MB Civic

Folks I am sending this letter from Leoard cause his health is poor and maybe there won’t be many more to come. His last paragraph touched me so.

June 26, 2008

Greetings my relatives,

I say relatives because you are all my
family. I am honored, greatly honored
today that you would listen to my words
and come together in this way so that our
future generations’ will not forget what
happened here in this land.

You can’t imagine how much I miss walking
on the bare earth. Or brushing against a
tree branch or hearing birds in the morning
or seeing an antelope or deer cross my
path. I have been here in federal prison for
32 years; if you could imagine being in your
own home stuck in one room for one year
without leaving it, multiply that by 32 and
you might have some idea of how
imprisonment plays on your feelings. I
really get tired sometimes living here in
this cell, this prison.  Yet at times I feel
really good because for some reason I know
that there are those out there who have
prayed for me in some way.  And it helps
me because there are moments when a
peaceful feeling will wash over me in my
solitude.

I try to keep up with world events like the
war in Iraq, where those people are going
through the same thing our Indian people
went through and over the same things.
The US wants their resources and they
have divided those people against each
other. Those children over there and
families for generations will still feel the
effects of that onslaught of destruction.

When I look at our own people’s situation I
see a people who have not recovered from
the destruction put upon them in the past.
Today, the greater society of America
doesn’t want to accept us for who we are
because we will always stand as a reminder
of the immoral wrongs that they do and
have done all over the world, all in the
name of technology and progress. Our
people have told them from the very
beginning about the consequences of
mistreatment of individuals and
mistreatment of Mother Earth.  There are
history books that quote our chief
headmen and medicine people cautioning
them about there destruction of the earth
and nature.

We know the first concentration camps
America ever had held Indian prisoners.
The first biological warfare was used on
our people with poisonous blankets.  The
first atomic bomb dropped was dropped on
Indian land in Nevada. Today there are
abandoned uranium quarries in Navajo
country that cause genetic defects on a lot
of their people.

When you look into the past, America has
used us Indians as their social experiment.
They tried to destroy us with boarding
schools, relocation, and even the first
slavery practice was with American people.
However Indian people would fight or
commit suicide rather than to become
slaves, and so they imported Africans.

Forgive me if I am repeating things you
already know, but I just wanted to bring
these things up because these are the
reasons behind the Wounded Knee
takeover in 73 and the shootout at Oglala.
Our people were not just taking a stand
against this government for themselves;
they in essence represented Indian people
all across the Americas. Our resistance
wasn’t to kill anyone; our resistance was to
remain alive while we let the world know
what had been, and what was now being
done to us, the Indigenous people.

I know for a fact from communication all
around the world, that we Indian people
inspired many other indigenous people to
stand up and defend themselves because of
our actions. I have gotten letters from all
over the world where people said “if the
native Americans can stand up to people
like that being in the belly of the beast,
surely we can do likewise in some way.”

I recognize that my being here isn’t all
about me; my continued imprisonment in
essence serves as a warning to others
willing to stand up for their people. The US
has violated their own constitution they
violated the treaties we had with them, they violated all kinds of moralities to bring
about my conviction. The average non
Indian American either doesn’t know or
couldn’t care less. As long as they can keep
their high standard of living our struggles
mean nothing to them. Most recently other
nations have raised the issues of America’s
mistreatment of the people in the
concentration camp in Guantanamo; issues
of lack of a fair trial, issues of physical and
mental abuse and of sanctioned torture of
prisoners. I want to also mention that our
people were the first to be tortured by this
government and we were the first to be
victims of scalping by the Europeans. The
colonizers were paying for our men,
 woman and children’s scalps.

I may sound angry in what I am saying, but
all this goes back to why we are here
today.  We must not forget what has
happened in the past but we must also find
a way to heal from those things that have
happened and be stronger in the future.
We need to heal our families; we need to
heal our family’s structures so that what
happened to our people in the past can’t
happen to us again. For several
generations our children were shipped off
to boarding schools which destroyed their
understanding of family and family
responsibilities, and you think of the
statistics today facing this, they don’t have
to kill us anymore with guns, our children
and adults both are killing themselves.

Again, like I said before we have not healed
from the destruction that was put upon us,
I know each one of us can be better than
what we are, it takes effort, it takes getting
back to our ceremonies, it takes getting
back to our respect for one another, the
earth, the Creator and our respect for our
brothers’ and sisters’ vision. It takes men
being men and being strong fathers, uncles,
grandfathers and brothers, not just as a
matter of birth but as a matter of
responsible behavior.  It also takes our
women to stand as the strong mothers
they were meant to be with the sisters,
grandmothers and aunties.  We need to
repair ourselves and not wait for some
grant from the government to tell us or
guide us in our recovery.  We need to take
that responsibility ourselves and mend the
sacred hoop.

Again I want to say as I have said many
times in the past, though my body is locked
in this cell, my heart and soul are with you
today. In closing I would like to
acknowledge the loss of our brother
Vernon Belcourt and the great loss of my
brother Floyd Westerman, a tireless
advocate for Indigenous rights I’m sure
that he as well as many others, who like
him devoted their time and energies to
better the conditions our people face, are
here with us today in spirit.

We have no guarantees of the time of our
own passing but until that time or my time,
I will miss them greatly as I miss you my
family. Be kind to one another, and
remember my words; for I have spoken to
you from my heart of hearts.  And you will
always be in my prayers.

In the spirit of Crazy Horse and every
Indian man or person that stood for their
people,

Doksha

Leonard Peltier