On Saturday, February 4, 2012, a Northwest Regional March and Rally for Clemency for Leonard Peltier will take place in Tacoma. -- A march will begin from Portland Ave. Park at 12:00 noon, followed by a 1:00 p.m. rally at the Federal Court House in downtown Tacoma (1717 Pacific Ave.). -- More details below.[1] ...
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WHAT: Northwest Regional March and Rally for Clemency for Leonard Peltier
WHO: Matilaja; Steve Hapy; Dorothy Ackerman; Deeahop Conway; Arthur J. Miller; Ramona Bennett; Chester Earl; Zoltan Grossman; Claudia Serrato; Michael One Road; David Duenas. Event organized by the Tacoma Chapter of the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee.
WHEN: Saturday, February 4, 2012 -- 12:00 noon (march) and 1:00 p.m (rally)
WHERE: March leaving from Portland Ave. Park (Portland Ave. between E. 35th & E. Fairbanks) -- Rally beginning at 1:00 p.m. at the U.S. Federal Courthouse (1717 Pacific Avenue).
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From: The Tacoma Chapter of the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee and the Office of the Northwest Regional Organizer of the LPDOC
IF EVER YOU THOUGHT ABOUT SUPPORTING LEONARD PELTIER, NOW IS THE TIME TO DO IT!
The New Leonard Peltier Clemency Campaign is the most important Leonard Peltier campaign in many years. To help build public pressure in support of clemency, the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee has issued a call:
“The Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee calls on supporters worldwide to protest against the injustice suffered by indigenous activist Leonard Peltier. Gather on February 4, 2012, at every Federal court house and U.S. embassy or consulate worldwide to demand the freedom of a man wrongfully convicted and illegal imprisoned for 36 years!
“Although the courts have acknowledged evidence of government misconduct -- including forcing witnesses to lie and hiding ballistics evidence reflecting his innocence -- Mr. Peltier has been denied a new trial on a legal technicality. Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, fifty-five members of Congress, and others -- including a judge who sat as a member of the court in two of Mr. Peltier’s appeals -- have all called for his immediate release.
“The Courts may not be able to act, but Barack Obama, as President, can. Please join with us to free an innocent man. On February 4, 2012, tell Obama to grant clemency to Leonard Peltier.”
Over the years Leonard Peltier's bid for freedom has been supported by many, including labor unions, Amnesty International, First Nations and Native organizations (like the National Congress of American Indians, (see http://lpdoc.blogspot.com/2011/12/ncai-to-obama-its-time-to-free-leonard.html ), human and civil rights organizations, many celebrities, and people around the world just like you. Each and every Leonard Peltier supporter is important and together we must build the public support that is needed to free Leonard.
WE must free Leonard because he is a person who has stood up for his people and in 36 years in prison refuses to be broken. WE must free Leonard because he is an innocent activist who was framed and the laws of this land, including the Constitution, have not applied to him. WE must free Leonard because he is a part of the Native struggle against polices of genocide, theft of Native land and broken treaties.
WE must free Leonard because we are all connected to him. All social activists are threatened by what they have done to Leonard. All non-corporate persons share, in many different ways, in the great suffering that the giant corporations have caused for us all. So please help free Leonard for your own and your families' well-being also.
Please join with us on February 4, 2012, for THE INTERNATIONAL DAY IN SOLIDARITY WITH LEONARD PELTIER. Join with people at organized events in many places including: The Northwest region of the U.S. (Tacoma, Portland, Olympia, Seattle, and other towns united together) march in Tacoma, WA; Toronto and Vancouver; Canada; Binghamton, U.K.; Berlin, Frankfurt, and Hamburg, Germany; Brussels and Antwerp, Belgium; Dublin, Ireland; Boulder, CO; San Jose, CA; Gallup, NM; Los Angeles, CA; Albuquerque, NM; San Francisco, CA; New York City, NY; Fresno, CA; Buffalo, NY; Macon and Decatur, GA; inter alia. If there is no event in your area please organize one and let LPDOC know about it; phone: 701/235-2206, E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Also, while this is going on, the Leonard Peltier Walk For Human Rights is moving across the country.
Here in the Northwest region we have for many years organized marches and rallies for Leonard. Since 1992 we have organized 63 marches in Portland, Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle, Everett, Mount Vernon, Bellingham, and at the U.S./Canadian border. All this organizing and educational experiences has led us to the INTERNATIONAL DAY IN SOLIDARITY WITH LEONARD PELTIER, NORTHWEST REGION MARCH AND RALLY on February 4, 2012, in Tacoma. This is the most important march the Northwest has ever organized! If you have supported Leonard in the past, please join with us again. If you have ever thought about supporting Leonard, now is the time to do it. Thank you.
