[Announce-DAN] URGENT PELTIER ACTION!

[Ishgooda <buildingbridges@mindspring.com> (by way of Mark Cohen <buildingbridges@mindspring.com>)]

from the LPDC at lpdc@idir.net

202-456-1111 WHITE HOUSE COMMENT LINE

EXTREMELY URGENT PELTIER ACTION:

GOVERNOR JANKLOW OF SOUTH DAKOTA MET WITH PRESIDENT CLINTON TO OPPOSE
CLEMENCY FOR PELTIER

WHITE HOUSE REPORTS THAT CLINTON FOUND JANKLOW TO BE A RELIABLE SOURCE

JANKLOW IS KNOWN AS A MODERN DAY "INDIAN FIGHTER" AND FOR THE FOLLOWING
STATEMENT MADE IN THE EARLY 1970's:

"THE ONLY WAY TO DEAL WITH THE INDIAN PROBLEM IN SOUTH DAKOTA IS TO PUT A
GUN TO THE AIM LEADERS' HEADS AND PULL THE TRIGGER."

FLOOD THE WHITE HOUSE WITH CALLS IN OPPOSITION TO JANKLOW'S STANCE ON
CLEMENCY!!!  HERE ARE SOME TALKING POINTS:

1. I am calling to express my outrage with Governor Janklow's meeting with
President Clinton, opposing clemency for Leonard Peltier.
2. According to the LA Times, the President found Governor Janklow to be a
"credible important point of view"
3. Janklow has a long standing reputation as being anti-Indian.  In fact,
Janklow is well known for his comment, "the only way to deal with the Indian
problem in South Dakota is to put a gun to the AIM leaders' heads and pull
the trigger."
4. Janklow was condemned by the United States Commission on Civil Rights for
spreading misinformation to the media and public about the shoot-out.  Most
of what he reported was found to be totally false.  He is not a reliable or
a neutral source.
5. The tribal council of the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota Nation has
consistently supported clemency for Peltier.  The president elect, John
Yellow Bird Steele, and President Salway have written the president in
support of clemency.  These are the truly credible and important points of
view which should be taken into account.
6. I want to encourage the President to base his decision on the merits of
Peltier's case, which fully justify clemency, and not on the biased
misinformation of Janklow.


NOTE: We do not know if Pres. Clinton is truly leaning toward a denial.
According to an interview he did last night with Dan Rather, he has not yet
made up his mind.  DO NOT give up hope!  Please keep up all of your great
work.  Let's reach out to as many as possible to broaden our base for the
phone call campaign. Thank you! --LPDC

Clemency for Peltier Likely to Fail
   Pleas: Clinton is leaning toward rejecting a pardon for the killer of two
FBI agents, officials say. Case underscores the rift between the president
and Freeh.


By ERIC LICHTBLAU, Times Staff Writer


       WASHINGTON--President Clinton appears ready to reject convicted killer
Leonard Peltier's bid for clemency, but the debate over the Native American
activist's future has inflamed already tense relations between the White
House and FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, officials said Wednesday.
       Freeh has been lobbying hard for Clinton to reject pleas from
Hollywood, Native American groups and civil rights leaders for a pardon for
Peltier,
whois imprisoned for the murders of two FBI agents on a South Dakota Indian
reservation in 1975.
       But White House sources said that Clinton is leaning strongly toward
rejecting the clemency request within the next week or so--not because of
Freeh's recommendation but in part on the basis of information from others
familiar with the case.
       Native Americans said they remain confident that Peltier will be freed
because he is an innocent man.

       Friend Sees Defeat Setting Back Relations
       Ernie Stevens Jr., a close friend of Peltier who is on the executive
committee of the National Congress of American Indians, said that pardoning
Peltier would remove a "black eye in an ugly era" that many Native Americans
hope to move past. If Clinton rejects that bid, "I think it really sets us
back in tribal-United States relations," said Stevens, who lives in
Temecula, Calif.
       In fact, Clinton and White House staff members were so unimpressed by
Freeh's recommendation--and the manner in which it was leaked to
congressional Republicans--that the advice has been virtually discarded,
according to a senior White House official familiar with the clemency
discussions.
       "Freeh's credibility on this issue is not particularly high and his
ability to sway the president is not particularly high," said the official,
who asked not to be identified by name. "The manner in which [Freeh] offered
his advice, by leaking it through [Capitol Hill] rather than by even
bothering to send it over here to the White House, was just small-minded."
       An FBI spokesman denied the White House version of events, saying that
Freeh's recommendation on clemency was hand-delivered to the White House on
Dec. 5.
       But the fact that Clinton and Freeh have had trouble working together
on an issue as fundamental as a presidential pardon indicates that, in the
closing weeks of the administration, relations between the two are even more
fractured than many realized.
       The tension is attributable in large part to Freeh's repeated position
that an independent counsel should have investigated alleged campaign
finance abuses by the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign.
       Paul Bresson, a spokesman at FBI headquarters in Washington, declined
to discuss relations between the White House and the FBI in the Peltier case.
       "I don't think that's something we're really interested in pursuing,"
he said. "This whole thing has nothing to do with personal relationships
between the FBI and the White House. It has everything to do with the
justice system
and seeing that everything prosecutors have worked to accomplish [in
Peltier's conviction] does not get undone."
       On Friday, more than 300 FBI agents marched on the White House
demanding that Clinton reject Peltier's request for clemency.
       In a Dec. 5 letter addressed to Clinton, Freeh argued passionately
against freeing Peltier, saying: "Mr. President, there is no issue more
deeply felt within the FBI."
       But it's unclear whether Clinton ever received that letter. Its
contentsimmediately became public--and White House staffers said they
learned about
it only after it was posted on the Web site of Rep. Henry J. Hyde (R-Ill.),
head of the House Judiciary Committee.
       "That didn't go unremarked on by the president," the White House
official said. "That has become standard operating procedure [by Freeh]. . .
. Rather than a serious note delivered to [Clinton], it gets laundered
through a Republican."
       Just a few days after Freeh's letter was written, Clinton sat down in
the Oval Office with South Dakota Gov. William Janklow.
       A Republican, Janklow was South Dakota's attorney general in 1975 when
violence erupted at the Pine Ridge Reservation. Two FBI agents who had gone
onto the reservation in search of a robbery suspect were killed.
Peltier--whose supporters say he was framed--was convicted, and two other
men were acquitted.

