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LEONARD PELTIER

From: "LPDC" <lpdc@idir.net>

Dear Friends,

Below is the promised sample letter to the editor which you can use to respond to any news coverage of FBI director Louis Freeh's statement.
READ THE REST...

-=<+>=-

Clinton Faces Intense Views on Clemency in F.B.I. Case

By DAVID JOHNSTON

ASHINGTON, Dec. 7 — President Clinton's willingness to reconsider the life sentences given to Leonard Peltier for the killings of two F.B.I. agents more than two decades ago has provoked an intense lobbying campaign by Mr. Peltier's defenders and a powerful opponent, director Louis J. Freeh of the F.B.I.
Law enforcement officials said Mr. Freeh expressed bitterness after Mr. Clinton said last month in a radio interview that he would review the Peltier case, along with all other clemency petitions.
READ THE STORY...

-=<+>=-

 "President urged not to commute Peltier's sentence" 
By: PETE YOST / AP Writer

WASHINGTON, D.C. - "In a pointed plea, FBI Director Louis Freeh is urging President Clinton not to commute the life prison term of an American Indian activist serving a life term for killing two FBIs agents.
READ THE STORY

Letter that Louis Freeh wrote to 
the President, Janet Reno, and Henry Hyde

 -=<+>=-

Reno Unhappy With Peltier Case 
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, 
Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General Janet Reno (news - web sites) expressed misgivings Thursday over the public release of FBI (news - web sites) Director Louis Freeh's recommendation against presidential clemency for an American Indian activist imprisoned for killing two FBI agents.

Asked at her weekly news conference whether it is appropriate for Freeh to be make public comments on Leonard Peltier's case, Reno replied: ``I think these matters should be confined to a discussion with the president.''

FBI spokesman John Collingwood had no comment on Reno's remarks.......
READ THE STORY.....
 -==<+>==-

A rebuttal by Michael Eckhardt: response to FBI letter
Leonard Peltier: Pain & Loss Enough from Koga Suyeta

-==<+>==-

URGENT PELTIER ACTION {excerpted}

~Keep an eye on your newspapers and TV news broadcasts, and prepare to respond. We will release a sample letter to the editor tomorrow so that supporters can respond to any news papers who print the article.  With your letter to the editor, send a copy of the "ethics complaint" filed against the FBI with Janet Reno.

 If your local news channel covers the story, please let us know what the station is, so that we can contact them.

AP Story:
[NativeNews] Hyde Opposes Clemency for FBI Agent Killer Leonard Peltier
 

A message from the Eddie Hatcher Defense Committee
 

Dear friends,
    Eddie Hatcher's capital murder trial is scheduled for January 8,
2001.  Eddie's mother has learned that Court TV is interested in airing the trial, which would help greatly in assuring that he receives a fair trial.  We need everyone to call and/or write to Court TV and request that they cover the trial.  It only takes a second, and the call is toll-free.
    MAILING ADDRESS:
    Court TV
    600 Third Ave.
    New York, NY 10016
    TELEPHONE:
    212-973-2800

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS:
    Other developments have come up in the case, and are listed
below.  The website (www.eddiehatcher.org) will be updated today or
tomorrow, with more details about the matters listed below.
    -Eddie has filed a motion to appoint counsel, which was
approved by Judge Jerry Cash Martin.  This means that attorneys Sue Berry and Woodberry Bowen will represent him at trial in January.
    -The defense committee has retained Carnell Locklear as a public
relations spokesperson.  Mr. Locklear has been involved in the Indian movement for 30 years, is well known in Robeson County, and has spoken on Eddie's behalf in several states. 
He can be reached at 
PO Box 545, 
Pembroke, NC 28372. 
Telephone: 910-521-0495
    -Defense committee meeting planned for 7:00 p.m., December 7,
2000, in the basement of the Campus Y at UNC-Chapel Hill.  This will be a joint meeting of the Eddie Hatcher Defense Committee and the UNC Campaign to End the Death Penalty.  For questions, please contact John Johnson: 919-914-7106.

    Any other questions can be directed to Eddie's mother, Thelma
Clark, at 910-582-2764.  To be added to the Eddie Hatcher listserv, go to http://www.egroups.com/group/eddiehatcher

Thanks,
John Johnson

-==<+>==-
PRISONER COMMUNICATIONS:

WRITTEN BY
SNOW DEER

Anyone contemplating embarking on a friendship with a prisoner....imho, Brigitte's advice is excellent and spot-on.

The only thing I would add is that anyone thinking about this, please
give VERY serious thought to the *commitment* you are embarking on.

