[NOTES: Rallies in support of Leonard Peltier’s campaign against extradition from Canada were held all over North America. At one of them, in California, John Trudell, national chairman of the American Indian Movement, spoke. These are excerpts from his speech, explaining the background of Peltier’s case.]
To understand the Leonard Peltier case, we have to understand what was going on at Pine Ridge long before any FBI were shot. For two years, Indians were being killed, Indian after Indian after Indian. Indians were being wiped out on the Pine Ridge Reservation, but no one cared enough to stop it. We looked at the list of dead people and we saw the Indian names. We saw the FBI’s failure to solve these crimes. We saw that prior to the arrival of the FBI on the reservation, that kind of violence did not exist. So we understood we were involved in an organized campaign of violence against us. A decision was made at Oglala that if people had to shoot back at law enforcement officials in order to save the lives of innocent people, then they would shoot back.
The FBI wasn’t engaged in playing nice games with us, like they were with the Socialist Worker’s Party, breaking into their offices and stealing their briefcases. They were playing a deadly game with us, setting us up to be offed all over the reservation.
And that’s why the FBI attacked. That’s why the FBI has been attacking the American Indian Movement for the last three years. What is going on between the FBI and AIM is the same thing that went on between Captain Jack and the U.S. Army, between Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse against Custer.
It’s the same war. It’s a war for our land and a war for our minds and our spirits. Nothing has changed but the technology they use, and the faces. They call it law enforcement, but law enforcement hasn’t got anything to do with it. If there was truly law enforcement and law and order, there would be a lot of people in jail who have never seen the inside of a cell. They don’t go to jail because they are the ones who make the rules.
Actually, the white people have been victims of a longer war than we have. They have been enslaved by the value system of this corruptness for the last 2,000 years.
If you intend to be truly free, then you’re going to have to understand liberation.
The FBI may think they have power, but they only have power as long as they can convince us in our minds that they have it. They can kill us. They can lock us up. They can beat us, but that does not mean that they have power. That means they know how to use force. That means that they know how to use their laws against us. But that does not mean they have power.
Power is something that the human being can generate and create. Power we create. They have tools and symbols of oppression. We have power. If we want to understand what power really is, we have it.
In 1972, the American Indian Movement occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C. AIM made a mistake, a serious mistake, but not a fatal mistake. We were given amnesty. We should have stuck it out. We should have demanded that we be charged and tried right there, in Washington, D.C. But the government wanted us to have amnesty, because they didn’t want to put us on trial in black Washington, because they knew we would walk away free and there would be a further indictment of the U.S. Government in its treatment of Indian people. The government wanted us away from the East Coast, so they got us back. The FBI went out to Pine Ridge to meet us there. They were there for one purpose, to create a climate of terror at Pine Ridge to draw the Indian People and the American Indian Movement into that area. The convictions they knew they could not obtain in black Washington, D.C., they knew they could get in white South Dakota and Nebraska.
The FBI has not even attempted to play the role of law enforcement as far as Indian people are concerned. They have been out front, a military army, an extension of the war against our people.
Senator Eastland and the Senate Internal Security subcommittee, through the hired testimony of informer Douglass Durham, said the American Indian Movement was a frightening, violent organization, dedicated to the overthrow of the U.S. Government. He said we were a Communist organization, dedicated to revolutionary goals.
THE DEATHS AT PINE RIDGE IN THE REIGN OF TERROR, 1973-1976
[NOTE: After the U.S. seige on Wounded Knee in 1973, a reign of terror continued on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Many people died, most of them supporters of the American Indian Movement or the traditional Lakota people. Others were simply victims of the violence-laden atmosphere, poverty, and alcohol. We list here those who died during that period, whose deaths were investigated by police for murder or manslaughter. We apologize if this list is incomplete, and we ask readers to help us make it complete by sending us the necessary information. The Editors.]
Priscilla White Plume, died July 14, 1973, at Manderson.