       Clinton Finds Governor Persuasive
       In their conversation at the White House, Janklow told Clinton that he
believes Peltier essentially executed the two FBI agents, who had been
wounded in the initial shootout.
       Clinton "understands that a lot of the voices on this are strong and
fierce on both sides and he wanted to take a closer look at the facts" by
speaking with Janklow, the White House official said.
       The president "found the case that Janklow made very persuasive," the
official added. "He was seen as a credible, important point of view. . . .
He made a very convincing case in a way that Freeh never could."
       But Janklow, who was unavailable for comment on the White House
meeting, is not without his critics. He lost a libel suit against the
publisher of
"In the Spirit of Crazy Horse," a critically acclaimed 1983 book about the
incident at Pine Ridge. Janklow said the book depicted him as a drunk, a
racist, a bigot and even a rapist.
       Bruce Ellison, an attorney for Peltier for the last 25 years, said
that some of Janklow's more recent actions as governor have only exacerbated
tensions with the Native American community.
       Janklow "has not been a particular friend of the Native American
people
. . . " Ellison said. "Hopefully, the president will learn more about his
biases and his partisan nature" before deciding the clemency issue.

   Search the archives of the Los Angeles Times for similar stories about:
Bill Clinton, Leonard Peltier, Clemency, American Indians, Louis J Freeh,
Murders.

----------------------------------------------------------------------END
LPDC LETTER---------

ADDITIONAL INFO ON JANKLOW:
In October 1974, Janklow ran for South Dakota Attorney General against his
boss, incumbent Kermit Sande.  The Wounded Knee publicity ahd frightened the
conservative electorate, and Janklow's campaign fires were fueled by
promises of "law and order" in the face of "AIM lawlessness". Sande, on the
defensive attacked Janklow with charges of personal immorality.  Sande
claimed that Janklow had been brought before juvenile court in 1955 at the
age of sixteen for allegedly having assaulted a seventeen year old girl in
Moody County, south Dakota.  Although the juvenile records were
confidential, Sande repeated in public the rumor that the juvenile offense
ahd been rape.  Janklow said that the juvenile petition against him was
dismissed, and that the alleed offense was not rape. "It didn't go that
far," he told the media, "but it was preliminary to that sort fo thing."  He
later regretted that  statement, and said it was merely ta cycnical
wisecrack intended to counteract lies being!
 sprea
d about him.
Thenn, on October 16, AIM leader Dennis Banks publicly accused Janklow of
another rape charge.  According to Banks, in 1966 Janklow, working for the
office of Economic Developemnt on Rosebud reservation,had been accused of
rape by fifteen year old Jancita Eagle Deer, the Janklow family babysitter.
Eagle Deer alleged that Janklow had raped her at gunpoint while giving her a
ride home. ....
Excerpted from Blood of the Land, The Government and Corporate War against
the American Indian Movement, by Rex Wehler, pp.15-126

Rosebud Tribal court docket number CIV.74-2840 opinion issued by Judge Gonzales
Rosebud Tribal court, October 31, 1974
"the court is satisfied that the rape allegations against Janklow are
properly for the purpose of the hearing held today {to determine whether or
not charges should be brought} too warrant disbarment."
The FBI covered this up  by issuing directives that no investigation files
were to be released to the tribal court..and simultaneously cleared Janklow
of the charges.
Jancita Eagle Deer's body was found along side a road in the ditch where she
obviously committed "suicide"..(right)...
Cause of "suicide" may have been the charges against Janklow.  This has
never been determined.  She was last seen in the company of Douglass Durham..
Ish 
SEE: Racial Commission report
http://ishgooda.nativeweb.org/oglala/




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