This is a statement from Leonard Peltier addressing the actions of the FBI, not just in his case, but throughout recent history.

http://www.freepeltier.org/abuses_fbi_peltier.htm#top

Peltier Statement on FBI Abuses

Greetings Brothers, Sisters, Friends and Supporters:

I am writing this statement in the midst of controversy surrounding the FBI's withholding of 3000 documents pertaining to the case of Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing. This incident is only one of many revelations of grave FBI misconduct in recent weeks, all of which expose very serious violations of the Constitution and severe abuse of power by the FBI.

In Boston, what started with suspicions that FBI Agent, John Connolly was involved in money laundering and racketeering led to the exposure of much more. As it turned out, almost the entire Boston office was involved in a heavy scheme, which protected notorious gangsters, who were allowed to murder with impunity in exchange for information. That office even put two innocent men, men they knew were innocent and who they very purposefully framed, in prison in order to keep their informants free from prosecution. These innocent men served thirty years in prison and were only released after previously hidden FBI documentation was uncovered.

What is worse is, it all could have been prevented. FBI agent Robert Fitzpatrick says he reported the misconduct early on, and was ignored. How much time will the agents responsible serve in prison? What will be done to prevent this type of official criminal behavior from reoccurring? If history is any clue, not too much at all unless we take a firm stand against these types of FBI
abuses.

Meanwhile, media coverage of Thomas Blanton's conviction for the racist murder of four young girls, which occurred some 38 years ago, is widespread. Since 1965 the FBI knew exactly who the murderers were, and they hid the information. They protected KKK members who murdered children. What will happen to these former agents? How will the FBI be held accountable for their complicit role in such heinous activities?

These violations are most serious. There can be no due process, there can be no such thing as an open government, there can be no real justice or democracy when an agency as powerful as the FBI can, decade after decade, break the laws it vows to uphold with no repercussions. The cases covered in the media lately are only the tip of the iceberg.

There are many, many more well documented incidences of FBI abuses. It is up to the public to hold the FBI accountable. Clearly, no system of checks and balances is in place and the media rarely reports FBI misconduct unless politicians and judges condemn it first, in which case it is usually too little too late. Don't let these latest disclosures deteriorate into "flash in the pan" news stories. An effort must be forged to stop FBI abuses, and to gain recognition that these are continuations of an all too common pattern.

The FBI unfairly targeted Wen Ho Lee, withheld evidence about Waco, and botched its handling of the Ruby Ridge incident. In 1998 the Los Angeles FBI crime lab was exposed for it's routine tampering of evidence, especially
in high profile cases. In 1997 Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt was released after 27 long years of unjust imprisonment - yet another FBI frame-up. In 1990 Judi Bari's car was bombed, and again, the FBI hid evidence proving the bomb had been planted. Instead of finding the perpetrators, they criminally charged the Earth First! activist, who was left crippled for life. (Find out more
about the Judi Bari case in this issue).

Of course, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation the FBI allowed, and further supported, the murderous GOON squads. Year after year I sit through meaningless parole hearings where I am told that I must take responsibility
for a crime I did not commit. All the while, the faces of my brothers and sisters who were killed during that era, loom in my head, as I suppress my bitterness over such blatant discrimination and injustice. One day I know,
this too will be recognized and exposed as a result of the efforts of the people. Officials will likely act surprised and outraged, even though we have been telling them all along about what we have experienced and witnessed.

Friends, I am not writing this statement out of bitterness, but out of alarm. When will these kinds of abuses be stopped? When will we overcome our fear of the FBI and say, never again. Not one more innocent person in prison, not one more political prisoner, not one more unnecessary death? If the FBI thought that Martin Luther King was a threat to the "American way of life" then we must ask, what way of life do they defend, and do the American people want the FBI to act on their behalf?

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,
Leonard Peltier

 
Copyright © 2000 LPDC
The International Office of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee
All Rights Reserved.

I remember distinctly watching the news events unfold after the Oklahoma City bombing. My first response was a very deep horror at the loss and extreme violence, sadness for the families, despair. My next thoughts were of Wounded Knee. I don't know why I made the correlation then, but it happened. The two events seemed to be a repeating message in loss of innocence, two useless acts of hatred that seemed to stike the same chord. The insidious result of bad trades and broken promises. What was traded for OKC?

A brief history reads well in the words of Paul Berg, a schoolteacher who was working at Pine Ridge during the second seige at Wounded Knee in 1970:

http://www.freepeltier.org/berg_letter.htm#top

[Note: the entire letter represents a living history of those days in the 1970s known as the Reign of Terror, its devastation and effect on the people at Pine Ridge.]