Julius Bad Heart Bull died July 30, 1973, at Oglala .
Donald He Crow died August 27, 1973, at Pine Ridge.
Aloysius Long Soldier died October 5, 1973, at Kyle.
Phillip Little Crow died November 14, 1973, at Pine Ridge.
Allison Little Spotted Horse died November 23, 1973, at Oglala.
Melvin Spider died September 22, 1973, at Porcupine.
Lorinda Red Paint died February 27, 1974, at Oglala .
Edward Standing Soldier died February 18, 1974, at Pine Ridge.
Roxeine Roark died April 19, 1974, at Porcupine.
Dennis LeCompte died September 7, 1974, at Pine Ridge.
Jesse Trueblood died November 17, 1974, at Pine Ridge.
Elaine Wagner died November 30, 1974, at Pine Ridge.
Robert Reddy died September 16, 1974, at Kyle.
Floyd S. Bianas died December 25, 1974, at Pine Ridge.
Yvette Lorraine Lone Hill died December 28, 1974, at Kyle
Leon L. Swift Bird died January 5, 1975, at Pine Ridge .
William J. Steele died March 9, 1975, at Mandersonr.
Stacey Cortier died March 20, 1975, at Manderson .
Jeanette M. (Waters) Bissonette died March 25, 1975, at Pine Ridge.
Richard Eagle died March 30, 1975, at Pine Ridge.
Hilda R. Good Buffalo died April 4, 1975, at Pine Ridge.
Ben Sitting Up died May 20, 19/b, at Wanblee.
Kenneth Little died June 1, 1975, at Pine Ridge.
Leah Spotted Elk died June 15, 1975, at Pine Ridge.
Jack Coler and Ron Williams (FBI) died at Oglala June 26, 1975.
Joseph Stuntz Kills Right died June 26, 1975, at Oglala.
Vance DuBray died July 9, 1975, at Allen .
Randy Hunter died August 25, 1975, at Kyle.
Howard Blue Bird died September 9, 1975, at Pine Ridge.
James Little died September 10, 1975, at Oglala.
Olivia Bianas died October 26, 1975, at Porcupine.
Michelle Tobacco died October 27, 1975, at Pine Ridge.
Janice Black Bear died October 26, 1975, at Manderson.
Carl Plenty Arrows, Sr. died December 6, 1975, at Pine Ridge.
Frank LaPointe died December 6, 1975, at Pine Ridge.
Lydia Cut Grass died January 5, 1976, at Wounded Knee.
Byron L. DeSersa died January 31, 1976, at Wanblee.
Lena R. Slow Bear died February 6, 1976, at Oglala.
Cleveland Reddest died March 26, 1976, at Kyle.
Anna Mae Aquash died in February, 1976, at Wanblee.
Betty Jo DuBray died April 28, 1976, at Martin.
Sam Afraid of Bear died May 24, 1976, at Pine Ridge.
Julia Pretty Hips died May 9, 1976, at Pine Ridge.
Kevin Hill died June 4, 1976, at Oglala.
Betty Means died July 3, 1976, at Pine Ridge.
Lyle Dean Richards died July 31, 1973, at Kyle.
Sandra Wounded Foot died, date unknown, at Sharp’s Corners.
Marvin Two Two died May 6, 1976, at Pine Ridge.
Sometimes we are conditioned by the rhetoric of what we hear. AIM is not talking about revolution, in Western Civilization. Revolution has always been a fight for power within the same value system. But we don’t want power within the value system that exists now. We’re talking about liberation.
We look at the total history of our people. We look at thousands of years of existence, and we look at the last 400 years since the coming of the white man, 400 years of constant struggle for survival. We recognize two things. One is that this 400 years of war is not over. We are engaged in a continuation of 400 years of war of resistance and for liberation.
