[Ppnews] Red Nation Humanitarium Award - Letter from Leonard Peltier

[Political Prisoner News]

contact at whoisleonardpeltier.info
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:04:27 -0800 (PST)

The Red Nation Film Festival has chosen Leonard 
Peltier to receive its first annual Humanitarian 
Award for his lifelong commitment to indigenous 
and human rights, as well as his leadership in 
efforts to alleviate poverty and domestic abuse 
among Native peoples. As a political prisoner for 
nearly 34 years, Peltier has helped focus world 
attention on government repression of Native 
resistance throughout the Americas, while the 
United States continues to make an example out of 
him of the consequences of seeking freedom. 
Unable to accept the award in person, Leonard 
wrote the following acceptance speech for award:

"I am very humbled to have been honored with the 
first-ever Red Nation Humanitarian Award. I wish 
the Red Nation Film Festival success in all its 
endeavors, as I believe your event benefits 
Indian people everywhere. With your continued 
support, I hope that I will one day have the freedom to thank you in person.

Film is a powerful medium with the potential to 
help change one's consciousness, which can in 
turn change the world. Film can transport the 
viewers to places and situations they might never 
encounter, from the mountains and jungles of Peru 
and Bolivia, to the prison cells of Abu Ghraib 
and Lewisburg, the federal penitentiary where I 
am held in limbo as they transform the facility 
into a  special site for problematic prisoners. 
Although I have been what they call a model 
prisoner, I am still here because I was jumped 
and beaten by other inmates when  I was 
transferred to another prison. I am here in spite 
of the fact that I was an ideal candidate for 
parole by any objective standard free of 
politics. But because of my beliefs, and the 
FBI's fears of exposure of their crimes against 
the people of Pine Ridge and the American Indian 
Movement, the federal government is determined to 
see to it that I die in prison. So here I sit in a 3 foot by 6 foot cell.

The fact that you are here today at a Native film 
festival shows how far we have come from the days 
when Hollywood Indians were portrayed by white 
actors as one-dimensional savages standing in the 
way of civilization.  The fact that we are today 
not only acting in films but also directing and 
producing shows how far we have in the last forty 
years since the American Indian Movement arose 
from the ashes of the Termination Era and 
demanded political sovereignty and cultural respect .

But how far have we really come? We are still 
subject on the reservations to the jurisdiction 
of the colonial police force known as the FBI, an 
agency which ignores serious crimes such as 
sexual assault while persecuting those who would 
stand up for true sovereignty and human rights. 
On other reservations, state police play the same 
role, though their jurisdiction is a legacy of 
the discredited termination era.  Last week, 
President Obama held what was billed as a 
historic summit meeting with hundreds of tribal 
officials in attendance, but what was really 
accomplished? My defense committee sent faxes to 
more than 500 reservation chairman asking them to 
speak out on my behalf on this unique occasion. A 
few said they would, but when the opportunity 
presented itself they were too polite to speak 
out to a president who spoke of dissolving tribes in his inauguration speech.

It is the same in movies. While we now have 
realistic films dealing with poverty, alcoholism, 
and related social problems on the rez, how many 
deal with the root cause—colonial oppression 
which extinguishes hope for the future? I ask you 
filmmakers to use this powerful medium to help 
create visions for the future and to put our many 
problems in an accurate context. I plead with 
you, if you can't get me out of prison and I am 
destined to die here, to make my sacrifice worth 
it in terms of creating a more sustainable future 
for our children and future generations. "
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,
Leonard Peltier "



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