"The Sioux and the 7th Calvary clashed in the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. Subsequently the participating bands of Sioux were hunted down and confined in conditions of squalor on Federal Reservations. In 1890 the Sioux were broken as a culture and as individuals. They collectively embraced the Ghost Dance, a form of cultural hysteria. Government agents at Pine Ridge incorrectly interpreted the Ghost Dance as an aggressive threat to non-Indians and called in the army.

As fate would have it, the responding army unit was the 7th Calvary, an Army unit with a score to settle with the Sioux. At Wounded Knee Creek on a cold winter day, the 7th Calvary extracted revenge by massacring over 200 old men, women, and children.

It cannot be emphasized enough that the Battle of Little Big Horn was a battle between armed soldiers on both sides. Wounded Knee, in contrast, was a massacre of mostly unarmed people by a military unit bent on revenge. Women, and children were found as far as two miles from the site. The women had thrown blankets over the children so that they would not see their executioners. Congressional Medals of Honor were awarded to several of the soldiers in the massacre. These medals have never been recalled. The people on Pine Ridge Reservation have lived with the collective cultural memory of a government massacre."
(end quote)

WHAT, I remember thinking, does this Oklahoma City bombing have to do with Wounded Knee? More armed offensive at totally helpless men, women, and children? At that point in time, the FBI had just begun "investigating" the events in Oklahoma. Leonard Peltier was in jail for a crime he did not commit. Somehow the Oklahoma murders seemed to mirror the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre of 200 people, including many children. Only this time, everybody gasped in horror. History repeated, and made us scream louder. To this day, no one has corrected that history from Pine Ridge, nor have they acknowledged the horror and devastation that was unleashed that day some 111 years ago in the minds and spirit of the people there. It was the SAME THING, only most people forgot about Wounded Knee. Surely, the killing of hundreds of Indians could get swept under the blanket of "history" because the U.S. Government wanted to (and did) steal some more gold-filled sacred land. Untold histories have a truly nasty way of repeating themselves. The victim is always our innocence.

Here we are now, at 2001. The world is appalled by the fact that an admitted killer, McVeigh, is being granted a stay of execution; that his case is being reinvestigated, and that the FBI would hide documents. Guess how many sealed documents have not been released in Peltier's case?

Answer: 6,000

from: http://www.freepeltier.org/remaining_avenues.htm#foi_act

"FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT - 6000 FBI DOCUMENTS

Because the courts only allow an issue to be litigated once, new evidence is needed in order to obtain a retrial for Leonard Peltier. That new evidence likely exists in the over 6,000 documents still being withheld by the FBI.

In the early 1980's, pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act Lawsuit, over 12,000 of these documents were released. But, the FBI continued to withhold over 6,000 documents in their entirety and another 6,000 in part, for reasons of "national security" and "ongoing" police investigations.

The first batch of documents proved that:
1. Peltier did not fire the fatal shots.
2. The FBI intentionally withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense.
3. The FBI agents had undeniably followed a red pickup (not a red and white van) onto the ranch, a vehicle that could not be tied to Peltier.
4. The FBI had framed Peltier: Several other suspects with more evidence against them existed, but were never indicted. One document stated the FBI's intention to "develop evidence to lock Peltier into the case."
5. The prosecution colluded with the FBI and the Canadian prosecutor to present falsified evidence to the Canadian court and obtain Peltier's extradition.
6. Without justification, the FBI forewarned the trial judge, who later warned the jury, of possible AIM violence, thus creating a prejudicial atmosphere in the courtroom.
7. The FBI had Peltier under surveillance for his AIM involvement years prior to his arrest.
8. The FBI had been preparing for a paramilitary operation on the Pine Ridge reservation weeks before the shoot out and had been closely surveillancing AIM activities there.
9. The FBI considered AIM a threat to the United States and covertly sought to destroy the movement.

We can only imagine what might be contained in the rest of the documents. Because 25 years have passed since the shoot-out, some of the legal justifications available to the FBI for withholding documents are no longer officially valid. Therefore, new Freedom of Information Act requests have been filed and we can expect another lawsuit to take place in the future. Meanwhile, we can also pressure the United States Congress to pass an act to declassify the documents."

(end quote)

WHAT DOES PELTIER HAVE TO DO WITH MCVEIGH, OKC, AND THE ORIGINAL MASSACRE OF WOUNDED KNEE?

