Pregnant Anti-Mining Activist Assassinated in El Salvador
Democracy Now!
For the second time in a week, a prominent anti-mining activist has been assassinated in El Salvador. On Saturday, thirty-two-year-old Dora “Alicia” Recinos Sorto was shot dead near her home. One of her children was also injured in the shooting. Sorto was an active member of the Cabañas Environment Committee, which has campaigned against the reopening of a gold mine owned by the Vancouver-based Pacific Rim Mining Company. [includes rush transcript]
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/29/anti_mining_activists_killed_in_e
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Second opponent to Pacific Rim slain this week
by Moira Peters →Free Trade & Gateway Projects
Nearly two years ago, he lost two fingers because he opposed a Canadian-owned gold mine in Cantina Trinidad, El Salvador. Yesterday, Jose Santos Rodriguez lost his wife, some say for the same reason.
Dora Alicia Sorto Recinos, 32, was shot and killed yesterday at 3:30 pm when she was returning home from doing laundry in a nearby river. She was eight months pregnant. Her son, who was accompanying her, was shot in the foot.
Santos Rodriguez is a farmer and active member of the Environmental Committee of Cabanas (CAC), a citizen group in opposition to Pacific Rim's proposed El Dorado gold mine. In April, 2008, he was attacked by Oscar Menjivar, a neighbour who had relationships with local mayors who supported the mine. In the attack, Menjivar cut off two of Santos Rodriguez' fingers with a machete.
According to a press release by Movimiento Unificado Francisco Sánchez-1932 (MUFRAS-32), Sorto Recinos had recently informed MUFRAS-32 that men with rifles had come to her house, looking for her husband. He was not home at the time.The assassination of Sorto Recinos is the second murder this week of an opponent to Pacific Rim's proposed El Dorado mine, and the latest in a string of assassinations of civilian opponents to Canadian mining projects in Latin America.
Ramiro Rivera Gomez was shot and killed on December 20, in spite of 24-hour police protection.
MUFRAS-32 says the community is most alarmed by the lack of police investigation into these crimes. There have been no arrests for Rivera Gomez' assassination, and the community sees only "the most serious lack of will in discovering the causes of these murders," according to the release.
December 28, 2009
December 27, 2009
Hate Crimes for Christmas
Hate crimes for Christmas
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Photo: Cross burning at nighttime Ku Klux Klan (KKK) rally, Photo by Hank Walker, 1946, Time Life
Hate crimes against African-Americans and the number of hate groups increased in the United States during this decade, according to US statistics. But what of the hate crimes on the US/Mexico border, where white Border Patrol agents kill people of color in cold blood, as was the case with Francisco Javier Dominguez Rivera, 22, from Morelia, Mexico?
Why is it not a hate crime when white Border Patrol agents and white police officers beat and murder Tohono O’odham, and other people of color, on the backroads near the US/Mexico border?
Why is it not a hate crime when the US federal court prosecutes volunteers for giving water to a dying person on the southern border?
Why is it not a hate crime when the United States kills civilians with drones during rogue assassinations in Iraq or Afghanistan? Why is it not a hate crime when Navajo, Lakota, Tohono O'odham and other Indian women, children and elderly go to bed cold, sick and hungry -- without food, medicine and firewood -- ignored by the United States and their own elected councils?
Television news, especially CNN, can be singled out for the rise of institutionalized racism and nationalism. CNN champions the rights of white victims in mind-numbing repeated broadcasts. When was the last time CNN sought justice for a black, American Indian or Asian missing or murdered child or desperate parent? CNN's chosen victims are more often than not, fair-haired blondes. The people that CNN and other television news focus on to shame and vilify are more often than not people of color.
Television news was responsible for fueling the border xenophobia, which resulted in billions of dollars of profits for Boeing border wall builders and surveillance profiteers. Over the past decade, it was television news, particularly CNN, that fueled global intolerance, racial and religious prejudice toward people from the Middle East. This institutionalized religious prejudice targeted the followers of the Prophet Mohammad. It was primarily CNN that manipulated the facts and swayed public opinion concerning the United States’ oil and opium rich wars in the Middle East.