Second, four hundred years ain’t shit in the total history of our people. We look at the totality of time and see that 400 years isn’t anything. What has happened in the last four generations in the total concept of time ain’t nothing. The government wants us to think we are separated from our past. You guys lost, they say. What you Indians going to do? You might as well become white. Adjust! You can’t go back.
But we can survive and keep our values. Our struggle for liberation centers around the way we believe, our culture. To the FBI, the Federal Government, that’s dangerous. We just went through the Madison Avenue hard-sell of the Bicentennial. Some people complained about business capitalizing on the Bicentennial. But the brainwashing was convincing the U.S. people that they have been free for the last 200 years. That’s what the brainwashing was about, pushing, pushing, pushing into your minds.
When we look at what we have done, we think that the AIM people have done nothing more than any sane person would do. We live in a society in which the majority of the people are crazy. But because they are in the majority, they say they aren’t crazy. But let’s look around: isn’t it crazy to tear up the earth? Isn’t it crazy to say you’re a humanitarian and to allow death to be going on all around you? That’s totally insane. So we have to pass judgment on those people who accept the rhetoric of the insane mouthings of the United States Government.
A lot of people are sitting back and not getting involved and are apathetic because they don’t want to deal with what is here. And that’s another sign of craziness, that you would leave it to your children. That’s not being sane. I thought we were trying to make things better for the kids. But to leave them to have to deal with the problems that we exist in now, with no path to follow, then we’re cutting their throats.
So in the American Indian Movement, we make a lot of mistakes, and we’re not perfect, but we do recognize the facts of the struggle we’re involved in. Most of us won’t live to see what it is we’re fighting for, but we know that’s no reason to sit back. A start has to be made. We understand how people are controlled by fear.
It would be fine if people recognized what we need to survive, and live their lives according to needs, not wants. The system has made junkies out of everybody. People are apathetic because they are conditioned to living a fantasy life on television, and that includes some of our own people.
The people in this country are being had again. Your FBI is running rampant. The CIA is running rampant. The oil companies; the rich are doing what they goddam well please. They have been for some time. The CIA is doing it to you, the president is doing it to you, the corporations are doing it to you, and the people sit back and close their eyes and expect it to go away.
In the apathy of the American public, people believe that the election of Jimmy Carter means things are going to change. But the government is not going to change itself.
One of the obstacles we have run into is to get people to open their eyes and see what is going on. People have these attitudes. They don’t want to break laws. But today, we live in a society which does not have laws. People in power have legitimized their position by making the rules. There is no law in America, there are only rules. The difference between law and rule is that under law, people are treated justly. But under rules, the people who create the rules enforce the rules and they don’t have to follow the rules.
As long as a situation like that exists, there is no freedom for anyone. But you get all caught up in this Bicentennial crap, celebrating 200 years of freedom. Freedom means being free. One of the obligations of government is providing peace and security and freedom to the people it serves. But are you free? Do you have peace? Do you have security? All most of the people of the United States know about freedom is how to spell the word.
This is why Leonard Peltier had to come back to the United States to stand trial. They want him because he represents something much higher than most U.S. citizens can relate to. He represents the idea that a people are supposed to be free. It is a natural human right.
Human rights come from the Creator. What gives the United States the gall to think that it can legislate civil rights while it denies human rights? It sits back and says, ‘Now you blacks, we’ll give you this kind of civil rights, and you Indians, we’ll give you this kind of civil rights, and you whites can have this kind of civil rights.’
The nature of the United States Government is exploitation. The Europeans who came here found a free people. Both the native people and the Europeans recognized there is such a thing as human weakness, but the Europeans built their societies to exploit human weakness.
And things haven’t changed. No one is going to have freedom in this country again until the value system which is dominating now is completely shattered or dismantled and thrown away. That’s why Leonard and Dino and Bobby were in Oglala that day. They were there saying that the Oglala had the right to live their lives the way they wanted. They had a right to their human rights. ~
SOURCE: Akwesasne Notes, Vol. 8 No. 5