Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-09-19 Friday

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

Democracy Now! Friday, September 19, 2025

From New York, this is Democracy Now. Imagine living in a cubicle larger than some people's closets for all those years. and they finally are able to walk out of there. For me, it was unbelievable that this is actually happening to me. But, I mean, the feeling of, wow, I can go out and I'll be home. In a Democracy Now, global TV radio broadcast exclusive, we spend the hour with longtime indigenous leader Leonard Peltier. In February, he was released for,

from federal prison in Florida after nearly 50 years behind bars for a crime he says he did not commit. President Biden, on his final day in office, commuted Peltier's sentence to home confinement. We'll speak to Leonard Peltier about his life of resistance from attending an Indian boarding school as a child to his years with aim, the American Indian movement, to his life in prison. But really kept me strong with my anger. I was extremely angry about what they did to me and my people. We go to Leonard Peltier on his 81st birthday on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in Belcourt, North Dakota, for the hour. All that and more coming out.

Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Israeli forces continue to advance deeper into Gaza City, forcing tens of thousands of Palestinians onto coastal roads away from the city center. Malnourished children and critically ill patients are among those displaced, ordered to go south as Israel seeks to seize Gaza City. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Palestinians recount non-stop strikes with the Israeli military blowing up entire neighborhoods. The World Health Organization warns hospitals are on the brink of collapse. Israeli soldiers have killed at least 21 Palestinians since dawn.

This is a harq fauna of displaced Palestinian mother. They threw leaflets on us and told us to leave. Now there's no place for me to go to. I don't have a tent or anything. As you can see, we have been walking for four days. We're in the street now. No tent, no shelter, nothing. I ask all relevant parties to support us.

Help us. We are tired. We're really tired. Meanwhile, the United States vetoed a draft UN Security Council resolution yesterday that called for an immediate unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza. It was approved by 14 of the council's 15 member states. It was the sixth time the U.S. cast a vote since the start of Israel's war. cast a veto since the start of Israel's war on Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israel's far-right minister Bizzol-Smotrick on Wednesday called the Gaza strip a real estate bonanza and said, quote, a business plan is on President Trump's table. He also added, quote, we've done the demolition phase. Now we need to build, unquote. A delivery driver transporting humanitarian aid from Jordan to Gaza Thursday opened fire on Israeli soldiers killing at least two in the Alambi crossing into the occupied West Bank. The assailant, a civilian who'd reportedly been delivering aid to Gaza for the past three months, was then shot dead by Israeli forces.

Afghanistan is rejected. President Trump's calls for the United States to retake control of Bagram Air Base. Trump made the comments on Thursday during a press conference with British Prime Minister Kier Starmor. We were going to keep Bagram, the big air base, that one of the biggest air bases in the world. We gave it to them for nothing. We're trying to get it back, by the way. Okay, that could be a little breaking news. We're trying to get it back because they need things from us.

We want that base back. But one of the reasons we want the base is, as you know, it's an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons. On social media, Zakir Jalal, an Afghan foreign ministry official, said, quote, Afghanistan and the United States need to engage with one another without the United States maintaining any military presence in any part of Afghanistan, unquote. President Trump's escalating his attacks on the press by threatening to revoke the broadcast licenses of networks that give him negative coverage. Trump's comment came a day after ABC indefinitely suspended Jimmy Kimmel's late-night program

following threats from Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr over remarks Kimmel made after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The Trump administration's actions have been widely denounced. Fellow late-night host Stephen Colbert called the suspension of Kimmel's show blatant censorship. On the Daily Show, John Stewart mockingly described himself as the patriotically obedient host of what he called the all-new government-approved Daily Show. The point is, our great administration has laid out very clear rules on free speech. Now, some naysayers may argue that this administration's speech concerns are merely a cynical ploy, a thin gruel of a ruse, a smokescreen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitary intimidation,

principled and coldly antithetical, to any experiment in a constitutional republic governance. Some people would say that. Not me, though. I think it's great. Meanwhile, congressional Democrats denounce the Trump administration's threats and introduced a bill to strengthen protections for people targeted over political speech. This is Democratic Congressmember Greg Khosar of Texas. We are in the biggest free speech crisis this country has faced since the McCarthy era.

The murder of Charlie Kirk was a horrific crime, and it's clear that Trump wants to hijack that horrific crime to silence anyone who disagrees with the president about any issue. President Trump's asked the Supreme Court for an emergency order to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. An appeals court earlier this week rejected the unseating of Cook ahead of the Federal Reserve's vote to lower interest rates. Trump's attempt to fire Cook is the first time a president has tried to remove a current federal governor in the agency's 112-year history.

