Who is Leonard Peltier?

by Christian Teichert

[This article posted on 9/1/2024 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.ossietzky.net/artikel/wer-ist-leonard-peltier/.]

In the 1980s, four flyers from the Junge Welt were stuck to the roll-fronted cabinet in my study: “Free Angela Davis!”, “Free Luis Corvalán!”, “Free Nelson Mandela!” and “Free Leonard Peltier!” The African-American civil rights activist and philosopher Angela Davis was released in 1972 after more than a year in prison and has since taught at various universities around the world. The Chilean Unidad Popular politician Luis Corvalán, imprisoned in the concentration camp on the island of Dawson after the fascist coup in 1973, was released after three years in exchange for a Soviet dissident. And Nelson Mandela, imprisoned by the South African apartheid regime in August 1962, was famously released in 1990 after more than 27 years and shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 with South African President Frederik de Klerk. Only Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist and member of the American Indian Movement, is still in prison in the United States – and has been for more than 48 years.

Before I address the question posed in the title, a brief digression regarding the situation of Native Americans in the “model country of democracy”: When I started a two-and-a-half-year research stay with my family of four in the midwest of the United States in 1993, in the Midwest of the United States, I was often met with a lack of understanding when I asked colleagues, neighbors and even good friends how one could get to know the Native Americans. “What are you going there for? They just drink and gamble, don't they?” Only one colleague, who was from Canada, said euphorically that it was a good idea, but he had to warn me that we should not be surprised if we were greeted in Bavarian, for example, since many Native Americans had to serve in American military bases in Germany. My first (knowing) encounter with a Native American was with the world musician Carlos Nakai. He appeared on stage with an eagle bone flute and alerted the concert audience to the fact that Native Americans are at best regarded as mascots by white people. We also realized this during our first visit to a powwow, when only one white family was invited in addition to our family. So the indigenous population was left to their own devices. At this Native American festival, as well as at other powwows I have attended since, leaflets were distributed calling for the release of Leonard Peltier. Among Native Americans, this most famous indigenous prisoner in the United States is considered their spiritual leader, who has repeatedly spoken out from prison about the situation of Native Americans with his voice, writings and paintings. In 2004, he was nominated as a presidential candidate by the Peace and Freedom Party. When Native American musicians such as Wade Fernandez or Mitch Walking Elk perform in Europe, there is never a song that does not call for the release of Leonard Peltier. At a peace event in Europe, I had the opportunity to talk to Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú Tum, who is originally from Guatemala, about Leonard Peltier, whereupon she reported in detail on two visits to Leonardo, as she called him, in the maximum security prison.

Leonard Peltier, born in 1944 (his parents were of the Anishinabe and Lakota tribes), was found guilty in 1977, after a court case that is still controversial today, of having shot and killed two FBI agents in 1975 during a shoot-out that followed civil war-like tribal unrest in the Pine Ridge Reservation* in South Dakota. In the years 1973-75, after the occupation of the historic site of Wounded Knee, the FBI used the division within the Oglala Lakota and supported the US-loyal residents of the reservation with weapons and ammunition. Initially convicted of first-degree murder, the verdict was changed to “aiding and abetting murder” – after all the evidence had been proven false – but the sentence of two consecutive life sentences remained, ironically to be served one after the other. Evidence that could have supported Leonard Peltier's defense was not admitted. Meanwhile, former prosecutor James Reynolds, who was jointly responsible for the verdict, publicly spoke out in favor of an immediate pardon in 2017. The German-language mainstream media are mostly silent. Only the daily newspaper Junge Welt, which is under surveillance by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, draws attention to the fate of the now seriously ill, almost 80-year-old activist every year at the Rosa Luxemburg Conference it organizes. The Society for Threatened Peoples considers him a political prisoner and has been campaigning for his release for decades. Amnesty International, the global NGO that until recently was banned from advocating for those imprisoned in the U.S., is now calling for his pardon on humanitarian grounds. Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama and Rigoberta Menchú have all lobbied outgoing U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and Barak Obama for his pardon, but FBI pressure against it has been too great. Even two letters from Pope Francis to Presidents Obama and Biden were unsuccessful. The application for parole submitted on July 10, 2024 was rejected by the U.S. Parole Commission on July 2, 2024. This means that Leonard Peltier (prisoner number 89637-132) will have to spend his 80th birthday on September 12, 2024 as a prisoner in the maximum security wing of Coleman in Florida. Now only a pardon from outgoing President Joe Biden can help, so that Leonard Peltier can at least die in freedom and in the presence of his family.

* A glance at Wikipedia shows that even at the beginning of the 21st century, the life expectancy of the inhabitants of the reservation is below the level of most African countries, at 47 years for men and 55 years for women.

Society for Threatened Peoples: Claus Biegert's podcast series “In the Spirit of Crazy Horse – The Story of Leonard Peltier”.