RE : CNN REPORT ON THE CASE OF LEONARD PELTIER :
CRITIQUE AND RESPONSE

For those of us who have long followed the tragic case of Leonard Peltier,
and who are familiar with the full and rather frightening factual record,
the CNN broadcast of Sunday evening, September 10, 1999 was disturbing
indeed. False and conclusory  statements were made about Mr. Peltier and the
June 26, 1975 gun battle: statements which have no support or basis anywhere
in the record or the available evidence. Worse yet, information of critical
importance was simply omitted altogether or presented only superficially.
While we are grimly accustomed to false and misleading statements by U.S.
officials in this case, we must question why a news  organization of the
caliber of CNN could so fail, either to have done its basic homework or to
have maintained its professional neutrality and courage. Was this a form of
self censorship resulting from the recent forced recanting of the Vietnam
scandal  and the discharge of two top level journalists? Has the chilling
effect of that negative experience indeed set such deep roots so quickly ?
Let us be specific in our criticisms . The broadcast failed to present the
clear and massive evidence that the FBI officials simply manufactured a case
against Mr. Peltier because he represented  their last chance at obtaining a
murder conviction for the deaths of  their agents.

He was extradited on the basis of  a fictional affidavit obtained through
FBI intimidation and coercion of a local woman. Other witnesses openly
admitted that they too had been coerced; and changed their testimonies
repeatedly. A key ballistic test was withheld for years from the defense
because it  showed that the fatal bullets could not have been fired from Mr.
Peltier’s alleged weapon. A red pick up truck mysteriously metamorphosed
into an orange and white van as the trial approached. Even the U.S.
Prosecutor now admits that no one knows who did the killing. Yet Mr. Peltier
remains in prison, long overdue for parole and in deteriorating health. What
more shameful a symbol of United States repression and injustice against
Native American peoples could exist?

We would ask that the CNN journalists reflect on the following facts and
issues :
I.  The program makes virtually no mention of the context in which the
deaths of the two FBI agents and the Native American youth occurred. These
facts are of crucial importance for many reasons, including legal ones. The
American public needs to know that during  the 1973 AIM occupation of
Wounded Knee, the United States government responded with military force,
firing nearly half a million rounds at the men, women and children inside
the town. The siege ended only when the White House promised an
investigation, convincing  the AIM members and supporters to return home.
The investigation never materialized. Worse yet, for the next two years, the
AIM members were subjected to what is now known as the “Reign of Terror” on
Pine Ridge Reservation. During the next three years, 64 AIM leaders and
traditionalist supporters, and their relatives,  were murdered, and scores
more were harassed, beaten and threatened.The victims included men, women
and children. Despite a massive FBI presence, no one ever stood trial for
these crimes. Instead, hundreds of charges were brought against AIM members
over the Wounded Knee siege. Most were dismissed when the courts ruled that
the United States had illegally deployed military force in its response. In
many of the court hearings, the FBI was rebuked for coercing witnesses and
otherwise tampering with the evidence. In one notable case, the outraged
judge wrote that the FBI had “polluted the waters of justice”.
It was in this atmosphere of terror, tension , and repression that the 1975
shoot out occurred. As Judge Heaney of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals
has noted, the FBI bears equal responsibility for the skirmish which took
place. It is simply irrefutable that the unmarked FBI car drove onto private
property, and that shooting unexpectedly began, trapping children in the
cross fire, and creating immediate and very understandable  confusion and
fear amongst the AIM members camping out nearby. They believed they were
about to die. So many of their friends already had.

None of this justifies the close range killings of Mr. Williams or Mr.
Coler, or the sniper killing of a young Native American named Joe Stuntz.
However, this context  makes it very clear that AIM was not simply a
terrorist group launching a premeditated and cold blooded ambush of two
unsuspecting FBI officers. The AIM people were the ones being hunted and
brutalized. They were returning fire in the full good faith belief that they
were acting in self defense. The conditions at that time certainly justified
their assumption.  The jury,  in the trial of Mr. Robideau and Mr. Butler
for these murders, listened to this evidence and agreed, finding that the
act of returning fire had indeed been a  matter of self defense. Notably,
this critical background evidence was withheld at Leonard Peltier’s trial.
We do not condone the murder of any human being, whether Native American or
FBI agent.. However, to this day no one knows who carried out the killings,
nor how they occurred. Perhaps, as stated by a heavily disguised witness
years ago, someone had approached the agents, incorrectly believing them to
be dead. When one of them moved and fired, he reflexively shot them both to
protect himself. Then again, perhaps someone else shot the agents in a
moment of rage and grief that had been accumulating throughout the “Reign of
Terror”.  Perhaps we will never know what really happened that day.  Even
the prosecutor, Mr. Lynn Crooks, has long since admitted that the government
does not know who fired the fatal shots. Why then, does Mr. Peltier remain
in prison?

What gives us the greatest cause for concern here is the fact that CNN
apparently found it appropriate to spend a great deal of footage on the two
slain FBI agents, while the 64 Native Americans murdered for political
reasons were deemed scarcely worth mentioning. Unlike Judge Heaney, the
journalists seemed unable to comprehend that the United States too bore
responsibility for the tragic shoot out.The program comes dangerously close
to portraying the incident as the  mere act of irrational savages. Hence our
opinion that racial insensitivity and indifference  did indeed play a role
in the production and editing of this broadcast.

2. Given these realities, we were rather taken aback by the statements of
both the FBI Officer Nicholas O’Hara and the U.S. Prosecutor Mr. Lynn
Crooks, to the effect that Mr. Leonard Peltier is a cold blooded killer and
even a “mad dog”. As made clear in the above discussion, we find no
reasonable basis for such claims, and we question why the reporter  made no
attempt to ask for the actual facts behind these declarations. As anyone at
all familiar with the case knows, Mr. Lynn Crooks himself has long since
admitted that he does not know who fired the fatal shots at the FBI agents.
He made this admission in court after being confronted with the long
concealed FBI ballistic test stating that the bullet in question could not
have been fired from Mr. Peltier’s alleged rifle. At that point, of course,
there was little else Mr. Crooks could say. There is simply no evidence
tying Mr. Peltier to the actual murders other than the fact that he was
present at the Jumping Bull Ranch on that fateful day, and that he was an
adult  leader. In this respect, he is in exactly the same position as Mr.
Robideau and Mr. Butler, who were acquitted so many years ago. The
suggestions of the FBI and Mr. Crooks that Leonard Peltier actually ordered
or directed the killings are, in our opinion, simply without basis. Why
would experienced CNN reporters merely accept these official declarations
instead of demanding proof and facts? After the all we have learned about
the FBI abuses of power against minority leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther
King or Mr. Geronimo Pratt, or even in the recent Waco case, have our eyes
not been opened enough to at least question what we hear from such
officials?