Free all Political Prisoners!
Leonard Peltier
Leonard Peltier, a 74 year old indigenous man, part Anishinabe, and part Lakota and Dakota, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa (English misnomer for the Anishinabe) Nation has served forty-three years in prison for the murder of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975 which he did not commit. He is a political prisoner who was convicted as part of the FBI’s Cointelpro action to destroy AIM.
After the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee, a corrupt tribal chairman, Dick Wilson created a period of political violence on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He was trying to get the US government into mining uranium in the Badlands for its nuclear programs. The more traditional members of the Lakota nation were firmly against this destruction of the environment. Dick Wilson hired groups of vigilantes, called GOONs for Guardians Of the Oglala Nation, who initiated what became known as the Reign of Terror on the reservation. Known traditional opponents of Dick Wilson were stopped while driving on the reservation, pulled out of their cars or trucks and severely beaten. Then matters got worse and GOON squads started driving around the reservation shooting into dwellings and indiscriminately killing elders, women, and children and setting some places on fire! John Trudeau, a noted poet and artist, lost his wife, three children, and his mother-in-law in one of these fires. Over a three-year period over 67 people were murdered and the FBI refused to investigate even one of these murders. Violent crimes like murder and rape were what the FBI had jurisdiction over on reservations. Instead the FBI was busy arming the GOON squads because the US government wanted the uranium mining project to go forward. Finally, the traditional people asked AIM to provide protection for the elders, women, and children. Leonard Peltier was one of the AIM leaders who set up camps near family compounds to protect the people.