Letter from Leonard Peltier

‘I can still read the writing on the wall’

Leonard Peltier

BULLETIN URGENT! Leonard Peltier’s Safety in Jeopardy! Peltier was severely beaten upon his arrival at the Canaan Federal Penitentiary. Call and request Leonard Peltier be treated with dignity and respect. Canaan Federal Prison 570-488-8000. Peltier's register number (prison ID) is: 89637-132.

Also let the Bureau of Prisons know that the public will hold them accountable for the safety and wellbeing of Leonard Peltier.

Contact:

Warden Ronnie R. Holt, Warden
USP-Canaan
U.S. Penitentiary
3057 Easton Turnpike
Waymart, PA 18472
Phone: 570-488-8000
Fax: 570-488-8130
E-mail address: CAA/[email protected]

D. Scott Dodrill, Director
Northeast Regional Office
Federal Bureau of Prisons
2nd & Chesnut Streets., 7th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19106
Phone: 215-521-7301
E-mail: NERO/[email protected]

Harley G. Lappin, Director
Bureau of Prisons
U.S. Department of Justice
320 First Street, NW, Room 654
Washington, DC 20534
Phone: 202-307-3250
Fax: 202-514-6878

Ask President Obama to investigate this incident:

The Honorable Barack H. Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
Fax: 202-456-2461
E-mail: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

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Editor’s note: U.S. political prisoner Leonard Peltier has just been transferred from prison in Lewisburg to a federal lock-up in Canaan. Both are in Pennsylvania. His supporters had tried urgently to get Peltier transferred to a prison somewhere closer to his family, specifically on Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota. Peltier delivered the following message by telephone on Jan. 12.

Greetings, my relatives, friends and/or captors:

To my relatives and friends, I want to especially thank you for your generosity in this season of giving they call “Christmas.” I want you to know I’m mindful of the reason for the season as they say, for Jesus himself was a political prisoner. He stood up against the warmongers, the exploiters of his people, and he was imprisoned and hung out to dry. Likewise so many other people have also stood up against those who would exploit the lives and resources of people around the world. I don’t claim to be of any significance on their level; I am but one man of many who has stood up against exploiters that would use force to inflict their value system upon a weaker people.

I am in the process right now of being transferred; I had hoped to be transferred to a facility on the Turtle Mountain Reservation while I dealt with other legal issues regarding my imprisonment. My captors, however, have once again triumphed in their continuing efforts to break me. They have sent me even farther away from my traditional homeland. I hear them and others continually talk about justice.

One of the bureaucrats in North Dakota, when becoming aware of my efforts to be transferred to Turtle Mountain, spoke up and said he believed justice is being served in my continued imprisonment. I sincerely hope good people will take note of this person, Sen. Byron Dorgan, on the U.S. Senate Committee for Indian Affairs. It is quite obvious that he has no knowledge of true Indian history, no knowledge of my case, and is only a lackey for those who wish to keep us always subject to their version of what justice is.

They have at times called me a thug and a cold-blooded murderer, but I know historically they called Geronimo a cold-blooded murderer and savage; they called Crazy Horse a cold-blooded murderer and savage; they called Captain Jack of the Modocs a cold-blooded murderer and savage; they called Black Hawk of the Sauk a cold-blooded murderer and savage; they called Tecumseh a cold-blooded murderer and savage; they called Sitting Bull a cold-blooded murderer and savage, and the list goes on and on.

The one thing all these men have in common is they were all imprisoned or killed by this government; they were all patriots in their own land, trying to stop the illegal, immoral taking of their people’s land and resources.

They didn’t call the men who murdered our people at Wounded Knee thugs and savages. They didn’t call the snipers who shot Frank Clearwater at Wounded Knee in 1973 a murderer; they didn’t call the ones who shot Buddy Lamont a cold-blooded murderer; they didn’t call the ones who shot Joe Stuntz a cold-blooded murderer, they didn’t call the sniper who shot that young woman and baby in 1992 at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, a cold-blooded murderer; they didn’t call the ones who burned the men, women and children to death at Waco, Texas, in 1993 cold-blooded murderers.