Peltier's plight is profoundly attached to the spiritual loss that occurred at Wounded Knee in 1890. The collective memory of an entire nation has suffered deeply from the unresolved massacre. The seeds of injustice were planted then. If the devastation and horror of OKC is not somehow balanced by "justice" and life-affirming action, then the same horror and self-deprecating mind-eating worm will feed itself into the lives and truths of the people who lived to experience Oklahoma City. The purveyors of pain and terror are the same as those from 111 years ago. Let history be the lesson. Several positive steps include: telling the whole story of OKC correctly now, without lies; telling the history of Wounded Knee, and its relevance to the terror and devastation of the Lakota at Pine Ridge in 1970; reinvestigate the Peltier case, and investigate the unresolved deaths of 57 other victims in the 1970 Wounded Knee Reign of Terror. If McVeigh gets a reprieve (and he already admits HIS part in the crime) then why does Peltier have to remain imprisioned for an act HE DID NOT COMMIT? If the FBI can be held unaccountable all-of-a-sudden for some 3000 lost files, then why, OH WHY, does Peltier sit in jail with some 6,000 withheld files?

If the conspiracy theories about McVeigh are correct, and his death determines the onset of some NWO, there still remains the fact that one cold day, not so long ago, a mirror sent out a reflection of death. That ghost gets magnified over time. I do believe that Peltier is the final statement in this somehow. His freedom will vindicate the spirits of all those killed at Wounded Knee two times in history. If McVeigh gets off on a "technicality", the disaster at Oklahoma City will act like Wounded Knee in the hearts and minds of a people. If McVeigh gets another trial, while Peltier remains in prison, then the seed of injustice will dig ever deeper to divide the heart and spirit of what is becoming the amalgamated culture of this land. Like it or not, we are all in this together. It is the actions of our ancestors and the inequities of their plight that we direct to steer into a peaceful future.

Additionally, Former President Clinton did not pardon Peltier. The FBI actually marched in protest (the only time ever on record), and secret meetings were held to negotiate against the clemency. On that day, instead, Clinton made a deal that stopped further investigation into his perjury trial. It was a bad trade for history. Too many bad trades have happened here. There are no more promises to break.

The following clip is from "Passing Over Peltier, part 1 of 2
Among the things Bill Clinton left behind are a broken promise and questions of a deal"

Published May 15th 2001

By MICHAEL A. de YOANNA  Colorado Daily Staff Writer
http://co001.campusmotor.com/shell_story_news.html?ID=1382

"Peltier's supporters pointed out that unlike numerous pardons that were granted, Peltier's application for executive clemency went through all the appropriate Justice Department channels and had been pending throughout the Clinton presidency.
The case has drawn the support of the 250 Indian tribes represented by the National Congress of American Indians, Amnesty International and renowned world leaders such as the Dalai Lama and South African Archbishop and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu. Even one of the judges who heard Peltier's case at the U.S. Court of Appeals in St. Louis advocates clemency.
Advocates of clemency for Peltier had been encouraged since last November, when Clinton made his first public statement about the case in an unexpected call to New York radio station WBAI. In a 30-minute conversation with hosts Amy Goodman and Gonzalo Aburto, broadcast nationally on Nov. 12 by the Pacifica radio network on Goodman's syndicated show "Democracy Now!," Clinton promised he would give Peltier an answer one way or the other.
While the hopes of Peltier's supporters ran high following Clinton's statement, FBI agents and a handful of their political allies in Washington, D.C., scrambled to prevent the president from letting loose the man they say is a cop killer.
In the end, Clinton didn't keep his promise to give Peltier an answer. He passed the file over to incoming President George W. Bush -- who some say is unlikely to ever consider it -- leaving several questions seething beneath the surface.
Did Peltier's supporters know that a secret team was dispatched to Washington just days before Clinton left office, to argue the merits of the Peltier case with White House Deputy Counsel Bruce Lindsey and others?
Did his supporters know that the team, which included a lawyer, the author of a renowned book on Peltier and a top Hollywood film producer, were also asked to write a speech that Clinton could read explaining why he granted Peltier clemency?
Just how influential was South Dakota Gov. Bill Janklow, the man who takes credit for convincing Clinton in a mid-December Oval Office meeting to leave Peltier behind bars?
Why, on Dec. 15, did hundreds of FBI agents launch an "unprecedented" picket against clemency in front of the White House?
And why has Peltier spun a theory that may never be substantiated?
In the only in-depth interview with Peltier to be granted by Leavenworth Penitentiary to a newspaper since last October, Peltier told the Colorado Daily that he believes Clinton passed over his file in exchange for the deal that allowed the former president to put behind him a charge of perjury stemming from his testimony to Congress on the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
"He traded his freedom for mine," Peltier alleged."
(end quote)

McVeigh is becoming the next Bad Trade, a broken promise. Will we return to our innocence? Or will we give it up as lost or stolen or TRADED?