Instead of calling for the prosecution of Bush and Cheney for war crimes, in violation of the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture, television news anchors broadcast Cheney’s book tour.
The newsmakers, including global wire services, treated press releases written by politicians and corporations as facts, fictionalizing the news on issues ranging from the war and the US borders, to uranium mining and power plants on American Indian lands.
Canadian mining companies assassinated Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala and elsewhere. Canadian mining companies, including Barrick Gold and Cameco uranium, targeted Indian lands in the US, and around the world, to poison their land and water with gold and uranium mining. Television news ignored the facts.
What were the most censored news stories in 2009? It was all censored. The media stopped questioning the reasons for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States continued its covert drug operation for opium and other drugs in Afghanistan, issued oil contracts in Iraq in 2009, after smuggling yellowcake out of Iraq for the private company Cameco in Canada in 2008. The news media failed to expose the United States role in the drug violence of northern Mexico, both in trafficking and the demand for drugs. News makers failed to expose the fact that the most brutal torturers in Mexico, the Zetas, were originally trained as US Special Forces.
People of color, considered expendables by the US, continued to be targeted in television commercials and by military recruiters to die in Iraq and Afghanistan, a war with no real purpose and no possibility of victory. Military recruiters are masters of deceit. The lies of military recruiters seldom become public after enlisted men and women become soldiers. Women, who military recruiters promised would return to their home communities as recruiters, quickly find themselves on the battlefield, fearing they will be raped by their fellow soldiers in the bushes. These reasons, including the purposeless of the war, are among the reasons that the US now has its highest ever rate of suicides in the military.
The number one censored issued in 2009 was the escalation of human rights violations during the Obama administration, including the escalation of the war, continued approval of CIA kidnappings (secret renditions,) repression of the US torture photos, failure to hold Bush and Cheney accountable for war crimes, and the use of drones for assassinations and killing of civilians.
One pivotal turning point occurred late in 2009, according to statements from Native Americans. The Obama administration approved oil drilling in the Arctic. Alaska Natives from the Chukchi Sea were in Copenhagen for the Climate Talks when the Interior announced the decision to devastate the Arctic.
Already, the Obama administration had bailed out the billionaires, the stockholders, bankers and carmakers, leaving homeowners homeless and Native Americans with less than ever. The much-publicized Obama invitation to the White House extended to American Indian leaders, turned out to be an invitation to stand in line to get into the Interior Building, without even a handshake from the president.
There were victories. The Indigenous Environmental Network at the Climate Summit in Copenhagen proved that a dedicated group of people could make a difference, delivering a powerful message for the protection of Mother Earth, to the world. Indigenous voices, including those to halt the Tar Sands in Canada, were carried around the world, by Democracy Now! ABC Nightly News and other media.
The Mohawks at the northern border, stood firm against the oppression of the colonized governments in the US and Canada at the border. In their homelands, Western Shoshone, Navajo, Lakota, Pueblo, Supai, Gwich’in and other Indigenous Peoples stood firm against coal fired power plants, oil drilling, uranium mining and gold mining in their homelands.
There were more victories in desperate times. Ben Carnes, Choctaw, fasted for freedom for Leonard Peltier, outside the White House. Crow Creek Sioux Chairman Brandon Sazue established a solitary stronghold in a snow blizzard of central South Dakota after the IRS seized lands of the economically desperate Indian Nation. Havasupai and Acoma Pueblo hosted gatherings to halt uranium mining in the Southwest. A delegation of Native Americans visited Palestine.
