Successful surgery for Peltier

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There have been several significant developments in the Leonard Peltier saga this month.

The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee sent out an urgent bulletin on the afternoon of March 20 saying Peltier was missing from his cell at Leavenworth Federal Prison. Inquiries revealed that the man who is serving two life sentences after being convicted - human rights organizations all over the planet say wrongfully - of murdering two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975 had been transferred to a correctional facility in Minnesota.

It was later learned that on March 21 a maxillofacial expert at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., Dr. E. E. Keller, performed a five-hour surgery on Peltier who had been suffering for the last four years from a severe condition that caused his jaw to be frozen open 13 millimeters.

X-rays taken on March 20 showed that Peltier suffered from ankylosis on both sides of his mandible, meaning that his jaw was completely frozen and immobile. Keller reported that the surgery went smoothly and Peltier's jaw has been returned to normal. He added that Peltier is happy and recovering comfortably.

The observations by the physician contradict statements by prison authorities that Peltier did not need medical attention.

On another front, an investigation by this newspaper has failed to conclude that former Alberta police officer Robert Newbrook's claim that the RCMP and FBI staged a show arrest of the American Indian Movement activist in 1976 has any substance.

As reported last month, Newbrook said he arrested Peltier the day before the RCMP reports he was arrested.

A note written by Peltier to this newspaper was read over the phone by Gina Chiala, a Peltier Defense Committee employee, on March 16. Peltier stated he was arrested only once, a statement which seems to destroy the credibility of the former Hinton police officer's statement.

Some of his story checks out. Newbrook was a member of a small, stand-alone municipal police department in those days. Town records viewed first-hand by Windspeaker verify that claim. Hinton was one of the few towns in the province of Alberta that had its own police service. Most small towns contract the RCMP to provide policing.

The Town of Hinton is a rough-and-tumble mill town located on the edge of the Rocky Mountain wilderness. It's the place of choice for all sorts of hard-living roustabouts who come into town to blow off a little steam after long days, weeks or even months of toil in the mines, oil rigs and lumber camps located nearby in the bush.

Chief Smallboy's Camp, a spiritual retreat on Crown land located about an hour-and-a-half's drive southwest of Hinton is populated by just over 100 Native people, most of whom are from the Four Nations at Hobbema, Alta. It was in this isolated settlement that Peltier took refuge in 1976 and it was here that he was apprehended by the RCMP in the old school house. Locals say there were three men who arrived in camp a day or two before the Feb. 6 arrest. Peltier, Frank Black Horse and Ronald Blackman (also known as Ron Janvier) arrived from Vancouver Island and were in the camp just a few days before police closed the only road that is accessible to the camp in winter and moved in on Peltier. Many camp residents insist that the FBI was present during the arrest, directing the operation, although the RCMP made the arrest.

Lawyer Bruce Ellison has been representing Peltier since the early days. He is aware of all the details of his client's history and he is very skeptical of Newbrook's version of events.

"I don't believe his story," he said. "It conflicts with all of the court testimony surrounding his arrest and all of the federal and RCMP evidence."

Ellison believes the FBI were at the camp at the time of the arrest.

"I'm sure that's true," he said. "The RCMP has a group called the dissident squad. During that time period there were joint operations between the FBI and the RCMP. The FBI couldn't make thearrest but if the RCMP said it was OK for them to be there they can participate in a way while the RCMP makes the official arrest."

Newbrook is prepared to admit he got the name wrong. He said he called the person he arrested Black Horse, believing that to be Peltier's Indian name. He seems convinced he arrested a Native man at the time of Peltier's arrest. Of the three men in the camp at time, two were arrested together - Black Horse and Peltier. The other, Blackman or Janvier, has disappeared from the historical landscape.

Also of interest to those who would seek to help Newbrook follow up his recollections is the fact that he suffered serious brain injury when his hang-glider crashed in August 1995. The injury produced mood disorders and he was subject to psychiatric monitoring for an extended period of time. Newbrook volunteered this information as proof of his sincerity. He said he didn't want this information to surface later at a time when it could be used to discredit his claims.

In Newbrook's defense, there was no shortage of people in Hinton, where he has recently returned to live after a 20-year absence, and in the Vancouver area, where he lived from the late 1970s until recently, who vouched for his character and his professionalism and effectiveness both as a police officer and as a financial advisor.

Many of the people in Smallboy's Camp were interviewed by Newbrook late in 1999 and their statements frequently conflict with the official version of events, but people who could verify more of his story are dead or, as in Peltier's case, contradict him. Newbrook will be formally examined by defense committee lawyers in the near future. Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief told this paper on Feb. 28 that a big public relations push, sponsored jointly by the AFN and the National Congress of American Indians, is soon to be started to put pressure on U.S. authorities to let Peltier out of jail. One of the items on the agenda is a more thorough examinatin of Newbrook's story making use of resources not available to reporters.

Although the sudden change in direction by prison officials which allowed Peltier to get the medical treatment he needed could be interpreted as a sign that the authorities may be preparing to let him out of jail, the legal battle to get him released is continuing.

"There's currently an appeal underway of the actions of the parole board in what we consider them arbitrarily denying parole," Ellison said.

He said the FBI is anxious to keep Peltier in jail because he represents the threat that events on the Pine Ridge Reservation could be re-opened and examined.

"There's no question the FBI wants to keep him in, as well as to keep the issues of his conviction unresolved and uninvestigated," he said.

Unsolved and uninvestigated murders at Pine Ridge during that time period are believed by many to have been part of a government-sponsored reign of terror in the community and Ellison believes any investigation of those murders will implicate the FBI in some way.

He said the disastrous FBI operations at Waco, Texas and Ruby Ridge, Idaho could have been prevented if the FBI had been forced to answer for its actions at Pine Ridge. He still thinks an inquiry is necessary.

"I think it would only help [Peltier's] case. I think it would only help to prevent similar counter-intelligence operations in the future," he said. "Every indication is that it's still going on whatever it's called."

Asked why the FBI is so boldly sticking to its story despite the overwhelming international support Peltier has received, Ellison said there's a very simple reason.

"Because they've gotten away with it. Despite all the evidence, Congress has refused to look at it. Despite recommendations back in the 1970s from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, back in the 80s from Amnesty International. Every time a Congressional committee or sub-committee has begun to look at this it has been thwarted by meetings with senior BI officials. Three days before the fire fight in Oglala that resulted ultimately in Peltier's conviction, the Senate intelligence committee was going to do a major investigation of improprieties, if not illegalities of the FBI directed against the American Indian Movement. The day after the fire fight they cancelled any thought of a review and Congress has refused to touch it ever since then," he said.