She's also the first African-American woman to serve on the board in history. In New York, at least 11 Democratic elected officials were arrested Thursday as they demanded access to the notorious ice jail inside 26 federal plaza in Manhattan, while a separate group staged a peaceful action blocking access to the building's garage used by ICE to transport detained immigrants. City controller Brad Lander and public advocate Jemani Williams were among those arrested yesterday. In related news, a new report has found ICE placed more than 10,000 people in solitary confinement between April 24 and May 2025 with the practice skyrocketing after Trump returned to office. Immigrants, including those experiencing serious medical and mental health crises, are routinely placed in isolation for days, weeks, and in some cases, months, which the U.N. says amounts to torture. A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has blocked the Trump administration. from immediately deporting a group of at least 76 unaccompanied Guatemalan migrant children

who were living in government custody. Judge Timothy Kelly, who's a Trump appointee, rejected claims by the Department of Homeland Security that the children were being deported to be reunited with their parents who had asked for their return to Guatemala. In his ruling, Kelly said the administration's argument, quote, crumbled like a house of cards, as there is no evidence before the court that the parents of these children sought their return, he said. Trump officials had attempted to secretly deport the children in the middle of the night over Labor Day weekend. A vaccine advisory panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted to restrict access to the MMRV vaccine, which is a combination shot that protects against measles, mumps, rebella, and chicken pox to children under the age of four.

About half the panel's members were appointed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The panelists are also set to vote today on COVID-19 shots and whether to delay, administering the Hepatitis B vaccine to newborns. Meanwhile, New York, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey have formed a northeastern block to issue broader vaccine recommendations than the CDC. New York Governor Kathy Hochel said in a statement, quote, as Washington continues to launch its misguided attacks on science, New York's making it clear that every resident will have access to the COVID vaccine and the health care they rely on,

unquote. Venezuela has launched a series of military drills mobilizing more than 2,500 soldiers to the Caribbean island of La Orchila in response to soaring tensions with the Trump administration over U.S. military attacks and presence in the region. U.S. forces have blown up at least two Venezuelan boats, killing at least 14 people that Trump officials without providing evidence claimed were drug traffickers. UN experts have condemned the U.S. for carrying out extrajudicial executions. The escalating U.S. military action against Venezuela comes after Trump signed a secret directive approving the Pentagon's use of military force in Latin America, supposedly to target drug cartels. And in France, hundreds of thousands of protesters took part in demonstrations as labor unions went on strike against austerity measures proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron and his new

Prime Minister, Sebastian Le Corneux. According to France's Interior Ministry, half a million people attended the protests. Here's Regis de Lue, a helicopter worker for Airbus. The government needs to understand that we are fed up with austerity, that they are real measures that need to be taken

to save France. But these aren't the ones that need to be taken against workers. These are measures that need to be taken at the government level and savings that need to be made. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. In a Democracy Now global TV radio broadcast exclusive, we spend the hour with long-time

indigenous activist Leonard Peltier. In February, he was released from a federal prison in Florida after spending nearly half a century behind bars for a crime he says he did not commit. President Biden, on his last day in office, commuted Peltier's life sentence to home confinement. Biden's decision came after mounting calls by tribal leaders and supporters around the world in a decades-long community-led campaign fighting for his freedom. In the 70s, Peltier was involved with AIM, the American Indian movement. In 1975, two FBI agents and one young AIM activist were killed in a shoot. out on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Two AIM members were later arrested for

killing the agents. At trial, the jury acquitted them. Leonard Peltier was arrested later, tried separately, and convicted. Peltier has always maintained his innocence. Notable supporters of Leonard Peltier over the years included Nelson Mandela, Pope Francis, and Amnesty International. Supporters of Peltier say his trial was marked by gross FBI and federal prosecutorial misconduct, including the coercion of witnesses, fabricated testimony, and suppressed exculpatory evidence. After being released in February, Leonard Peltier returned home to live on the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Reservation and Bell Court, North Dakota. September 12th was Leonard Peltier's 81st birthday. People gathered throughout the day visiting him to celebrate this first

birthday in almost a half a century where he was home. We got there on his birthday. The next day, Saturday, we spoke in his living room in his first extended TV radio broadcast interview since his release from prison. Hi, I'm Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now, in the home of Leonard Peltier, just recently freed from prison after 49 years. Plus two months. Plus two months. I have spoken to you so many times, Leonard, in prison, in various prisons. Several of them, Supermax prisons.

It is quite astonishing to be here with you in person. Tell us where we are. Where are we sitting? We're sitting in my home that was given to me by my supporters. This was not given to me by the tribe or the government had nothing to do with it. I was released by Biden under commutation of my sentence and home confinement. actually what happened was I was I was taken out of one prison cell and really put into another type of prison but this is my home now this is my home so it's a million times better wait what do you mean when you say you were taken out of your prison cell after more than 49 years and you're saying that you're not completely free no no I'm on a restrictive restrictions, even to go to the post office, I got to call my, I call her

my handler. I have to call her to go to the post office. Then when I get back, I have to call her and tell her I'm back. Or if I go anything, if I go shopping or whatever, I have to do that. If I have to go 100 miles past the nation, I don't call my place a reservation either. were nations of people. I have to get a pass, usually from Washington, D.C. to go to medical, usually medical or religious ceremonies on different Native nations. So let's go back to that moment when you were in that prison cell in Coleman in Florida, and you got word that President Biden had commuted your sentence.

