World-wide support for Peltier

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Federal officials in Canada and the United States continue to resist a varied and growing wave of support for a review of the Leonard Peltier case.

On April 16, Amnesty International called for the "immediate and unconditional release" of Peltier, saying he is a "political prisoner whose avenues for legal redress have long been exhausted."

On Feb. 11, the European Parliament renewed its 1994 demand that Peltier be granted presidential executive clemency and that an investigation be launched into the "judicial improprieties involved in Mr. Peltier's conviction."

On April 30, the wife of the former president of France, Danielle Mitterand, will visit Peltier in prison to conduct a fact-finding mission on behalf of her human rights organization, France Libertes Fondation. She will also meet with members of the U.S. Senate and First Lady Hillary Clinton.

Efforts are being made by Peltier supporters to get a resolution passed this summer when the Assembly of First Nations and the Congress of American Indians chiefs meet together for the first time in 60 years this July.

Peltier has been incarcerated for the past 23 years. He currently resides in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas. He was convicted of killing two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents during an exchange of gunfire between American Indian Movement members and the FBI agents on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota in 1975.

He remains in prison and has repeatedly been denied parole even though it has long been acknowledged by officials in both countries that he was wrongfully extradited to the United States from Canada. Statements by federal prosecutors in the United States also suggest he was also wrongfully convicted and imprisoned.

One of the people who has fought hardest for a review of the Peltier case is the man who was the Canadian solicitor general at the time of the extradition. Warren Allmand, who later was appointed as the Indian Affairs minister in September 1976, continues what he calls a crusade to see justice done. Now president of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development in Montreal, Allmand has dogged each successive Canadian Justice minister for action on the Peltier case, years after the extradition information became public that suggested the FBI fabricated the evidence it used to convince Canadian authorities to turn Peltier over to U.S. authorities.

Allmand told Windspeaker he was allowed to look through the confidential Justice department files regarding the case in 1995 after many years of lobbying for some sort of action by the federal government.

It wasn't until Allan Rock was appointed Justice minister during Jean Chretien's first term as prime minister that Allmand found anyone who would listen to his concerns.

"I never got anywhere. The answer was always, by both Conservative and Liberal governments that, even if the affidavit was fraudulent, there was sufficient other evidence to extradite Peltier. Bang! That's it. I would ask 'Well, what is that other evidence?' and never got an answer. Some parliamentary secretary always stood up and read something prepared by the bureaucrats from the department of Justice and it was very difficult to get at anybody," he said.

Rock listened to Allmand's concerns and took action.

"He ordered an internal review of the case through some people in his department who were not involved in the original extradition. And then he said to me, if I wished, he'd give me access to all the files in the department in respect to Peltier and I could review the files and give him my recommendation," Allmand said.

During a week-long parliamentary recess in the summer of 1995, Allmand pored through those files.

"Then I wrote a letter to Rock. Now, since I was given access to those files as a member of the Privy Council, I was sworn to my oath as a Privy Councillor so I can't release the letter. But, on the other hand, I can say that the bottom linof my letterwas, after going through all the files, it just confirmed what I'd been saying for years, that there was no other evidence to support the extradition. It just confirms more strongly in my mind that there was no other evidence," he said. "So, in my letter, I went through the various evidence and my final word was, 'Look, the FBI concocted this fraudulent affidavit to get the extradition and once that affidavit was shown to be fraudulent, there would have been no basis for the extradition. It's too late to get him back. The Americans are never going to give him back but at least you should send a protest to the American attorney general saying that this is not proper relations between two friendly countries. You know, we should be respecting each other's judicial systems. We're both democracies. We've got a long history of friendly relations and ask, 'Why are your guys putting phony affidavits in front of our courts?' Protest that and ask that it never be done again."

However, Rock didn't ever get around to dealing with Allmand's findings. He was shuffled over to the ministry of Health and, Allmand said, the process began all over again with his replacement.

"I'm still chasing after it. [Current Justice Minister] Anne McLellan's office still has it under consideration. I periodically phone to find out what's happening," he said.

Allmand, a long-time federal MP who represented Montreal's English-speaking Notre Dame de Grace riding, has obviously taken the Canadian role in the Peltier story very personally. It happened on his watch as solicitor general and he wants something done so he can put it behind him.

"Soon after I was appointed minister of Indian Affairs, I had this delegation of Indians. They said that Peltier had been arrested - I didn't even know who he was - and he's going before this extradition hearing in Vancouver and could I intervene and assure fair play for him. I checked with my officials and they said the last thing I could do as aplitician was t intervene. It's considered bad, bad, bad form to try and influence a court in any way. I replied to these people that I was sure that justice would take its course. Several years later, I found out what happened and, of course, I was a bit enraged because I had told these people that justice would take its course," he said. "When I heard what happened I just sort of set myself on a crusade."

Allmand isn't sure what the motivation might be for the lack of federal response on this issue but he has a couple of theories.

"I think what happened was, during the extradition in Vancouver, under the Canadian law or tradition at the time, the Canadian department of Justice had to appoint one of their lawyers to represent U.S. interests, which seems strange. So you had a Canadian government official representing the United States government before a Canadian court on this extradition," he said.

Allmand said there have been accusations the Canadian official knew at the time that the affidavit was phony, but he's seen no proof of that.

"The point is, I think, once they got involved in it at that level, I guess they felt embarrassed and once you make a mistake most people like to cover their tracks. They won't admit they made a mistake. So, ministers of Justice who kept on asking officials what was the answer to this . . . it kept flowing from the bottom up to the top that, yes the affidavit was fraudulent but there was other evidence. That was their view. But that wasn't the view of a lot of people from outside."

The former solicitor general didn't say 'no' when he was asked if racism might be a factor in the government's inaction.

"Maybe it's because Peltier's an Indian. I can't tell what the reason is. It could be. There's been other cases of prejudice in the past. I don't know whether it's that or simply when people make a mistake they don't want to admit they made a mistake," he said.

The FBI "misbehaved badly" throughout the affair, he added.

"The dd a number of strateic things to get a conviction - including things that weren't acceptable - and they got their conviction," he said.

The clouds that hover over the entire matter are reason enough for a review of the situation, Allmand believes, and the lack of action is a good sign that powerful people have something to hide.

"I've always said I don't know whether he did it or whether he didn't. What I do know is both the extradition and the trial had fraudulent evidence. The least he deserves is a new trial. If they've got all kinds of great evidence against him, let them produce it at trial," he said.

Federal authorities in the United States have been accused of helping tribal chief Dick Wilson (now deceased) conduct a reign of terror on the Pine Ridge reservation during the years leading up to the shoot-out at the Jumping Bull compound where the two FBI agents and a Native man - 21-year-old Joe Killsright Stuntz - were killed. It had only been two years since the 71-day siege at nearby Wounded Knee when local residents reported that a build-up of federal police officers began days before the shooting. The atmosphere in the region was super-charged. Pine Ridge had a murder rate that, per capita, exceeded that of Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles or New York City at the time. On the day of the shooting, Wilson signed over one-eighth of the tribal land to uranium mining interests. A paralegal who works for the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee says the shoot-out is seen in Pine Ridge as a planned distraction from the land transfer.

"Most of the people involved believe it was not a co-incidence," said Gina Chiala. "It was a planned distraction but two FBI agents were killed. That was an accident but it's considered unacceptable. Someone has to pay and innocence is not a factor."

Allmand agrees that the mood in the region was tense because of federal interference in Pine Ridge affairs.

"That's it. Part of the big battle was between, let's say the more devel