Human Values and Development

Letter One:

Hello. This is Harvey Arden, editor of Leonard Peltier's new (and first) book, PRISON WRITINGS: MY LIFE IS MY SUN DANCE. I would be honored to introduce the book to your audience.

A healing voice in a desperate world--himself a victim of "ethnic-cleansing," American-style — the famous, even legendary American Indian activist LEONARD PELTIER publishes his extraordinary first memoir after nearly a quarter of a century in prison for a crime he did not commit.

Peltier's PRISON WRITINGS: MY LIFE IS MY SUN DANCE will shake the foundations of the American conscience. In the tradition of the soul-rending, world-shaking prison writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela — this passionate and compassionate book is a flaming arrow aimed at the circled wagons of American injustice.

Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls the book: "A deeply moving and very disturbing story of a gross miscarriage of justice and an eloquent cri de coeur of Native Americans to be regarded as human beings with inalienable rights guaranteed under the United States Constitution, like any other citizens. We pray that it does not fall on deaf ears. America owes it to herself."

Seen by millions as a political prisoner, framed by the government for the murder of two FBI agents when he came to the defense of his People, Peltier languishes in Leavenworth--physically ill but morally strong after 24 years of false imprisonment. For the past five years he has been awaiting President Clinton's signature on an Executive Clemency petition--apparently his "last best hope" of freedom — to return to him "at least a fraction of my life, if only my old age." Peltier, now 54, has been in prison since he was 31.

In his book PRISON WRITINGS: MY LIFE IS MY SUN DANCE, Leonard dreams a visionary scene in the Oval Office, where he sees himself standing with a group of Indians. He writes: "I pray that a golden eagle will fly off the flagstaff in the Oval Office and swiftly deliver that long-delayed petition from the attorney general's desk. And while the President sits there considering this innocent Indian man's appeal for clemency, I pray that that eagle will stand there on his desk, stare into his eye, and join its cry to the cry of the millions of people around the world who have written to the President, appealing to him for my release.

"Just a few nights ago, I dreamed I was standing in the Oval Office with a group of Indians. I'm hopeful that dream will soon become a reality."

Peltier writes: "I am guilty only of being an Indian. That's why I'm here. Being who I am, being who you are--that's Aboriginal Sin." And he appends the following poem:

ABORIGINAL SIN

In this life you find yourself guilty of being who you are.
Being yourself, that's Aboriginal Sin,
the worst sin of all.
That's a sin you'll never be forgiven for.

We Indians are all guilty,
guilty of being ourselves.
We're taught that guilt from the day we're born.
We learn it well.

To each of my brothers and each of my sisters, I say,
be proud of that guilt.
You are guilty only of being innocent,
of being yourselves,
of being Indian,
of being human.

Your guilt makes you holy.

Letter Two:

As I write this, just before Christmas 1998, the U.S. Federal Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, is in a state of lockdown and I'm out of touch with author Leonard Peltier--U.S. Prisoner #89637-132 — just as his book is about to go into printed proofs. The Leavenworth lockdown was apparently caused by a fight that had nothing whatsoever to do with Leonard, yet he and all other inmates are being collectively punished. All personal belongings have been stripped from prisoners' cells. They've been allowed out of their locked cells only for a single ten-minute shower this past week. Just as I need him to give final approval to various details in the final edited manuscript, he's out of touch with the outside world--no visitors, no phone calls, no contact--period. No way of knowing for the time being how he's doing or what's been happening to him.

The International Office of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee is flooding the internet with appeals for his supporters to contact the prison and the Bureau of Prisons to inquire about Leonard's health and safety. They have already been flooded with calls, faxes and letters — and also threatened with a lawsuit — over the continuing denial of competent medical treatment for Leonard's jaw problems, caused by a childhood case of lockjaw and compounded by near-disastrous surgery in 1996 at the hands of prison doctors in Springfield Medical Facility. Rumors this past fall that prison officials would finally allow Leonard to be treated by doctors at the renowned Mayo Clinic have, as of this writing, proved groundless.

We keep hoping. Meanwhile, Leonard's case has become a centerpiece of Amnesty International's 1998-1999 focus on human rights abuses in the United States. President Clinton — the one person who can free Leonard with the stroke of a pen, and has had five years to do so — is under his own onslaught at this moment, one more victim of an overzealous and vindictive prosecutor. The European Parliament as well as the governments of Italy and Belgium have passed resolutions calling for clemency for Leonard Peltier as well as for Congressional investigations into the circumstances surrounding his case and the whole era of the 1970's "Reign of Terror" at Pine Ridge — and government involvement in it. Many within the Canadian government are demanding that Peltier be returned to that country, from which he was fraudulently extradited by the U.S. government in 1976.

