400 Years Later – Leonard Peltier (1976)

_{Supporters of Leonard Peltier outside the courthouse in Vancouver, BC, Coast Salish Territory}

From ‘Canadian Dimension‘, Summer 1976, Winnipeg

Leonard Peltier is a militant in the American Indian Movement currently being held in Vancouver by Canadian police and facing extradition to the United States on trumped-up charges. [This] statement [was] issued by Leonard Peltier to the court at his extradition hearing. An activist in the American Indian Movement, Peltier is being framed by the U.S. government for the shooting death of two FBI agents at the Pine Ridge Reservation (S.D.) June 25, 1975. He fled to Canada after the U.S. government handed down its indictment
[- Canadian Dimension]

I want to make a statement to the court. I want to express my feelings about this hearing and about the legal actions started against me by the United States government. First, I want to say that I am not guilty of any of the offenses which have been brought against me by the United States government. Although these actions are being treated as criminal trials, I view them as political trials. I see my hearing as part of a whole number of political cases involving Indian people before the courts of Canada and the U.S. This is only a continuation of past North American government policy of oppressing Indians by using the court system against our people. At present there exists a dual system of justice: one for the white society and one for the Indian people. Indian people are being attacked and murdered on our reservations and on the streets of the U.S. and Canada and yet no one is being called a criminal in the courts for the commission of these crimes. I know that the criminal is white racist society.

I know that white society is responsible for the mercury dumped into lakes in eastern Canada out of which come the fish which our Ojibway brothers and sisters must eat to live. Yet if we eat the fish we will die. The courts have not yet named the criminals who have dumped this mercury, but I know the criminal is white society.

When colonial white society invades and occupies our territories these are not called criminal acts, but when the native people stand up and resist, these acts are considered criminal. But these are not crimes. These are political acts in which our people stand for their rights to self-determination, self-dignity and self-respect against the cruel and oppressive might of another nation.

My ancestors signed what are called “treaties” with the governments of the U.S. and Canada. These treaties recognize the existence of independent, sovereign nations and Indians continue to recognize their sovereignty today, as witnessed by the Declaration of Continuing Independence signed in June of 1974 by the First International Indian Treaty Council at the Standing Rock Dakota Nation, and by the Dene Declaration of the native people of the Northwest Territories. Let me read from the Declaration of Continuing Independence.

“The United States of America has continually violated the independent native peoples of this continent. By executive action, legislative fiat and judicial decision, by its actions the U.S. has denied all native people their international treaty rights, treaty lands, and basic human rights of freedom and sovereignty. This same U.S. government which fought to throw off the yoke of oppression and gain its own independence has now reversed its role and become the oppressor of sovereign native people. Might does not make right. Sovereign people of varying cultures have the absolute right to live in harmony with Mother Earth as long as they do not infringe upon the same right of other people. The denial of this right to any sovereign people such as native American Indian nations must be challenged by truth and action.

World concern must focus on all colonial governments to the end that sovereign people everywhere shall live as they choose, in peace with dignity and freedom. We acknowledge the historical fact that independence for the people of our sacred Mother Earth has always meant sovereignty of land. These historical freedom efforts have always involved the highest human sacrifice. We recognize that all native nations wish to avoid violence. But we also recognize that the U.S. government has always used force and violence to deny native peoples basic human and treaty rights.”

We may have been happy with the land that was originally reserved to us. But continually over the years more and more of our land has been stolen from us by the Canadian and U.S. governments. In the 19th century our land was stolen from us for economic reasons because the land was lush and fertile and abounded with food that the greedy white settlers wished to have as their own. We were left with what the white society thought was worthless land. Still we managed to live and defy white society’s wish to exterminate us.

Today, what was once called worthless land suddenly becomes valuable as the technology of white society advances. White society would now like to push us off our reservations because beneath the barren land lie valuable mineral and oil resources. It is not a new development for white society to steal from nonwhite peoples. When white society succeeds it’s called colonialism. When white society’s efforts to colonize people are met with resistance it’s called war. But when the colonized Indians of North America meet to stand and resist we are called criminals. What could be more clear than that to treat us as criminals is a farce? We are an Indian nation and the governments of Canada and the United States and the dominant white society they represent have made war against our people, culture, spiritual ways and sacred Mother Earth for over 400 years.

For over 400 years we have struggled against colonial rule and to reassert our rights as members of an independent sovereign nation within those territories established by treaties. These treaties are sacred documents binding the signatory nations to an inviolate international relationship. Yet you force us into your courts — courts that have never been just with Indian people. The high ratio of native people in North America prisons attests to this fact.

The general political persecution directed at Indian people is focused on the representatives of the American Indian Movement (AIM). These political persecutions started in the U.S. and are aimed at the American Indian Movement. This type of selective political persecution against AIM members is no different than the abuses by the Federal Bureau of Investigation against the Black Panther Party and the Socialist Workers Party as revealed in the Rockefeller and Church reports. For the FBI has abused the American court system by harassing and jailing people who resist their oppression. That is why I am standing here today before this court in shackles. What I ask this court is: Will the Canadian system of justice and its authorities, knowing of these abuses, be used as a tool of the corrupt American state? I am asking this court and this country to grant me political asylum.