This is not a "for fun" thing......this is people's lives we are talking
about, and often their very sense of sanity and self-worth.

So many prisoners have little family contact, if you make a strong
connection with them, then you will become to them the same as family
and this requires commitment.

As with being used and abused, it hurts prisoners badly when they think
they have a friend and that friend then "disappears". Be aware that you
could end up maintaining this friendship with them for years and years.
Can you cope with their expectations of you?

When pen-friends stop writing, prisoners wonder what they did wrong and
often end up shy of taking on another friendship....loneliness being
easier to cope with than the fear of abandonment. There is a knock-on effect here that may influence them for many years...even out into the free-world.

Everyone has problems, large or small, in their lives. If you make a
friend behind bars and your own life hits the skids - tell him/her.

You don't to give details if you don't want, but just let them know that it's you with the problems that are interrupting letters and not them.

You will be suprised at how patient they can be and how
understanding....the chances being that they have endured worse and can empathise with you!!

You wouldn't walk out on a member of your own family when the going gets rough....so don't do it to them.

They have enough to cope with, with the conditions they live in, with
coping with the guilt of their past and the consequences of their bad
life-choices, the knowledge that they may never be able to make up to the victims the damage they caused (or with the bitter knowledge if they are incarcerated unfairly), with the abandonment of their own
families...all without coping with rejection from a friend.

I would also like to say that the people you meet will not be angels.

Reading the posts of recent days, please bear in mind that people such as Storm and myself have been extraordinarily lucky. Gabby and Two Streams have survived with their sense of self-worth intact, with their sense of "right and wrong" intact - and also survived with their sense of being First Nations men intact as well. Brigitte has also been lucky in finding good friends.

Some prisoners don't make it through so well. Brigitte mentioned that you will find users and abusers behind those prison walls, and that is certainly true, and there is not much you can do there except explain why you cannot maintain the friendship and move on.

Be explicit. Tell them what you find offensive. That knowledge gives
them the option of amending their behaviour next time someone offers friendship. If you just stop writing, they will never know how they caused offence.

Aside and separate from the users and abusers, you will also find people who have been badly affected by their life experiences and they may be a little "off the wall" at times.

It takes a great deal of patience and "rolling with the punches" to be a friend to a person affected this way and who has come to depend on you for friendship.

Also, you may make friends with someone only to find out at a later date some aspect of their crime that does not sit well with you. Please
examine yourself *before* you begin about what you think your response will be should you find out something you don't like down the line.....do you just abandon that person because they were too scared to tell you and lose your friendship, or do you work through it with them?

Imagine becoming close and fond friends and finding out something like this....think about what you would do - and also the implications of what you would do on both your own sense of whether you are doing the right thing as well as what you will do to the prisoner.

This is not a game. We are talking about peoples lives and sometimes
(especially in the case of "Lifers" and those on death row) their
sanity.

I hope that I have not put anyone off trying to establish a friendship
with a prisoner. Prisoners need many more people like Brigitte - honest and compassionate friends who stick with them and keep them in touch with the outside world.

I just wanted to impress on anyone contemplating this.....you will have a responsibility to that person, more so than you can possibly imagine before you actually begin down this path.

Before you begin, talk it over with your own family and think about
whether you can sustain this obligation year after year. If you can then I wish you and your soon-to-be friends the very best of luck....

-==<+>==-

Written by
 Brigitte Thimiakis 
Below are a few links to FN prisoner penpal lists. Sorry to say I haven't been able to find a list of FN female prisoners, I don't think there is any such list.

And here are a few tips I found pretty useful, as I had no experience whatsoever in writing people in prison (I didn't know anyone behind bars).
If you wish to write a prisoner, please remember to write their complete name, # and address, on the envelope, as well as your own name and address on the front side of the envelope (you can use a P.O. Box if you don't feel comfortable using your home address). Avoid writing two prisoners at the same address.
 At first it is better to write a simple letter to introduce yourself, say why you wish to write (i.e. moral support). Many prisons do not allow postcards, scented writing paper... so it it better to ask your penpal what is allowed before you send anything else than a plain letter, otherwise it might be returned, possibly at the prisoner's expenses.
If the correspondence goes well and you wish to help out a little with the postage, because for instance your penpal is in isolation and without income, you may want to ask him/her how to send a little cash. Stamps are usually not allowed.
If the reply you get is not to your liking for whatever reason it is best to explain right away why it is not OK, so there is no misunderstanding. If things go wrong (disrespect) you can refuse the mail or even ask the prison to block it. Then you try another penpal :-) 
But as I said I had no problems, except for one penpal whom I had to give up on because his letters were offensive. I told him so, refused his last letter and never heard from him again. And another one, who was not a problem but wrote back 6 months later kindly asking me nothing but what my phone number was! These two prisoners are not on the lists below. It is a fact that there are prisoners who have nothing else on their mind but playing games, asking for money or use people in any way they can, but if ignored they disappear. They don't want to get in trouble if you send their mail to the warden!

