Irwin, Jerome
Indigenous peoples gather together every year on October 11th for their Worldwide Indigenous Peoples Holiday for very different reasons than doesthe settler-colonial society and culture in the U.S. and in Canada who either celebrate Christopher Columbus Day or Thanksgiving Day.
One American indigenous leader honored in particular on this day every year is Leonard Peltier, an American Indian Movement (AIM) Leader who was illegally extradited to the U.S. from Vancouver Canada’s Court House in 1973 for the alleged murders of two FBI agent-provocateurs who, during the 1960’s era of militant resistance by American Indian civil rights and sovereignty leaders, were attempting back then to incite and enflame a new war between Indigenous Native Americans and the right wing U.S. powers-that-be.
At the time, the outrageous extra-judicial murders of militant Indigenous leaders, in South Dakota in particular,caused Leonard Peltier to flee for his life, like so many other Indigenous leaders and their peoples before him in history, who were similarly forced to look to Canada for whatever solace and protection they could find away from hostile American military and political forces.This eventually culminated in Leonard Peltier’sextradition back to the U.S. under false legal pretenses in 1973.
For 48 years, Peltier, now blind in one eye, a diabetic, and all but crippled and unable to walk, has ever since continued to rot away in one US federal prison after another, the latest being a Super Max prison in Florida. Yet, in spite of constant appeals for his release by untold numbers of famous world celebrities, personages, U.S. President’s, legal scholars, political, religious and spiritual leaders,on humanitarian grounds if not solid legal grounds due to Peltier’shighly questionable conviction on spurious charges,Peltier has continued to slowly rot away.
A punitive FBI and US Criminal Justice System, back in 1973 and ever since, has simply resolutely made up their minds to forever deny the truth about who did or didn’t do what to whountil Peltier simply takes his last breaths behind bars. The names of other legendary American Indigenous leaders who have suffered the same fate as Peltier is simply a much too-long, sad, and ugly story. A story that seems to have no end.
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Tags: Leonard Peltier, American Indian Movement in South Dakota, U.S. Christopher Columbus Day, Canada’s Thanksgiving Day, Worldwide Indigenous Peoples Holiday, FBI agents involvement in AIM Sovereignty struggles, US Criminal Justice System, US Federal Super Max Prisons
Bio Note: Jerome Irwin is a Canadian-American freelance writer and author of the book, “The Wild Gentle Ones; A Turtle Island Odyssey” (www.turtle-island-odyssey.com), a spiritual odyssey among the native peoples of North America that has led to numerous articles pertaining to: Ireland’s Fenian Movement; native peoples Dakota Access Pipeline Resistance Movement; AIPAC, Israel & the U.S. Congress anti-BDS Movement; the historic Battle for Palestine & Siege of Gaza, as well as; the many violations constantly being waged by industrial-corporate-military-propaganda interests against the World’s Indigenous Soul. Irwin’s long ago experiences as a Volunteer in Service to America, continue to inspire and inform Irwin of so many on-going problems of environmental degradation and unsustainability caused by a host of environmental-ecological-spiritual-political issues that exist between the conflicting world philosophies of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples that he attempts to pass on to others through his writings.
jerome_irwin@yahoo.com