"As individual fingers we can easily be broken, but all together we make a mighty fist." --Sitting Bull.
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INTERNATIONAL DAY IN SOLIDARITY WITH LEONARD PELTIER
NW REGIONAL MARCH AND RALLY FOR CLEMENCY FOR LEONARD PELTIER
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY, 4, 2012, TACOMA, WA
12:00 NOON: MARCH FOR JUSTICE
Portland Ave. Park (on Portland Ave. between E. 35th & E. Fairbanks. Take Portland Ave. exit off I-5 and head east)
1:00 PM: RALLY FOR JUSTICE
U.S. Federal Court House, 1717 Pacific Ave.
PLEASE POST, SHARE AND LIKE ON FACEBOOK:
http://zinelibrary.info/files/Peltier_March_2011.pdf
SPEAKERS:
Co-MCs
Matilaja: Yu’Pik Eskimo from Mountain Village Alaska. Member of N.W. AIM since 1973, Friend of Leonard Peltier for 38 odd years and member of Tacoma Chapter LPDOC
Steve Hapy: Longtime Leonard Peltier and Native struggles activist, Tacoma Chapter LPDOC
Leonard Peltier Honor Song:
AIM Warrior Society Drum
Opening:
Dorothy Ackerman: Lakota Elder
Drum:
Albert Combs and Coastal Hand Drum Singers
Welcoming:
Deeahop Conway, Puyallup Tribal member, Tacoma Chapter LPDOC
Leonard's case and up-date:
Arthur J. Miller: Northwest Regional Organizer LPDOC, Tacoma Chapter LPDOC, long time union member and human rights activist
Keynote Speaker:
Ramona Bennett: Puyallup Tribal Elder, lifelong friend of Leonard Peltier, grandmother, great-grandmother
Chester Earl: Puyallup Tribal member
Zoltan Grossman: Evergreen State College (Olympia) faculty in Geography and Native Studies; former board member of Midwest Treaty Network in Wisconsin.
Decolonization:
Claudia Serrato
Unity:
Michael One Road: Portland Chapter LPDOC
Closing words:
David Duenas: Puyallup Tribal Member
CAR POOLS. OLYMPIA: There will be a carpool leaving from the parking lot at Harrison and Division at 10:15 a.m. PORTLAND: Meet up outside of KBOO Radio Station (20 SE 8th, Portland, OR 97124) before embarking to Tacoma between 9:00 a.m.-9:30 a.m. SEATTLE: Meet at the Red Apple parking lot at 23rd and Jackson by the bus stop. Will be leaving at 10:30 a.m.
We need new banners and signs. We need video of this event to use for support work, please send us DVD copies. We need supporters to get out fliers, if you can please contact us. We need people to forward our e-mail statements. We need people to share on Facebook information on the march. Our marches are not about one group but rather they are the work of all Peltier supporters in our region.
RESOLUTIONS FOR CLEMENCY: Leonard needs resolutions for clemency from tribes, unions, human rights organizations, and others. See a sample resolution at:
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/resolution.htm
For donations: Please make checks payable to the Leonard Peltier Defense/Offense Committee (mark them for NW March) and send them to: Tacoma Chapter LPODC, P.O. Box 5464, Tacoma, WA 98415.
Join Tacoma Chapter LPDOC on facebook at: http://facebook.com/tacoma.lpdoc
Subscribe to: Northwest Peltier Support at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
For more information: www.whoisleonardpeltier.info
--TACOMA CHAPTER, LPDOC, P.O. BOX 5464, TACOMA, WA 98415-0464. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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MARCH STATEMENT
“I have no doubt whatsoever that the real motivation behind both Wounded Knee II and the Oglala firefight, and much of the turmoil throughout Indian Country since the early 1970s, was -- and is -- the mining companies’ desire to muffle AIM and all traditional Indian people, who sought -- and still seek -- to protect the land, water, and air from their thefts and depredations. In this sad and tragic age we live in, to come to the defense of Mother Earth is to be branded a criminal.” --Leonard Peltier, Prison Writings (St. Martins Press, 1999).
