>Waiting for an old acquaintance >By Carol Kreck >Denver Post Staff Writer > >Dec. 25, 2000 - The world awaits word of possible presidential pardon for >American Indian leader Leonard Peltier, but few listen more acutely than >Denver's Ernesto Vigil. > >Peltier was convicted of the June 1975 shooting deaths of two FBI agents at >the Jumping Bull Compound on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation during a >six-hour firefight. One of 48 suspects, he fled and wasn't captured until >1976 in Alberta, Canada. > >His case has become a cause celebre. Peltier, with the backing of prominent >figures around the world, maintains his innocence; FBI agents, furious that >a pardon is possible in the waning days of the Clinton administration, >marched on the White House this month. > >When he was on the run, Peltier sought support from the Denver-based >activist Chicano organization Crusade for Justice. Vigil, the crusade's >liaison to the American Indian Movement, met with him on the Rosebud >Reservation in South Dakota, and Peltier twice came here. Details of those >visits are included in Vigil's book, "The Crusade for Justice: Chicano >Militancy and the Government's War on Dissent," published last year by the >University of Wisconsin Press. > >Vigil remembers those visits well. > >"He believed they would not take him alive," said the author, whose book is >a history of the Chicano Civil Rights movement in 1960s Denver led by >Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzales. Or, if Peltier were to survive capture, he >believed "he could not get a fair trial." > >Crusade and American Indian Movement leaders met to weigh options, including >a crusade proposal that Peltier flee through Mexico to Cuba. > >Peltier spoke freely of what happened that day and his role in the shootout. >"He owned up to being involved in the firefight - he was not ashamed of >that, not embarrassed," Vigil said. "He didn't feel that what any of them >had done was wrong in as much as they believed they were under attack and >were defending themselves. > >"What he said was very clear, that he was not among those involved in firing >those fatal shots." > >Vigil's faith in Peltier's innocence remained steadfast; Vigil was arrested >by a Denver police intelligence unit at a demonstration for Peltier in the >spring of 1999. > >In the ensuing 24 years of Peltier's imprisonment at Leavenworth, Kan., >others took up his cause, including Nobel laureates Jose Ramos Horta, who >worked for peace in East Timor; the Dalai Lama; Northern Ireland Peace >Movement founders Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Betty Williams; Nelson >Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa; the late Mother Teresa; >Rigoberta Menchu Tum of Guatemala; former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey >Clark, Coretta Scott King; the World Council of Churches; and the European >Parliament. > >Meanwhile, 8,000 active and retired FBI agents recently signed a petition >opposing Peltier's release. > >In his book, Vigil links the FBI with three crucial events of the 1970s: the >crusade-supported AIM occupation of Wounded Knee, which began Feb. 27, 1973; >the bloody confrontation between Denver police and the Crusade for Justice >on March 17, 1973; and the firefight at the Jumping Bull compound on Pine >Ridge, which resulted in Peltier's imprisonment. > >The crux of his book is the St. Patrick's Day incident that left three >Denver officers wounded. Police killed Vigil's friend, Luis "Junior" >Martinez. Vigil was shot in the back. > >Even in the midst of tumultuous times, Vigil said he was aware he was living >in the vortex of history, a favorite subject of his at Manual High School, >where he graduated in 1966. > >Vigil was recruited for Princeton, but he didn't get in. So he went to >Goddard College in Vermont, where he got a full ride. He had an idea he >might be a novelist, or a lawyer. > >Goddard changed his perception of the world. "Almost nobody at Goddard had >seen a Mexican before - they thought I was white," he said. "To be around >white people who do not have an ingrained bias against you was a unique >experience. > >"It was a major difference not to be looked down on by your peers. Being >removed from this environment gave me an opportunity to look from without >and understand it in a completely different way. I realized it doesn't have >to be this way. It was made this way." > >Nine months after his first college year, Vigil was back in Denver and >became shocked at the number of friends already locked up, going to court, >unemployed or getting killed in Vietnam. He returned to Goddard for a month, >marched on the Pentagon and dropped out of school. After a brief stay in >Philadelphia, he returned to Denver. His own trouble with the draft was >looming, and he went to see Corky Gonzales. > >"Corky's name was known throughout the barrio. I remember hearing his name >in middle school," Vigil said. The Crusade for Justice was the only >organization taking a stand against the war in Vietnam for the same reasons >he opposed it: "It was unconstitutional, a violation of Vietnamese >sovereignty and poor Americans were cannon fodder." > >Gonzales was a poet, a boxer, a bail bondsman, a bar owner. He not only >opposed the war, but was a voice for change in the barrio. Two institutions >were sticking points: "The failure of schools to serve our youth, and >violation of our rights by those supposed to uphold the law," Vigil said. >Vigil brought his own desire for change, but having that validated by the >crusade had tremendous impact. > >Vigil joined the crusade, a commitment interrupted briefly by his stay for >draft evasion at the Federal Correctional Facility in Jefferson County. "I >met a better class of person in prison. When I came out, I missed a lot of >friends." > >Intense activism followed through the 1960s and 1970s, including some 30 >arrests. He regrets only that he was not a better husband and father during >those times; his interest in history never wavered. Gonzales worried that >stories of their people were never written down, and Vigil took time to ask >his father about the family history. > >It was an oral history, he said, but as he researched details, he was amazed >at the stories' accuracy. Those stories may be the subject of his next book. > >All Vigils are descended from one family who traveled through Mexico to what >is now New Mexico in 1695, he said. There were five brothers: Pedro, >Francisco, Manuel, Domingo and Juan. Vigil is descended from Domingo. > >Nor is he the family's first rebel. Great-great-great-grandfather Pablo >Montoya was a leader with Jose Gonzales, an Indian, in the Chimayo rebellion >of 1837. Gonzales was elected governor of New Mexico by the rebels, "the >first elected governor of New Mexico and the first and only Indian >governor," Vigil said. > >On Jan. 19, 1847, Montoya led the Taos Rebellion, which was crushed the >following month. He was hung in the Taos plaza, the first rebel leader >executed, one day after his capture. -end-
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