Clan Dyken and friends brought food and chopped wood for Navajos resisting relocation and Peabody Coal mining. Dooda (NO) Desert Rock fought against another coal-fired power plant in their Navajo homeland. Western Shoshone fought to protect sacred Mount Tenabo from Barrick Gold's mining and won a victory in the Ninth Circuit federal court. O’odham struggled against the oppression of the Border Patrol/Homeland Security and their own elected legislative council. Save the Peaks continued to fight to protect sacred San Francisco Peaks from snow made from sewage water.
The campaign "No Olympics on Stolen Land," was launched in Canada. The effort received a boost when border officials detained and harassed Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. Canada's effort backfired when Goodman was interrogated as to whether she would speak out against the 2010 Olympics. The oppression triggered global media and the message: "No Olympics on Stolen Land."
When President Lyndon Johnson wanted to censor voices against the war in Vietnam, Johnson censored Buffy Sainte Marie and drove her out of the music business in the US. Who will sing those songs now? Who will sing for the men and women dying without purpose in Iraq and Afghanistan? Who will sing of the “Universal Soldier” dying because of the lies of politicians?
Racism has not been eradicated in the US; it has been covered up.
The US is a society built on the blood of Africans kidnapped and tortured in slavery. The US society is built on the genocide of American Indians. Entire Indian Nations were massacred and others driven far from their homelands. Texas, which continues its legacy of lynching of blacks and the genocide of Native Americans with the death penalty and executions, is a state where racism and hate crimes grow like fungus. California and Texas have the largest number of hate groups in the US, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. There are 84 hate groups in California and 66 in Texas. The region with the largest number of hate groups is the Deep South.
Hate crimes continued on and around Indian lands in this decade, with beatings and murders of Native Americans, the targeting of American Indians by police officers in bordertowns and the targeting of American Indian women as victims of crimes. In the Deep South in 2009, arrests continued for cross burnings at the homes of blacks. There were arrests for hate speech and the exposure of a justice of the peace that refused to marry an interracial couple.
Knowledge is power. On Christmas Day, Showtime broadcast the movie, “The Great Debaters,” the true story of a black debate team from Marshall, Texas, in northeast Texas, that debated Harvard in the 1930s.
There is a powerful scene when the debate team arrives at the scene where a black man has just been lynched by a white mob. The team narrowly escapes an attack by the mob. It is this experience of witnessing the lynching and the man’s charred remains that ultimately leads to the debate team's victory.
The debate team teacher delivers this riveting advice: When one is slammed to the ground, again and again, get up again and never give up.
References:
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
Photo: Cross burning at nighttime Ku Klux Klan (KKK) rally, Photo by Hank Walker, 1946, Time Life
Hate crimes against African-Americans and the number of hate groups increased in the United States during this decade, according to US statistics. But what of the hate crimes on the US/Mexico border, where white Border Patrol agents kill people of color in cold blood, as was the case with Francisco Javier Dominguez Rivera, 22, from Morelia, Mexico?
Why is it not a hate crime when white Border Patrol agents and white police officers beat and murder Tohono O’odham, and other people of color, on the backroads near the US/Mexico border?
Why is it not a hate crime when the US federal court prosecutes volunteers for giving water to a dying person on the southern border?
Why is it not a hate crime when the United States kills civilians with drones during rogue assassinations in Iraq or Afghanistan? Why is it not a hate crime when Navajo, Lakota, Tohono O'odham and other Indian women, children and elderly go to bed cold, sick and hungry -- without food, medicine and firewood -- ignored by the United States and their own elected councils?
Television news, especially CNN, can be singled out for the rise of institutionalized racism and nationalism. CNN champions the rights of white victims in mind-numbing repeated broadcasts. When was the last time CNN sought justice for a black, American Indian or Asian missing or murdered child or desperate parent? CNN's chosen victims are more often than not, fair-haired blondes. The people that CNN and other television news focus on to shame and vilify are more often than not people of color.
Television news was responsible for fueling the border xenophobia, which resulted in billions of dollars of profits for Boeing border wall builders and surveillance profiteers. Over the past decade, it was television news, particularly CNN, that fueled global intolerance, racial and religious prejudice toward people from the Middle East. This institutionalized religious prejudice targeted the followers of the Prophet Mohammad. It was primarily CNN that manipulated the facts and swayed public opinion concerning the United States’ oil and opium rich wars in the Middle East.