Leonard Peltier (of the Anishinabe, Dakota, and Lakota Nations), longtime native activist and member of the American Indian Movement, is an innocent man who was convicted for the 1975 shooting deaths of two agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. U.S. prosecutors have repeatedly admitted that they did not and cannot prove Peltier's guilt, and the appellate courts have cited numerous instances of investigative and prosecutorial misconduct in this case. As late as November 2003, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals acknowledged that "Much of the government’s behavior at the Pine Ridge Reservation and its prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed." The trial of the first two AIM members in this case were found not guilty by reason of self-defense.
Behind the case of Leonard Peltier and the events that took place on the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota Reservation is the continuing theft of native land for energy corporations. High-grade uranium was found in the northwest corner of Pine Ridge. It was well-known that the Lakota people would be unwilling to sell their land because they refused payment for the Black Hills. So a plan was carried out to suppress the traditional Oglala Lakota people and their supporters from the America Indian Movement. This led to the Wounded Knee II Occupation. Over 500 AIM members were indicted, and there was a two-and-a-half-year reign of terror against the Oglala Lakota people and the firefight near Oglala, in which Leonard was charged. This took place at the same time that a corrupt tribal chairman was illegally signing away the part of Pine Ridge with the uranium. The firefight took place as a means to divert attention and to suppress AIM.
Leonard has been in prison for more than thirty-six years for a crime he did not commit, a crime for which the forces of greed were responsible. The authorities have withheld medical care for Leonard and recently he was placed in solitary confinement for 72 days, then sent to a high-security prison in Florida, as far away from his lawyers and family as they could send him. Leonard is in bad health and they want him to die in prison, alone and forgotten. We will not let that happen.
We are now organizing a new clemency for Leonard Peltier campaign and the regional march on Feb, 4, 2012, are a very important part of that. Please help us raise money for it and get the word out everywhere. Please let us come together in the spirit of unity for Leonard and for the kind of justice and peace we want for our world. Thank you.
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LINKS
Join Tacoma Chapter LPDOC on facebook at: http://facebook.com/tacoma.lpdoc
Subscribe to: Northwest Peltier Support at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
For more information: www.whoisleonardpeltier.info
March web site: http://leonardpeltiermarch.wordpress.com/
On the web:
http://zinelibrary.info/international-day-solidarity-leonard-peltier-feb-4-2011-fliers-and-info
Two-page flier for NW Regional March: http://zinelibrary.info/files/Peltier_March_2011.pdf
One-page flier for NW Regional March: http://zinelibrary.info/files/Peltier_March_2001_info.pdf
Portland flier for NW Regional March: http://zinelibrary.info/files/Portland_Peltier_Flier.pdf
11"-by-17" poster for the march/rally: http://zinelibrary.info/files/Peltier_Poster_2011.pdf
March statements and flier: http://zinelibrary.info/files/Peltier_March_2001_info.pdf
Feb. 4, 2012 Regional March in Tacoma Facebook event pages:
http://www.facebook.com/events/#!/events/163763897043790/
http://www.facebook.com/events/#!/events/179938242097693/
Background article on Leonard:
http://zinelibrary.info/files/2012_case_of_leonard_peltier.pdf
Video: LPDOC NW Regional Organizer Arthur J. Miller speaking about the case history of political prisoner Leonard Peltier: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pvxqgIVRlo
LPDOC: Constitutional Violations in the Peltier Case: http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/violations.htm
YouTube video of Ramona Bennett from last May rally
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yP-NnxB4RU
Audio recording of the May 2011 rally in Tacoma:
http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2011/05/26/peltier_march_2011.mp3
An Open Letter to the OCCUPY! Movement;
http://zinelibrary.info/files/open%20letter%20to%20occupy.pdf
Organizing Marches and Rallies: The Tacoma Model:
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/download/marches.doc
Matilaja: (Yu’Pik Eskimo from Mountain Village Alaska. Member of N.W. AIM since 1973, Friend of Leonard Peltier for 38 odd years and member of Tacoma Chapter LPDOC) speaking at the showing of “Incident at Oglala: The Leonard Peltier Story”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2kadnAv-dI
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NORTHWEST PHONE AND E-MAIL ZAP, FEBRUARY 6 to 10, 2012
White House Comments Line -- 202-456-1111; 202-456-1112
E-mail: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Message: Northwest people support clemency for Leonard Peltier
It is important to keep phone calls, emails, and letters going to the White House during the clemency campaign. But we want to make sure that it is very clear that the Northwest supports clemency for Leonard Peltier, so we have called for a phone and e-mail Zap (a phone Zap is when a lot of people call around the same time), the week after the regional march and rally. Please northwest folks show your support of Leonard Peltier. Thank you.