I assume cold-blooded means you have no sense of right or wrong or something of that nature when you take a life. And if that is so, then this country is full of cold-blooded murderers and thugs because by proxy they have killed thousands of innocent men, women and children in Iraq and most recently in Afghanistan, I’ve seen them on TV. I’ve seen the pictures of children’s bodies piled on top of each other. And right now the U.S. funds Israel’s war machine as they kill hundreds of innocent men, women and children in Gaza.

Einstein once said, “All things are relative” and “For every action there is a reaction.” In the traditional way our people teach the same. In all the major religions around the world it has been taught the same way before Einstein ever drew a breath. Every person in the U.S. who allows this injustice to continue without voicing any opposition is a party to murder on some level.

Someone once said and it is a truism, “All that is needed for evil to prevail is for good men to say nothing.” And if Einstein is correct and Jesus is correct, then you reap what you sow, and Buddha is correct who said there are karmic laws that must one repay or be repaid for whatever you do. This nation had better start paying attention. It is financially bankrupt at this point. It is spiritually and morally bankrupt.

I’m sure this letter won’t buy me any favored treatment. Actually I don’t know that anything ever has. They had a plot to kill me once that didn’t work. They have denied me medical treatment that I need. I have arthritis in my knees. I have a semi-dysfunctional jaw from lack of medical treatment. I have 80 percent loss of vision in one eye. And I have internal organ infirmities that need medical treatment. But though I have trouble walking, I will stand and voice my objection to the cold-blooded mistreatment of indigenous people in this land and others. I will speak out always against the cold-blooded atrocities that are caused directly by military weapons and/or political policies that cause people to take their own lives, as in my country and other countries around the world. And though my vision may be failing me somewhat, I can still read the writing on the wall.

Though this country is in great financial peril, money is not the cure. There are some writings today that this country will be destroyed by fire. Well let me tell you, or should I say reiterate, the words of my elders and others: the fires are burning now, right now today all over the world the fires are burning. There will be natural devastation upon devastation coming to this country that has used the land and resources of my people to pollute and destroy the natural order of life. You reap what you sow. And as my people say, everything that goes around comes around. As Einstein said, “For every action there is a reaction.”

I may live a hundred years or I may die tomorrow; but I will always have concern and sorrow for those innocent people that lose their lives. It is such a great tragedy that even some of those who pull the triggers and attack others have been convinced they are doing the right thing. And then some bureaucrat, with little or no understanding of life, espouses rhetoric about justice being served.

If I sound angry or hurt or disappointed or a multitude of other emotions. you would probably be correct. I remember once upon a time I naïvely believed that sooner or later I would be free and justice would be served. In my case, after 33 years of illegal imprisonment, justice will never be served, it will be up to the Creator to bring about a reaction that may in some future time balance the scales. But for me and the others like me, whether they are among other prisoners in the U.S. prison system or dead in the streets of Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza Strip or South America, or some reservation road or some ghetto street, justice is not being served at this time.

If there is anything further I could say that would affect you in some way it would be to encourage you to take a few minutes out of your life and quietly sit and reflect and maybe, just maybe, you can hear the mothers crying for their lost children and the men crying for their lost wives and daughters and the grandfathers crying for their lost sons.

I could say more but perhaps you may have grown tired of my commentary. Thank you for your time, thank you for reading this, and don’t let evil triumph. Say something.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse and all the others who gave their lives that future generations might enjoy some time together on this beautiful mother earth,

Mitakuye Oyasin (All My Relations)
Leonard Peltier

PS. I also want to take this opportunity to wholeheartedly thank all those who wrote the prison recently on my behalf seeking my transfer to Turtle Mountain facility in North Dakota. Thank you.

www.FreePeltierNow.org

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