Instead of calling for the prosecution of Bush and Cheney for war crimes, in violation of the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture, television news anchors broadcast Cheney’s book tour.
The newsmakers, including global wire services, treated press releases written by politicians and corporations as facts, fictionalizing the news on issues ranging from the war and the US borders, to uranium mining and power plants on American Indian lands.
Canadian mining companies assassinated Indigenous Peoples in Guatemala and elsewhere. Canadian mining companies, including Barrick Gold and Cameco uranium, targeted Indian lands in the US, and around the world, to poison their land and water with gold and uranium mining. Television news ignored the facts.
What were the most censored news stories in 2009? It was all censored. The media stopped questioning the reasons for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States continued its covert drug operation for opium and other drugs in Afghanistan, issued oil contracts in Iraq in 2009, after smuggling yellowcake out of Iraq for the private company Cameco in Canada in 2008. The news media failed to expose the United States role in the drug violence of northern Mexico, both in trafficking and the demand for drugs. News makers failed to expose the fact that the most brutal torturers in Mexico, the Zetas, were originally trained as US Special Forces.
People of color, considered expendables by the US, continued to be targeted in television commercials and by military recruiters to die in Iraq and Afghanistan, a war with no real purpose and no possibility of victory. Military recruiters are masters of deceit. The lies of military recruiters seldom become public after enlisted men and women become soldiers. Women, who military recruiters promised would return to their home communities as recruiters, quickly find themselves on the battlefield, fearing they will be raped by their fellow soldiers in the bushes. These reasons, including the purposeless of the war, are among the reasons that the US now has its highest ever rate of suicides in the military.
The number one censored issued in 2009 was the escalation of human rights violations during the Obama administration, including the escalation of the war, continued approval of CIA kidnappings (secret renditions,) repression of the US torture photos, failure to hold Bush and Cheney accountable for war crimes, and the use of drones for assassinations and killing of civilians.
One pivotal turning point occurred late in 2009, according to statements from Native Americans. The Obama administration approved oil drilling in the Arctic. Alaska Natives from the Chukchi Sea were in Copenhagen for the Climate Talks when the Interior announced the decision to devastate the Arctic.
Already, the Obama administration had bailed out the billionaires, the stockholders, bankers and carmakers, leaving homeowners homeless and Native Americans with less than ever. The much-publicized Obama invitation to the White House extended to American Indian leaders, turned out to be an invitation to stand in line to get into the Interior Building, without even a handshake from the president.
There were victories. The Indigenous Environmental Network at the Climate Summit in Copenhagen proved that a dedicated group of people could make a difference, delivering a powerful message for the protection of Mother Earth, to the world. Indigenous voices, including those to halt the Tar Sands in Canada, were carried around the world, by Democracy Now! ABC Nightly News and other media.
The Mohawks at the northern border, stood firm against the oppression of the colonized governments in the US and Canada at the border. In their homelands, Western Shoshone, Navajo, Lakota, Pueblo, Supai, Gwich’in and other Indigenous Peoples stood firm against coal fired power plants, oil drilling, uranium mining and gold mining in their homelands.
There were more victories in desperate times. Ben Carnes, Choctaw, fasted for freedom for Leonard Peltier, outside the White House. Crow Creek Sioux Chairman Brandon Sazue established a solitary stronghold in a snow blizzard of central South Dakota after the IRS seized lands of the economically desperate Indian Nation. Havasupai and Acoma Pueblo hosted gatherings to halt uranium mining in the Southwest. A delegation of Native Americans visited Palestine.
