Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from Frank Chapman, Executive Director, of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR).

Leonard Peltier, renowned Spirit-Warrior of the Dakota people, symbolizes the courageous centuries long resistance of the Indigenous peoples against racism, genocide and national oppression. In the spirit of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, Leonard has maintained his innocence and fought for his freedom for five decades.

The National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression has stood in unconditional solidarity with Leonard Peltier, the oldest and one of the longest held political prisoners in U.S. history.

The reason the federal government held Leonard in captivity and behind bars for half a century is not because he was guilty of any crime but because the FBI agents who were killed were white men. Leonard himself said “When a white is killed, even if he brought it on himself, all Indians are guilty. Isn’t that the way it’s always been?”

Yes, that is the way it’s always been. However, with Leonard the situation is even more aggravated by the fact that he is a freedom fighter for his oppressed people.

Decades ago, Leonard’s lawyer, Ramsey Clark (former Attorney General of the United States) said, “I think I can explain beyond serious doubt that Leonard Peltier committed no crime whatsoever.”

We now know that the government knew what Ramsey Clark knew, yet they refused to release Leonard.

Leonard was accused of murder in 1975 and in 1985 the government prosecution admitted, “We did not know who shot the agents...” he was accused of killing. Forty-nine years later a government prosecutor repeated this admitted truth to President Biden. Apparently, Biden listened, and in response to the demands of the people, at the age of 80 and after 50 years of torturous imprisonment, Leonard is coming home.

It’s definitely a people’s victory and we celebrate it as such. It is not “Justice at Last.”

We acknowledge and salute the Indigenous people’s movement, Leonard Peltier’s family, and his decades long standing Defense Committee. It was the mass movement of the people demanding justice that moved President Biden to issue an order of Executive Clemency.

Based on the evidence, Leonard deserved an apology and a pardon of innocence. The sober reality is that the U.S. government continues its genocidal policies against the Dakota people and all the Indigenous people of America.

We stand in unconditional solidarity with the first nations indemanding their sovereign rights and their struggles for freedom.

#LeonardPeltier #Clemency #ExecutiveOrder #Biden #IndigenousSovereignty #Dakota #RamseyClark #NAARPR

I wish to convey my sincerest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of my friend and legal counsel William Ramsey Clark who passed away last April 9, 2021. I have the highest regard for him as a champion of human rights, a staunch defender of the people’s right to national and social liberation, a fierce advocate of just peace and a resolute opponent to the imperialist policies and wars of aggression of the US.

While he was US Attorney General under the Johnson administration, he was well known for standing up for civil liberties and civil rights, fighting against racial segregation and discrimination and enforcing anti-trust laws. It was in certain cases involving the US war of aggression in Vietnam that he had to agonize as a prosecutor on behalf of the US government. But after he was out of government, he visited North Vietnam as a protest against the bombing of Hanoi.

Ramsey Clark used his knowledge of history, political wisdom and legal expertise to identify the major aggressions which the US committed after World War II. These victimized Korea from 1951 onward, Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, Republic of the Congo in 1961, Vietnam from 1959 to 1975, the Dominican Republic in 1965, Nicaragua from 1981 to 1988, Grenada from 1983 onward, Libya in 1986 and again in 2011, Panama in 1989-1990, the Gulf War in 1991, Somalia in 1991-1992, Iraq from 1993 onward, Yugoslavia in 1999, Sudan in 1988, Afghanistan from 2001onward, Iraq from 2003 onward and Haiti in 2004.

From 1998 onward while I was the Chairperson of the International Preparatory Committee that founded the ILPS in 2001, I was in communication with Ramsey Clark as the chairman of the International Action Center (IAC) concerning US imperialism in global affairs. Our communications became more frequent when the IAC and ILPS cooperated in opposing the US war of aggression against Iraq and the ensuing the so-called global war on terror. The relations of the two major international organizations became stronger and more fruitful.

I became deeply indebted to Ramsey Clark when he publicly defended me and opposed the act of the US government in designating me as “foreign terrorist” in 2002. Likewise he opposed my being named in the EU terrorist list in li