>[source: NativeNews; Wed, 20 Dec 2000 19:39:36 -0500] > > >>>>>>>----- Original Message -----> > >From: "Anthony Hall" <hall@uleth.ca> > > Confronting the Hard Realities of North America's Ongoing Indian War > > by Anthony J. Hall > Dept. of Native American Studies > University of Lethbridge > >Just days after the US Supreme Court exposed its thoroughgoing >politicization in the case of Bush versus Gore, the federal government's >top law enforcers followed the judges by leaping into the political fray. >For the first time in the 92-year history of the FBI, hundreds of federal >agents gathered to protest at the White House in Washington DC. Their >declared aim was to pre-empt the possibility that outgoing President Bill >Clinton would pardon Leornard Peltier. > >Peltier is the jailed activist of the American Indian Movement (AIM) >believed by many, including Nelson Mandela, Robert Redford and Amnesty >International, to have been wrongfully framed for the murder of two FBI >agents. The killing of FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, took >place during the virtual civil war on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South >Dakota in 1975. In many bloody exchanges about 100 AIM activists were also >murdered by the federally-supported, para-military forces led by the Pine >Ridge Reservation's infamous Tribal Chairman, Richard Wilson. > >The Peltier case lies at the centre of a number of long-festering >controversies that combine to form an amazing saga of official wrongdoing >with sweeping international implications. As elaborately chronicled in a >growing array of books, articles and films, including Peter Matthiessen's >monumental " In The Spirit of Crazy Horse", there is a huge and growing >mass of evidence to demonstrate that government agencies have >systematically violated many of their own laws in what amounts to an >ongoing Indian war of hemispheric dimensions. This covert campaign has been >directed at incapacitating the most militant wing of the First Nations >sovereignty movement. > >The co-ordinated, international character of the war on the American Indian >Movement and its many branches, including the Mohawk Warriors and the >Ts'peten Defenders in Canada, has come to light through many venues >including revelations about the dubious proceeedings leading to the >extradition of Leonard Peltier from British Columbia in 1976. The tainted >character of the evidence used to remove Peltier from Canada was >highlighted recently during hearings in Toronto. At these quasi-judicial >proceedings, Myrtle Poor Bear, whose affidavit was crucial in securing >Peltier's extradition in 1976, testified how FBI agents had threatened to >take away her child if she did not agree to lie in order to incriminate >Peltier. Ms. Poor Bear went further, explaining how the FBI taunted her >with pictures of the mutilated corpse of AIM activist, Anna Mae Aquash, >threatening her with a similar fate if she did not co-operate with those >FBI's Inquisitors charged to exorcise AIM's perceived heresies. > >The USA's careless treatment of its Canadian ally in the Peltier case has >long been an irritant in foreign relations between the two countries. In >his long campaign for some reckoning with the legacy of the falsified >evidence used in gaining Peltier's extradition, Warren Allmand, a former >Solicitor General of Canada, has gradually won over a number of >influential allies. They include about 60 parliamentarians, the Royal >Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and, most recently, Peter Hogg, Dean of >Toronto's prestigious Osgoode Law School. Said Hogg recently, "Mr. Peltier >has served 25 years in prison, which is a terrible burden for someone who >is probably innocent." > >The international campaign to free Leonard Peltier, who many see as the >USA's most obvious political prisoner, received a surprising boost in late >November when a judge in Portland Oregon overruled the US State Department >in a case that replayed in reverse some of the central features of the >Peltier extradition case. In her ruling in the case of United States of >America versus James Pitawanakwat, Judge Janice Stewart found that a >Native veteran of the Battle of Gustafsen Lake, which took place in >British Columbia in 1995, could not be extradited back to Canada because >he qualified for the same kind of political asylum sought unsuccessfully >by Leonard Peltier in 1976. > >The extradition hearing in Portland last October matched lawyers for the >State Department against Pitawanakwat's defence team in the Federal Public >Defender's Office. The latter successfully argued that Canada's >criminalization of Pitawanakwat fulfilled the "political offenses >exception" in the Extradition Treaty between Canada and the USA. That >provision is designed to afford protection to genuine freedom fighters >whose criminalized actions arise in the context of legitimate liberation >struggles waged against unjust, oppressive regimes. > >In her ruling Judge Stewart drew attention to the tainted testimony used in > Peltier's extradition hearings, even as she implicitly criticized Canadian > officials for failing to extend the political offenses exception to their >ward in 1976. In a passage that has provided President Clinton with >American judicial backing to help edify the overwhelmingly compelling case >for a grant of executive clemency to Peltier, Judge Stewart decided, "The >Canadian tribunal ruled that Peltier should be extradited back to the >United States, to a large extent on the basis of what subsequently turned >out to be false affidavits.... [Peltier] sought review by the Canadian >Minister of Justice on the basis that he was being extradited for a >political offense, but the Minister refused relief. Unfortunately, this >court has been unable to determine why Canada deemed the political offense >exception inapplicable." > >In deciding the case Judge Stewart detailed a saga of Canadian government >lawlessness reminiscent of the same kind of campaign waged by the US >government to invalidate the political legitimacy of the American Indian >Movement in the mid-1970s. Where AIM attracted enormous attention based >largely on its armed stand in 1973 at Wounded Knee, the site of an >infamous slaughter of Native people by the American military almost a >century earlier, Mr. Pitawankwat was involved in a similar armed >confrontation near Gustafsen Lake BC in 1995. That confrontation pitted >members of the AIM-related Ts'peten Defenders against the largest >mobilization of police and military in Western Canada since the stand of >Louis Riel and the Canadian Metis was crushed by the regime of Prime >Minister John A. Macdonald in 1885. > >In her ruling Judge Stewart placed high geopolitical significance on the >involvement of the Canadian military in the operation at Gustafsen Lake. >The Canadian army's role marked "the seriousness of the challenge to >Canadian jurisdiction over unceded tribal lands." She pointed to evidence >of the confrontation's severity, noting that the trees on the site were >"riddled with 77,000 rounds of bullet holes fired by the RCMP toward the >camp." She also referred to the existence of Camp Zulu, the military >headquarters for Canada's undeclared Indian war. This installation, she >explained in her ruling, was "replete with armored personnel carriers, a >field hospital, a communications centre, a landing field, military assault >weapons, and a heavily armed militarized police force of 400 officers in >camouflage gear." Moreover, Mr. Pitawanakwat was personally exposed to >"10,000 to 20,000 government rounds" on September 11th after he fled from >a red truck that ran over a government-detonated land mine. > >One of the most disturbing features of Judge Stewart's historic ruling is >her reference to "uncontradicted evidence that the Canadian government >engaged in a smear and disinformation campaign to prevent the media from >learning and publicizing the true extent of the political nature of the >events." What is to be said of the apparent ease with which the security >police in both Canada and the United States have been able to manipulate >the mainstream media into knowing or inadvertent complicity in >officialdom's persistent deployment of systematic lies to steer public >attention away from those most serious constitutional arguments >consistently raised by the most militant wing of the First Nations >sovereignty movement? How sadly easy it so often was for offending >governments to gain media co-operation in wrongfully characterizing what >was at issue at Wounded Knee in 1973, at Oka in 1990 or at Gustafsen Lake >and Ipperwash in 1995. As Judge Stewart's ruling attests, all these >episodes tended to be misreported as episodes of mere Native criminality >rather than as confrontations which highlighted consistent failures on the >part of governments to live up even to their own commitments to recognize >and affirm what is known in the Canadian constitution as "existing >Aboriginal and treaty rights." > >In her own judicial characterization of what was really at issue in the >episodes leading up to Canada's request to extradite Mr. Pitawankwat from >the USA, Judge Stewart ruled that "the Gustafsen incident involved an >organized group rising up in their homeland against the occupation by the >government of Canada of their sacred and unceded tribal land." In her >statement of "facts" surrounding the case, she referred to "various acts >in the 1800s" whereby the governments of Canada and British Columbia >"illegally usurped jurisdiction over unsurrendered hunting grounds." In >detailing the nature of this illegal usurpation, Judge Stewart drew >attention to the arguments of the now-disbarred lawyer for the Ts'peten >Defenders, Dr. Bruce Clark. Before Dr. Clark was criminalized for >aggressively questioning the jurisdictional capacity of the British >Columbian courts to hear the case of the Ts'peten Defenders, this >controversial legal scholar advanced British imperial law as the true >foundation of Canada's constitutional affirmation of Aboriginal rights and >title. > >The US judge rounded out her decision by indicating how the language of >land claims or land disputes served "to trivialize" the true nature of the >conflict over lands and resources in British Columbia. As in large parts >of the USA and Canada, Indian title remains uncompromised through treaty >negotiations with First Nations. "Control over land," concluded Judge >Stewart, "is one of the primary reasons for the existence of a government >and is often the cause of wars between nations." She added, "Given its >substantial economic consequences, the Aboriginal land title question in >Canada clearly is a highly charged issue for Native and non-Native people." > >As I see it, the unprecedented, White-House protest of FBI agents is an >indication of the extent of both the desperation and determination on the >part of the security police, who have been assigned the dirtiest jobs >entailed in the continuation of the continent's undeclared Indian war. >The basic task assigned the federal agents has been to keep one of this >continent's oldest and most profound human rights issues from spilling >beyond the arena of the domestic courts into venues of international law. >The aim has been to smear, discredit, criminalize, destabilize and >dehabilitate those parts of the First Nations sovereignty movement who >have refused to accept as legitimate that branch of Indian leadership >whose funding and legislative authority comes primarily from federal as >opposed to First Nations sources. > >Where the murderous regime of Pine Ridge Tribal Chairman, Dick Wilson, once > embodied the internalized corruption that AIM was formed to combat, the >dynamics of indirect rule in Indian Country have become more elaborate and >complex during subsequent decades. At present it would be hard to locate a > more illustrative example of the contamination through patronage politics >of a once-promising initiative in federal-First Nation relations, than in >the so-called treaty negotiations currently underway in British Columbia. > >It is more than mere coincidence that also made BC the site of Leonard >Peltier's wrongful extradition without due process to the USA as well as >the site of Canada's most infamous undeclared Indian war in 1995. The >execution of that war represented a new frontier of federal-provincial co >operation as expressed particularly in the operations of Camp Zulu. Its >currency of effectiveness was as much media manipulation, in other words >"smear and disinformation," as land mines and army armoured personnel >carriers. In the final analysis the rationale for this expensive >mobilization of the most coercive forms of state power were to retain the >domestic framework of the negotiations on title and jurisdiction with the >First Nations of BC. > >With Judge Stewart's ruling in the Pitawankwat case the domestication of >negotiations on Indigenous peoples' title to land and resources has >effectively been obliterated. Regardless of any future challenges to the >ruling, this ground-breaking judgment has unalterably made the matter of >the Original title of North America's First Nations an issue of foreign >policy for the world's only remaining superpower. That fact alone >promises to have tremendous implications for the future course of Canada-US >relations in a hemisphere dominated by nation states who uniformly have >risen up from the European side of the Columbian conquests that began in >1492 and arguably continue until this day. The underlying theme of the >Columbian conquests has been empire and nation building through the >genocidal extinguishment of First Nations titles to lands and resources. > >The federal agents who gathered at the White House cannot be blind to the >fact that a critical information mass is fast being reached in bringing to >light their own central role in North America's continuing Indian war. >Thus their opposition to clemency for Leonard Peltier can be seen as >tangential to a more basic agenda on the part of the continent's security >forces. As I see it, they have been signalling an understandable >unwillingness to be made the sole scapegoats in the upcoming revelations >about the extent of government lawlessness in the covert and largely >successful campaign to sabotage AIM as well as its many devotees and >attending organizations. > >In spite of the covert assaults on AIM, an organization born of shared >struggle in the prisons of North America where a disproportionate >percentage of Native people spend many of their days, its influence has >been present at virtually every assertive expression of First Nations >jurisdiction, from the fish wars at Cheam or Burnt Church to the contested >sun dance grounds at Gustafsen Lake. In the final analysis those most >responsible for government lawlessness in the continuing war on AIM and in >the illegal subjugation Indian Country are not the secret police or even >the media purveyors of smear and disinformation. The individuals who need >to be held most accountable are rather our elected officials, who have >consistently failed to find viable means of expressing politically those >legal protections of Aboriginal and treaty rights entrenched in North >America's founding constitutional instruments. The sacrifices of rule of >law to fulfill the expediencies of the rule of politics has effectively >cleared the way for the consolidation of ruthless and arbitrary forms of >tyranny. Thus officialdom's crimes against the marginalized few become >crimes against the mainstream many, as law enforcement agencies protest in >the streets and as judges pre-empt the sanctity of the electoral process >in the heartland of the American empire.<<<<<<<
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