Demonstrators, carrying five large and brightly colored banners, marched from the headquarters of the American Indian Movement in South Minneapolis to a Catholic church in downtown Minneapolis.

Native Americans on the December 10 march were joined by young people and other supporters of democratic rights. A number of demonstrators traveled 900 miles from an area outside of Winnipeg, Canada, where several struggles for Native rights have been taking place. They were joined by several people from Roseau River, also in Canada, who are members of the Anishinabe Nation.

Terence Nelson, a leader of the Lynx Clan of the Anishinabe in Canada, said at a rally before the march that the action marks "an important day for all of us. The outcome of this case will affect our struggles in Canada."

"Leonard Peltier is the victim of a frame-up. Even the U.S. government has admitted that they have fabricated evidence against him," said Clyde Bellecourt, who chaired the rally. Dick Bancroft, a longtime AIM supporter, spoke of his recent visits to Peltier in the Leavenworth federal prison in Kansas. "Leonard has physical problems. However, I can tell you his spirit is really strong."

A central leader of the demonstration, Stephanie Autumn, pointed out that there "are lots of Native American, Latino, Black, and poor white people who are not in prison because of what they have done but because of the double standard of justice in this country. Our enemy is not each other but this government which oppresses us."

Also speaking at the rally were the head of a local legal rights center and a leader of the fight for justice for Al Sanders, a Black worker who was murdered by the Minneapolis cops.

The demonstration took place in the middle of a broadening debate about the Peltier case, which has received support over many years from a growing number of organizations, governments, and individuals. News that President William Clinton may "review" Peltier's case for possible clemency brought a quick response from FBI director Louis Freeh.

Freeh wrote a letter to Clinton stating that the killings of FBI agents Ron Williams and Jack Coler, for which Peltier was accused and convicted, mark "the most vile disrespect for all that we cherish." He added, "Mr. President, there is no issue more deeply felt within the FBI." The letter was posted to the web site of the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives by its chairman, Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, and was subsequently covered as a news item in the big business media.

Taking the lead of Freeh and Hyde, other forces are demanding no pardon be granted Peltier. For example, in response to an editorial in favor of clemency in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, a major bourgeois daily paper here, the paper printed a long counter-editorial written by a member of the Ramsey County Sheriff's Department.  
 
 

Leonard Peltier, an Anishinabe-Lakota, has spent the last 24 years in prison on frame-up charges of killing two FBI agents in a shoot-out at the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in 1975.

Peltier became involved in the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the early 1970s. He went to Pine Ridge, South Dakota, to assist local people under attack by goons organized by the Pine Ridge Tribal Council headed by Dick Wilson. With silent backing from the FBI, Wilson was carrying out a campaign of violence, including beatings and murder, against those in opposition to his policies. During this time the reservation had the highest ratio of FBI agents to citizens than any other area in the country. Despite this no murders or beatings were ever investigated.

AIM had been the target of federal authorities for years, including under the FBI's COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence program), which grew out of the government's attempts to disrupt the labor movement prior to World War II.

On June 26, 1975, shooting broke out between two FBI agents in unmarked cars and local residents, some of whom were members of AIM. The two agents and one Native man were killed. Three people went to trial for the deaths of the agents, one of whom was Leonard Peltier. No investigation of the Native man's death took place. Two of those who went to trial were found innocent on grounds of self-defense.

Peltier had been previously identified as an AIM leader by the FBI. Fearing that he had no possibility of a fair trial, he fled to Canada. Peltier was later arrested and extradited in response to affidavits manufactured by the FBI that the government now concedes were false and fabricated. He was tried in a different district from the first trial, and by a judge hand-picked by the FBI. Peltier was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms.

According to the final decision of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, Peltier's trial and previous appeals had been riddled with FBI misconduct and judicial impropriety, including coercion of witnesses, perjury, fabrication of evidence, and the suppression of exculpatory evidence that could have proved his innocence.

In 1993 Peltier filed a petition for commutation of his sentence with the Department of Justice. Supporters of Peltier are seeking a presidential pardon by William Clinton before he leaves office. --TOM FISKE  
 
 
 
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