I pray that Leonard will be a free man so that we will have the privilege of hearing his own words spoken from his own lips. Although often written in pain and darkness and isolation, those words — like the incandescent spirit of this extraordinary human being — shine through every one these pages. I want to thank Leonard for the high honor of being chosen to select, edit, arrange, and, on more than a few occasions, to goad the author into revealing even deeper levels of his thought and memory. I hope that this book, prepared under often trying circumstances for the past two years, will add to a renewed surge in public awareness that will not only help to free Leonard but will help to free us all from the kind of insidious injustice that has put him where he is — and kept him there for nearly a quarter of a century.

We have all, every one of us, allowed it to happen. We must all join — yes, every one of us — and demand that it end. If, when you read this, U.S.P. #89637-132 remains a prisoner of injustice, then the time is NOW for you, too, to speak out and for you, too, to act. Every single one of us is needed. As Leonard has said, "We must each be an army of one." To mobilize your own voice and your own conscience, contact the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, P.O. Box 583, Lawrence, KS 66044 (lpdc@idir.net or 785-842-5774). To write Leonard directly (which I urge you to do!), his address is: USPL Leonard Peltier #89637-132 PO Box 1000 Leavenworth, KS 66048

In the spirit of Leonard Peltier. Harvey Arden

harvey@wisdomkeepers.com|

Letter Three

. . . a more recent initiative on behalf of Leonard Peltier:

POLITICAL PLATFORM FOR A LEONARD PELTIER FREEDOM PARTY

PLANK ONE:

"Our work will be unfinished until not a single human being is hungry, not one woman is battered, not one child is abused, not one innocent languishes in prison and no one is persecuted for his or her beliefs."

PLANK TWO:

"We need not courtrooms but schoolrooms, not jails and prisons but decent homes and jobs for the millions of every color — including many, many white people — who are being denied their human and civil rights every day of every week by the special interests who are trying to steal America. Government must be by, of and for the People, not by, of and for the special interests. Read your own Declaration of Independence and Constitution, America. It's all there."

PLANK THREE:

"If building more prisons for those of us who are unlike yourselves is to be your strategy, then, I promise you, you cannot build enough prisons to hold us all. I ask America, as one familiar with your darkest side as well as with your shining possibilities, rethink this current craze for building ever more prisons for ever more of those of us born different than you. We don't need more prisons. We need more compassion. That compassion is our own highest possibility."

PLANK FOUR:

"Democracy means difference, not sameness. Allow us our differences as we allow you yours. We don't conflict with each other; we complement each other. We need each other. Each of us is responsible for what happens on this Earth. We are each absolutely essential, each totally irreplaceable. Each of us is the swing vote in the bitter election battle now being waged between our best and our worst possibilities. How are you going to cast your all-important ballot? Humanity awaits your decision.

PLANK FIVE:

"WE MUST EACH BE AN ARMY OF ONE in the endless struggle between the goodness we are all capable of and the evil that threatens us all from without as well as from within. Yes, we can each be an army of one. One good man or one good woman can change the world, can push back the evil, and their work can be a beacon for millions, for billions. Are you that man or woman? If so, may the Great Spirit bless you. If not, why not? We must each of us be that person. That will transform the world overnight. That would be a miracle, yes, but a miracle within our power, our healing power. To heal will require real effort, and a change of heart, from all of us. To heal means that we will begin to look upon one another with respect and tolerance instead of prejudice, distrust and hatred. We will have to teach our children--as well as ourselves--to love the diversity of humanity.

To heal we will have to make a conscious effort to live as the Creator intended, as sisters and brothers, all of one human family, caretakers of this fragile, perishable and sacred Earth. To heal we will have to come to the realization that we are all under a life sentence together on this planet...and there's no chance for parole. We can do it. Yes, you and I and all of us together. Now is the time. Now is the only possible time. Let the Great Healing begin.

"Those who put me here and keep me here knowing of my innocence can take grim satisfaction in their sure reward — which is being who and what they are. That's as terrible a reward as any I could imagine.

I know who and what I am. I am an Indian — an Indian who dared to stand up to defend his people. I am an innocent man who never murdered anyone nor wanted to.

And, yes, I am a Sun Dancer. That, too, is my identity. If I am to suffer as a symbol of my people, then I suffer proudly.

I will never yield."

Leonard Peltier
from Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance

Letter Four: http://www.visionquests.com/3513/3552