"Bring Peltier Home"
by Dennis Banks
The following account of the Leonard Peltier case is excerpted
from a talk by Dennis Banks at the Peltier Benefit Concert, held in San
Francisco in November, 1996
Leonard Peltier was arrested in Canada after a young Indian woman signed
a state-ment that she saw Peltier shoot the FBI agents. They took this affidavit
to Canada, and extradited Peltier back. They never used this statement in
court, and we wondered why. And then, as the young attorneys began to sift
through all this information, they found more, and then a key ballistics
test. It was the first test that the FBI ballistic expert from Washington
D.C. conducted, and he concluded that the shell casing found at the murder
scene could not be test-fired against Peltier's weapon, as Peltier's weapon
had been burned up a month before. And then seventeen years later, sitting
in St. Paul, Minnesota, Circuit Court of Appeals, Lynn Crooks admits to
the judge, at the last appeal, that we really don't know who shot those
agents. . . .
Leonard Peltier was sentenced eventually to two life sentences. On February
27th, it will be twenty-one years that he's been in prison. I want to say
that over the years I have talked to Leonard, the spirit has been high.
We believe that the judicial system would eventually see through the fallacy
of this court case against him, the sham of a trial. He was denied the right
of self-defense, so they convicted him. So we start tonight, on a final
effort to free Peltier. I hope these are final efforts.
We have collected over the years, fifty million signatures world wide, members
of the United States House of Representatives have joined us with letters
to the court. Now some of those House of Representatives members, have become
United States Senators, and still they sign the letters. In July, when we
announced the campaign to bring Peltier home, one million signatures, one
million requests have come to the White House through E-mail. Nelson Mandela,
exiled, imprisoned, himself from prison, wrote to Peltier and then later,
to President Bush asking for clemency for Peltier. And the bishops too,
and the many hundreds of people-from Russia alone, fifteen million signatures,
and from the U.S., twenty-five million people, and they are not from just
grassroots people, poor people. They contain the names of doctors, physicians,
attorneys, clerks, shopkeepers, mothers, fathers, people in high-tech jobs,
people unemployed-people from every walk of life in America signed those
petitions.
In the American Indian Movement we still believe in Peltier; we still believe
that one day he will be free. Year after year, month after month, I've crisscrossed
the country now twenty-some times in twenty years. We've walked across the
country three times. We've had a relay across it twice. We walked from the
UN to the northernmost village in Alaska, to Mexico City, bringing up the
name Peltier. Countries we have committed- Australia, New Zealand, Japan
and many, many European Countries. The name of Peltier stands out.
In April, next year, the United Nations Human Rights Commission will hear
the case of Peltier. Hopefully, he will be already out. So tonight, we start
this campaign. I want you to understand the gravity of the situation. We
have got to challenge the judicial system in this country. We saw most recently
at Ruby Ridge what they did; we saw what they did at WACO, but before that
it was Wounded Knee. We can't allow us to end this century, without some
accountability. . . .
You have to ride this with us. There are only 1.9 million Native People
in this country and every tribe in this country has signed for a solution
asking the President to release Peltier. And we are asking all of America
to stand with us, stand with us this time. In some cases you might have
to sit low in front to do the work for us, go out there and protest; sometimes
it gets tiring. For twenty-eight years now, it's been a national field trip
for the American Indian Movement. I've gone from prison to prison, from
community to community, bailing some person out of jail, or trying to find
bail for myself. . . .
Every one of us must rise up like a flock of geese. When the front runner
gets tired a little bit, then the next one moves up, and that's what you
have to do. Stand with me, people, for when Leonard Peltier goes to bed
tonight, and has been every night for the last twenty years, not able to
kiss his children good-night, not able to hold his grandchildren, tell them
any stories, we should feel that kind of loneliness. Until he is free, in
many ways we are all prisoners.
There are 1.9 million Native People in this country, and the history of
the treatment of Native People is terrible; it's ugly; it's vicious. So
we still stand, we still go forward, we can't go backward anymore. We have
to keep going forward; we have to look each day in the eye, understand that
prison life be there, that death retaliation from the police be there, but
we get up every day and do the same thing. I've been to eight prisons in
this country. I thought that was a way of life. . . . I thought everybody
was supposed to go to prison. It was becoming commonplace, and I don't want
it to be common.
Chief Joseph said in 1879, "Let me be a free man, free to travel about
my country, free to choose the teachers that I want to have my children
go to school to, free to follow my ancestors and the religion of those people.
Let me be free and I will sing. Let me be free and I will obey. I will obey
every law or I will submit to the penalty."
Today, in 1996 we are saying that Peltier should be standing right here.
"Let me be a free man. I want a free America. I'm tired of these jails,
I'm tired of these slum conditions. I want out, I want to be with my people,
I want to be with them tonight, I want to sing a song; I want to tell stories.
Let me be free, America. . . . I am Leonard Peltier, I am Leonard Peltier."
Free Leonard Peltier, bring Peltier home!
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