All the other penpals I contacted have been very nice, going out of their way to make me little suprises, sending me self-made cards or little things, words of wisdom or poems of their own or copied. They trust me and know that I would never use any of their writing without asking them. I know they truly care about my family and me. I never mentioned friendship in my first letters, but they did. Since their freedom is so restricted in their world, I try never to impose anything on them, they really appreciate been given choices even if it is small details. 

It just amazes me to see how people who have been through so many hardships and  tragedies, still have so much to offer to someone who has been a lot luckier. Some are traditional people, I have learned a lot from them, even though they never try to actually "educate me". I am really grateful for these friendships. If I lived in the states I would try my best to meet them in person.

They have also opened my eyes in many respects. A year ago I took almost everything for granted... now I take NOTHING for granted. Simple things of life that are forbidden to them, have regained all their values to me, like hugging my kids, going for a walk, walking freely from one room into another, opening a fridge to have a bite! Isolation is a terrible, inhuman thing and terribly damaging to sanity- it should be used in cases when the prisoner is really out of control and not on the whims of guards...and not for a long time.

 I know that prisons are a necessity to keep dangerous criminals away from the communities, but none of my penfriends is a dangerous criminal. I know the reasons why they are behind bars, and in most cases they send me legal papers to prove their honesty (I never asked). What happened to them in a few cases might happen overnight to my husband, my teenager son, my brothers, or my father. The US justice system is awful... not that things are perfect in Europe. But it is much worse in the USA.
One of my penpal has just won his appeal... he shouldn't have been put in prison. It will take them about 6 months to release him!
Sometimes I think of the people who make worse mistakes, but don't get caught, either because they are rich, or have connections, or are 'smarter', they run free, like the childmolester Eni told us about, they are a much worse danger than people like my penpals.

I apologise for writing so much. But, prisoners don't stop being human because they are put behind walls. US prisons have to be filled up at any cost, Big Business, and as always it is the minorities who pay the price. And proportionately, there are more First Nations prisoners in US prisons than in other races. I strongly believe that many of these prisoners can still be a valuable members of their Nations, and they should be. Especially the ones who are trying to help, they should be helped too. 

Besides, most of them will be released sooner or later. They need to know that society still accepts them. You can't be treated like dirt for years or ignored and  re-enter society happy and cheerful. Many are asking for guidance. Writing them is a way of listening to them and allowing them to exist as individuals... not as numbers as the prison policies want them to be. I think it can even help a bit in the process of rehabilitation, which is something you cannot find behind bars. My little experience tells me that in most cases, if you give them respect and consideration, they give you the same, and more. 

I hope the links will help. Some prisoners have several penpals already, others have nobody... there's no way to know unless you ask the penpal list owner. Good luck, and thank you.

Respectfully,
Brigitte

Selected Prisoner Pen Pal Lists
Native American Inmate and Family Support Group
NAPS (where you can read appeals from NA prisoners whose spiritual rights are violated, and write them)
Native American Political Issues/penpal list
USP Atlanta PP network
Ironlodge penpal list
 

Related Web Links:
I Know Why the Caged Lion Roars
Department of Corrections..many links
Federal Bureau of Prisons 
Statistical data on federal prison populations by gender, race,
ethnicity, age and other demographic characteristics. 

new!
Please also visit:
Arts in Chains
Intro Speech
<>MP Vanoost Speech
<>Luc De Roeck Homepage
<>L.P.D.C. 
<>Poetry in Chains

To contact us, please click here:
 

ACTIVISTS:
: Kevin Pranis
: Grassroots Leadership/Prison Moratorium Project
: c/o DSA 180 Varick Street, 12th Floor
: New York, NY 10014
: (646) 486-6715
: (212) 727-8616 (fax)
: (917) 860-4635 (cell)
: kpranis@nomoreprisons.org
: 9178604635@mobile.att.net (text messages up to 15 words)

<+>
Shared by Kay Lee
2613 Larry Court
Eau Gallie, Florida  32935
715-695-3109

To find out how prisoners in America are really being
treated, check out this webpage:
MAKING THE WALLS TRANSPARENT
 

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