Clan Dyken and friends brought food and chopped wood for Navajos resisting relocation and Peabody Coal mining. Dooda (NO) Desert Rock fought against another coal-fired power plant in their Navajo homeland. Western Shoshone fought to protect sacred Mount Tenabo from Barrick Gold's mining and won a victory in the Ninth Circuit federal court. O’odham struggled against the oppression of the Border Patrol/Homeland Security and their own elected legislative council. Save the Peaks continued to fight to protect sacred San Francisco Peaks from snow made from sewage water.
The campaign "No Olympics on Stolen Land," was launched in Canada. The effort received a boost when border officials detained and harassed Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. Canada's effort backfired when Goodman was interrogated as to whether she would speak out against the 2010 Olympics. The oppression triggered global media and the message: "No Olympics on Stolen Land."
When President Lyndon Johnson wanted to censor voices against the war in Vietnam, Johnson censored Buffy Sainte Marie and drove her out of the music business in the US. Who will sing those songs now? Who will sing for the men and women dying without purpose in Iraq and Afghanistan? Who will sing of the “Universal Soldier” dying because of the lies of politicians?
Racism has not been eradicated in the US; it has been covered up.
The US is a society built on the blood of Africans kidnapped and tortured in slavery. The US society is built on the genocide of American Indians. Entire Indian Nations were massacred and others driven far from their homelands. Texas, which continues its legacy of lynching of blacks and the genocide of Native Americans with the death penalty and executions, is a state where racism and hate crimes grow like fungus. California and Texas have the largest number of hate groups in the US, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. There are 84 hate groups in California and 66 in Texas. The region with the largest number of hate groups is the Deep South.
Hate crimes continued on and around Indian lands in this decade, with beatings and murders of Native Americans, the targeting of American Indians by police officers in bordertowns and the targeting of American Indian women as victims of crimes. In the Deep South in 2009, arrests continued for cross burnings at the homes of blacks. There were arrests for hate speech and the exposure of a justice of the peace that refused to marry an interracial couple.
Knowledge is power. On Christmas Day, Showtime broadcast the movie, “The Great Debaters,” the true story of a black debate team from Marshall, Texas, in northeast Texas, that debated Harvard in the 1930s.
There is a powerful scene when the debate team arrives at the scene where a black man has just been lynched by a white mob. The team narrowly escapes an attack by the mob. It is this experience of witnessing the lynching and the man’s charred remains that ultimately leads to the debate team's victory.
The debate team teacher delivers this riveting advice: When one is slammed to the ground, again and again, get up again and never give up.
References:
New York Times: Federal Hate Crimes Cases Highest Since 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/us/18hate.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/us/18hate.html
Hate Crimes on the Rise
http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2009/12/hate_crimes_on_the_rise.html
Buffy Sainte Marie Uncensored:
http://bsnorrell.tripod.com/id99.html
The Great Debaters
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427309/plotsummary
http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2009/12/hate_crimes_on_the_rise.html
Buffy Sainte Marie Uncensored:
http://bsnorrell.tripod.com/id99.html
The Great Debaters
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427309/plotsummary
Also see: The Nation: Secret ICE Facilities
ICE can make people disappear:
National: Secret ICE facilities
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100104/stevens
Send comments to brendanorrell@gmail.com
Brenda Norrell began publishing Censored News after being censored and terminated by Indian Country Today in 2006. She has been a news reporter in Indian country for 27 years, serving as a staff writer for Navajo Times and Lakota newspapers and a stringer for AP and USA Today. She lived on the Navajo Nation for 18 years.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100104/stevens
Send comments to brendanorrell@gmail.com
Brenda Norrell began publishing Censored News after being censored and terminated by Indian Country Today in 2006. She has been a news reporter in Indian country for 27 years, serving as a staff writer for Navajo Times and Lakota newspapers and a stringer for AP and USA Today. She lived on the Navajo Nation for 18 years.
