Peltier's original defence attorneys, the late Lew Gurwitz and Bruce Ellison, lobbied extensively for international support.

"If it could happen in Canada, it could happen to any other country around the world. What we are asking for is the Canadian government to intervene out of a responsibility for having authorized a false extradition, being assured by American authorities he would receive a fair trial wen he did not, and recommend the president grant clemency," said Frank.

"I have seen 'Free Leonard Peltier' banners painted across many walls in Europe. I witnessed the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and migrations of peoples coming across was part of the organizing of a multi-country European Freedom Run for Leonard Peltier and all Indigenous people in 1996, involving more than 70 different peoples, mainly youth from different countries who ran an estimated 2,500 km to conclude at a prayer vigil with world Indigenous delegates at United Nations hearing of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland. I have learned that through struggle that we are all equal. Outside of the struggle is a lost place. I hold people accountable. If you are not accountable to the struggle, you should not be here," he added.

In the last few years, however, the fast and hard life of Frank's earlier years and prison abuse have taken an alarming toll on his health. Hepatitis C, the deterioration of his liver, with related complications, has forced him to cut back on his international travel and focus on building a renewed Canadian campaign for clemency and freedom for Peltier while President Clinton is still in office this year and can grant clemency.

The Dreavers are working on setting up an independent Citizen's Commission of Inquiry- one of the most important projects they have ever worked on with their legal advisor and support from trade unions across Canada, Aboriginal organizations, First Nation offices, student movements and other committed parties.

"Finally, Leonard would receive a fair and impartial hearing since no court or government in both Canada or the U.S. will give him one. It is the one avenue open to us in Canada with findings and recommendations sent to both Canadian and American governments in the demand for clemency. We are asking all Canadian people to support the clemency campaign and the independent inquiry scheduled for the fall of 2000. We invite all Aoriginal, justice, human rights, academic, labor and special interest groups to get in touch with us for more details," said Frank.

The committee is interested in expanding and assembling lobby contacts for political lobby and outreach purposes in regions across the country. It is extremely critical to continue to pressure the Canadian government and hold it accountable for authorizing a false extradition, especially since Justice Minister Anne McLellend closed her department's review last October, concluding that Canada had done nothing wrong.

Opposition MPs have responded by calling for full public disclosures on all files, including a judicial inquiry.

"The circle won't be complete until Leonard Peltier is free, the only person from that time who is still imprisoned for defending the rights of our Indian peoples. With the Peltier case, we have the advantage of having all of the documentation that most issues like this in our history have never had. That's why the unions and non-Native groups supporting the issue are so particularly keen, because it's all there and they see their rights violated as well. The problem is that we've never been allowed to put it on the table," added Frank.

"As long as our people are oppressed and imprisoned and denied their basic human rights, I will never be free and neither will you. I will never give up the truth of my own experience and that's my passport in creation. That's how I fit in. Today I continue to set that example no matter how hard it gets. We can't give up. We don't have the right to give up and the struggle must continue.

"We could never have accomplished so much over the years without the courage of our brother, Leonard, and all of those who have sacrificed their lives in this struggle and of those who continue to pick up where others have left off. It has been these peoples, with integrity, conviction and strong commitment, who have insured our survival and the continuance in our ongoing struggle for Leonard'