Enough is enough is enough and it is time to bring Leonard Peltier back home. He has suffered enough after 31 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

Peltier is a political prisoner in the United States, and February 6 was the 31st anniversary of his arrest.

He is accused of killing two FBI agents in 1975, but has always maintained his innocence.

It seems that in the white man’s so-called justice system, an Indian had to be punished for the deaths of the two agents of the empire, and it didn’t really matter if he was guilty or not.

Leonard Peltier was a leading member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), an organization established in 1968 to defend the rights of Native Americans. The FBI’s COINTELPRO (counter-intelligence program) immediately targeted AIM.

On June 26, 1975, dozens of FBI agents, U.S. Marshals, and vigilantes descended on Oglala on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. A shootout occurred, during which the two FBI agents were killed. One Indian was also killed, but his death was never investigated.

At the same time, a deal was being signed giving the U.S. government possession of Indian lands where uranium had been discovered. Many believe the FBI assault was meant to divert attention from this deal.

Peltier was in Oglala on June 26, 1975, but there is no evidence linking him to the killings.

The AIM members involved in the shootout scattered across the country, and Peltier later fled to Canada.

He was arrested in Canada on February 6, 1976, and after a lengthy legal process in which U.S. officials presented false documents, Peltier was extradited to the United States. Canadian officials later complained about the deception in the extradition procedure.

His trial in the U.S. was clearly unfair, as documented by the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee (LPDC), and he was found guilty and given two consecutive life sentences. In an article entitled “Struggling for justice: A message from Leonard Peltier” published on January 12, 2007 on the Party for Socialism and Liberation site www.pslweb.org, Peltier wrote: “The United States government keeps me imprisoned to justify the continuing abuses against not only Native American people but anyone who seeks to fight criminal abuses such as those committed and/or aided by the FBI on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation between 1973 and 1976. This country has waged, and continues to wage, war not just against Native Americans but against any form of domestic political dissent. Secret domestic intelligence programs, such as the well documented COINTELPRO program and the Patriot Act, have eroded and destroyed the constitutional rights and liberties of all peoples of this nation. But most people would rather ignore injustice than take a stand against injustice and face the wrath of our government.” “I was a member of the American Indian Movement who, like many others, was subjected to a number of Counterintelligence (COINTELPRO) type activities by the FBI. ‘COINTELPRO’ is the FBI acronym for a series of covert action programs directed against domestic political groups. This program was investigated and condemned by a Congressional hearing in the 1970s. With this unauthorized program, the FBI engaged in covert actions designed to ‘disrupt’ and ‘neutralize’ target groups and individuals engaged in political dissent. One of the COINTELPRO-type tactics used by the FBI, and in particular against AIM, was the infiltration of the legal defense by paid informants, violating attorney-client privilege. We have recently discovered evidence that the FBI did this in my case.” “Indeed, a document recently produced by the FBI and recently introduced by my lawyers to a magistrate judge established that the FBI intentionally took actions to try to avoid producing documents in discovery in my case. But again, this seems to have had no impact on the court. The United States Federal Courts have recognized overwhelming evidence of FBI misconduct in my case which has already been revealed, yet it has continued to allow the FBI to use exemptions under FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) to shield its illegal tactics in this case, depriving me of my right to a fair trial.”

Everyone who believes in justice should stand up for Leonard Peltier.

His case is not just the case of one man. It is a symbol of the struggle of the Indigenous People of the Americas and all oppressed people of the Earth.

So we should take action to support Peltier, the Indigenous People, and all oppressed people. But how should we begin?

Well, Leonard Peltier points the way. In his 1999 book Prison Writings: My Life is My Sun Dance, Peltier included a poem he wrote which ends with the following lines:

What you do is who you are. You are your own comeuppance. You become your own message.

You are the message.