Quanah Parker Brightman: Religious Persecution of Native Americans
The State Capital, Sacramento California, Friday 12-4-09.Speech by Quanah Parker Brightman
Religious Persecution has been a Harsh Reality for My People Since The Illegal Occupation Of Our Home Land Began Back In 1492, Resulting in the loss of Our language and Our Traditional practices. Fact, The Federal Government Outlawed Our Religion in 1884. . . lasted until 1904. Then, they enriched the laws, and it lasted until The 1930's. In 1890 at a Place Called Wounded Knee Creek In South Dakota. A Group of Native Americans Gathered Together to Practice a Then New Form of Religion Called The Ghost Dance. The Federal Government Did Not Want Them To Do This, So, They Sent In The 7th Cavalry. They Then Divided The Women And Children On One Side And The Men On The Other Disarmed Them And They Shoot Them Down. They Massacred Over 250 Native Americans For Worshiping There Own Religion And To Add Even Further Insult, The United States Rewarded These Brave Soldiers 26 Congressional Medals Of Honor. That is The Highest military decoration awarded by the United States government. I Ask Each of You. . .What's So Brave About Killing Unarmed Women And Children??? Every Tribe Across America Has Had a Similar Story To Share, Such As The Bloody Island Massacre For The Pomo Nation Here In California. And So On. . .And So On. . . Although the American Indian Religious freedom act of 1978 removed some restrictions on our traditional practices, We Need to further insure that Our Religion is Respected. Today We Are Here to Ask That All Our Political Prisoners Be allowed to participate in their ceremonies that our people have been Practicing since the Beginning of Time. We need more legal guaranties for the protection of our sacred sites and our burials sites. The Federal bureau of prisons and the United States prison system must develop tolerance of the many different belief systems and change their closed minded ways towards the treatment of our political prisoners. It would be nice to see the united states of American; land of the free…home of the brave… Honor the international religious freedom act of 1998. The act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 27, 1998.
The use of the sacred pipe must be allowed into the prison system. The California state prison system is mandated to provide diverse religious and spiritual needs of all inmates. They are called chaplains, these chaplains provide counseling services, and they organize or coordinate religious services and are supposed to deliver “Requested” Religious Materials.
We Ask That All Correctional Facilities Across America Hire more Native American chaplains to help heal our political prisoners, This must be done. Intervention Can and Must be done by a Native American spiritual advisor such as a Traditional medicine man or woman.
More funding must also be provided for the building And Maintaining Our sweat lodges in each institution. These Nation to Nation implementation guidelines should govern the development of these plans and be embraced by Every and All Correctional Facilities Across the World.
This is a human rights violation and is a direct violation of the constitution and the bill of rights!!!
We all pray to the same GOD CALLED by different NAME. WE CALL HIM "WAKATANKA" "TUNKASILA"
“CREATOR” “Jesus” etc!
We Also Ask, When Will President Obama Free Our Nelson Mandela?? Leonard Peltier has been in jail for over 33 years For a Crime He Did Not Commit. (Free Leonard Peltier)
FACT, America has more inmates than any other nation in the world. The land of the free. Free for only the political Elite.
Very rarely do You see the rich going to jail for long prison sentences, only the poor! It’s a double standard of justice.
We need more educational and rehabilitation centers to help heal our people.
In closing. . .
Chief LAME DEER once said
BEFORE OUR WHITE BROTHERS CAME TO CIVILIZE US WE HAD NO JAILS. THEREFORE WE HAD NO CRIMINALS. YOU CANT HAVE CRIMINALS WITHOUT A JAIL. WE HAD NO LOCKS OR KEYS, AND SO WE HAD NO THIEVES. IF A PERSON WAS SO POOR THAT HE HAD NO HORSE, TIPI OR BLANKET, SOMEONE GAVE HIM THESE THINGS. WE WERE TOO UNCIVILIZED TO SET MUCH VALUE ON PERSONAL BELONGINGS. WE WANTED TO HAVE THINGS ONLY IN ORDER TO GIVE AWAY. WE HAD NO MONEY, AND THEREFORE A MANS WORTH COULDN’T BE MEASURED BY IT. WE HAD NO WRITTEN LAW, NO ATTORNEYS OR POLITICIANS, THEREFORE WE COULDN’T CHEAT. BUT NOW VISIBLE PROGRESS IS EVERYWHERE—JAILS ALL OVER THE PLACE AND WE KNOW THESE JAILS ARE FOR US INDIANS. WHAT A PITY THAT SO MANY OF US DON’T APPRECIATE THEM.
