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Thursday, December 14, 2000 
COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE...
   PETER WORTHINGTON
   COLUMN

           By PETER WORTHINGTON
George W. Bush becoming president of the United States might be the best news Indian activist Leonard Peltier ever got.
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.. A powerful Canadian brief has been accepted by the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa to be forwarded to Clinton, who last month said he "personally" was going to look into Peltier's case with an eye to granting executive clemency.

The brief is the result of an unusual commission of inquiry held in Toronto in October before retired Quebec Appeal Court Judge Fred Kaufman, where for the first time publicly, sworn testimony was heard that the FBI knowingly fabricated evidence to deceive a Canadian court into extraditing Peltier to the U.S. .. It's long been known that Myrtle Poor Bear, now 47 (then 22), was coerced, intimidated and threatened with death if she didn't sign affidavits written by the FBI saying she was Peltier's girlfriend and had witnessed him shoot FBI agents Jack Coler and Ron Williams that June 26, 1975, during a range war at the Pine Ridge reservation. (Some 60 Indians were shot to death over three years, with no convictions.)

Judge Kaufman came to the case with no previous exposure to Peltier and was shocked by the evidence. He said "without hesitation" that witnesses appeared "honest and credible" and had the facts been known in 1976, Peltier would not have been extradited.
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The brief has gone to the Canadian government, and constitutes a rebuke to Justice Minister Anne McLellan, who last year ruled that Peltier's extradition was above board and fair. She ignored a review ordered by her predecessor, Allan Rock, and carried out by former Liberal Solicitor-General and ex-Indian affairs minister Warren Allmand, who found the extradition was based solely on the fake Poor Bear affidavit.

At an Ottawa press conference this week, Allmand chastised the government, saying Canada had a moral obligation to right the wrong it had unwittingly committed by endorsing the perjury. So far the justice department insists that Peltier was "lawfully extradited."
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A persuasive element in the clemency appeal is a ruling at Peltier's original trial in 1977, whereby Judge Paul Benson refused a defence motion to have Myrtle Poor Bear testify as to how the FBI threatened and fabricated her affidavit.

Benson ruled that if she testified, and was a believable witness as to the FBI's wrong-doing, it might "shock the conscience of the court" and persuade the jury that Peltier was innocent.

Her testimony was ruled inadmissible.

As well as threatening and coercing Poor Bear, the FBI has since been reprimanded for withholding evidence that caused the jury to think the only AR-15 rifle for which a shell casing was found at the death scene, belonged to Peltier. In fact, AR-15s were plentiful, and the casing in question didn't fit Peltier's rifle.

It's hard to see how President Clinton, or Anne McLellan, can remain unaffected by the persuasive contents of this brief. If they read it. A big if. Judge Kaufman's letter expresses shock at being confronted with irrefutable evidence both the law and justice were corrupted.
Still, the FBI continues a campaign to keep Peltier in prison, a campaign mindful of what happened to Nelson Mandela for 27 years in South Africa. And Mandela was guilty.
One wonders if granting amnesty to Peltier will be his final legacy. At least, it would be doing the right thing. For once.

Peltier: A Chronology from Indian Country Today

GROUP TARGETING WHITE CLAY SALES:
Group targeting Whiteclay beer sales 
BY JOE DUGGAN 
Lincoln Journal Star

Three years ago, problems from beer sales in Whiteclay to residents of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota exploded before the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission.
This morning in Lincoln, a Nebraska peace advocacy organization hopes to generate an aftershock....
READ THE ARTICLE...

related web sites and articles:

CAMP JUSTICE

[NativeNews] 
White Clay Protestor Court Arguments Due  Today,  30 Sep 2000
WHITE CLAY: Protests fail to halt beer sales in village, 10 Aug 1999 
 Last Call on Pine Ridge,  6 Aug 1999 

Cuba marks Human rights day with mass detentions and sentences for dissidents

"The mass detention of dissidents and political opponents in the
weeks around the 52nd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights indicates a continued disrespect by the Cuban
authorities towards several of the fundamental freedoms enshrined
in the Declaration," Amnesty International said today. "Although
the number of prisoners of conscience in Cuba appears to have
dropped slightly during 2000, these events clearly demonstrate
the government's will to suppress attempts to exercise the rights
to freedom of expression, association and assembly."
READ THE RELEASE...

Past and current Amnesty news services
 
 

INDIAN LAW US v. QUINAULT INDIAN NATION, No 99-35104 (9th Cir. December 13, 2000) Under the Boldt decision, which dealt with fishing rights of Washington state Indian tribes, the off-reservation catch of a non-treaty tribe attributed to the State should apply to the on-reservation catch of a tribe whose reservation was created not by treaty but by Executive Order. Read the full text of this opinion -=<+>=- LOWER ELWHA BAND OF S'KLALLAMS v. LUMMI INDIAN TRIBE, No 98-35964 (9th Cir. December 13, 2000) The 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott did not give the Lummi Indian Tribe fishing rights to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Admiralty Inlet or the mouth of the Hood Canal. Read the full text of this opinion

Canada satisfied Peltier extradited on solid evidence despite new findings
STEPHEN THORNE
Vancouver Sun

OTTAWA (CP) - Canada is satisfied a native-rights activist was not extradited on falsified evidence in 1976, regardless of a report to the contrary by a former Quebec judge, says the justice minister's office.
READ THE STORY...

FRONT PAGE DEC 12, 2000

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