Thank You.
All My Relations.
Quanah Parker Brightman
Vice President of
United Native Americans,Inc
(510)672-7187
December 26, 2009
Happy Holidays from Leonard Peltier
Happy Holidays from Leonard
Greetings and happy holidays. I hope this letter finds you all enjoying the spirit of the season with family and friends.
My August parole denial was appealed in short order. We are expecting a response to that appeal sometime very soon. It has occurred to me that the viciousness of this system knows no bounds, and so I believe strongly in the coming days we will hear of another loss, another denial. This one will be timed and intended specifically as a twisted Christmas present for me, such is the nature of those in charge. With no sense of balance, fairness, or decency, I await my own personal stocking stuffer.
We all know the so-called justice system of this country is more about revenge and retribution than finding true and just resolution. It doesn’t take into account the plight of the wrongfully convicted, nor does it allow flexibility as human endeavors always require. This system has always been about making money at the top, furthering careers in the middle, and forgetting those at the bottom.
Their reason for denying my parole is that I refuse to admit guilt and show remorse for the deaths of two FBI agents. I know the righteousness of my situation. I know what I did and didn’t do. I will never yield.
I also know what this country did and continues to do to me and many others. While they demand I make a false confession for the sake of my freedom, they show no remorse for the loss of much of my life, or the lives of Joe Stuntz and countless others they have murdered over the generations simply for being who they were. Those lives are meaningless when compared to their precious FBI, I guess. And now, some of the very ones responsible for the deaths and suffering of so many of my people, are peddling books and claiming to be a friend of the Indian. We’ve seen this before, and I’ll speak more about this soon.
I remain proud of what I have stood for and mindful of what real justice is. In this season of love and forgiveness, please say a prayer for all of those who never knew justice and others who have such difficulty in finding it still today.
My love and my prayers go out to all of you.
Happy Holidays
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,
Leonard Peltier
--------------------
Greetings and happy holidays. I hope this letter finds you all enjoying the spirit of the season with family and friends.
My August parole denial was appealed in short order. We are expecting a response to that appeal sometime very soon. It has occurred to me that the viciousness of this system knows no bounds, and so I believe strongly in the coming days we will hear of another loss, another denial. This one will be timed and intended specifically as a twisted Christmas present for me, such is the nature of those in charge. With no sense of balance, fairness, or decency, I await my own personal stocking stuffer.
We all know the so-called justice system of this country is more about revenge and retribution than finding true and just resolution. It doesn’t take into account the plight of the wrongfully convicted, nor does it allow flexibility as human endeavors always require. This system has always been about making money at the top, furthering careers in the middle, and forgetting those at the bottom.
Their reason for denying my parole is that I refuse to admit guilt and show remorse for the deaths of two FBI agents. I know the righteousness of my situation. I know what I did and didn’t do. I will never yield.
I also know what this country did and continues to do to me and many others. While they demand I make a false confession for the sake of my freedom, they show no remorse for the loss of much of my life, or the lives of Joe Stuntz and countless others they have murdered over the generations simply for being who they were. Those lives are meaningless when compared to their precious FBI, I guess. And now, some of the very ones responsible for the deaths and suffering of so many of my people, are peddling books and claiming to be a friend of the Indian. We’ve seen this before, and I’ll speak more about this soon.
I remain proud of what I have stood for and mindful of what real justice is. In this season of love and forgiveness, please say a prayer for all of those who never knew justice and others who have such difficulty in finding it still today.
My love and my prayers go out to all of you.
Happy Holidays
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,
Leonard Peltier
--------------------
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