It was just hours before he was leaving office. Can you tell us about that process, how it took place? Well, as I went through the years filing for pardons and stuff, Ronald Reagan was the first one to promise to leave me, pardon me. Somebody in Washington stopped it. There's only one organization that could have stopped it didn't have the power to stop it, but still somehow or in power enough to where they can override the president of the United States, our Congress. It's the FBI, and Reagan promised to let me go, and the FBI intervened, and that was stopped, and Bill Clinton and Obama, and finally we get to

Biden and Biden there was pressure put on him from all over the world almost every tribal nations here in the United States filed for my release

demanding my release the United Nations the United Nations did a full report on my case and they demanded that I be released immediately and to be paid quote, unquote, hundreds of Congress and senators and millions of people.

Then the Pope. And the Pope, the last Pope and the current Pope. And world leaders, many world leaders, demanded my release. The Nobel Peace Laureate Bishop, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Yes, I was also nominated. and nominated four times because of my work from prisons for a Nobel Prize. And the board and everything granted it, but somebody intervened again. So four times I lost that.

I think somebody was pushing Biden to stop any possibility of signing a pardon. So he didn't sign it until the last moment. and actually a day and a half before he actually signed it and his term was completed I just took that position that now he's not going to do this and I just kind of laid back to myself and I thought to myself well I guess I die here and this is the only ultimate sacrifice I can make and I have to accept it I have no other choice

and as I laid there and thinking about it other people came by even guards would tell me don't give up Leonard don't give up and other prisoners and some of them prisoners were telling me

that Leonard he's got to know that if he doesn't sign this this is political suicide for the Democratic Party because there's millions of people that are going to break away from this if he doesn't. And so I was laying there

and I was thinking, well, let's try one more thing. So I called a representative of mine that was working closely with the Biden administration. We have native people. We had native people in these administration who were communicating with Biden. And I said, tell him to give me a commentation, on my sentence and home can find it.

So she called and did this and that's what I ended up with and that's what I'm living under right now. How did you hear that you were going to be free? Well, it was kind of unbelievable in the immediate moment. I thought somebody was just playing games at me and I thought, ah, I'm going to wake up

and this is all the dream. And I'm in the cell and I'll be in there. And I really didn't believe until. Actually, I walked in the house here. What was it like to leave, Coleman? Well, imagine living in a cubicle larger than some people's closets for all those years.

And they finally are able to walk out of there. I mean it was just for me it was unbelievable that this was actually happening to me but I mean the feeling of wow

I can go I'll be home I won't be able to I won't have to go to bed in this cold cell with one blanket and I won't have to

smell my sully's going to the bathroom. I won't have to eat cold meals. It's just really over for me? Is this really going to be over for me? And there was disbelief. A lot of it was disbelief, really. And now we're sitting here in your living room,

surrounded by the paintings you did in prison. Yes. You are an artist. extraordinary, maybe about to have a gallery showing in New York. Through the years you sold your paintings. Talk about painting in prison and how you came to be a painter. Well, see, a lot of people think we were allowed to paint ourselves and stuff. We were not. We were not allowed. They had an art room hobby craft area, and one of the hobby crafts was painting, so you have to sign up for that. A lot of people think that all the art supplies was given to you by the prison, the

hobby crafter, that's not true either. We have to buy our own. And I went and signed up immediately to go into the art hobbycraft. And I used to go to every day. And that's what I did. I painted and painted and painted until I was able to create my own style and everything. Yeah. Can you see your paintings now? No, two months ago, I think now, I lost 80% of my vision. And I'm in the process of hopefully get my eyesight, I treat it and returned. We're spending the hour with the indigenous leader,

their longtime political prisoner, Leonard Peltier, he was released from prison after nearly 50 years behind bars. It was his birthday weekend that we sat at his home in Belcourt, North Dakota. Coming up, he talks about being put in an Indian boarding school as a child, his activism, and more. In a life will flow as long as the grass grows and the water runs. While I'm here on Earth, I rejoice in it's worth. Because freedom is free. Freedom is free. You can take that away from freedom.

Freedom is fire by Chicano Batman in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the war in peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. as we continue our global TV radio broadcast exclusive. As we sit in the home of longtime indigenous activist Leonard Peltier in Belcourt, North Dakota, on the reservation, I spoke to him on Saturday the day after his 81st birthday and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Cree Reservation. He was released in February from the federal prison in Florida after spending nearly half a century behind bars. So take us back in time, introduce us to you, starting by saying your name, who your parents were, the nations they were a part of, your family, where you lived growing up.

Okay, my name is, English name is Leonard Peltier. I'm 81 years old as of yesterday. My father is a Chippewa. Cree from this reservation, this nation right here. I keep saying reservations because we were thought from childhood that we are all reservations. We're Indians. We're not Indians. And this is not a reservation. We made treaties with the United States government. And the Constitution says they shall only make treaties with sovereign nations. So we're sovereign nations. We're not Indian, as they claim to be, as they claim we are. And my mother's from Fort Totten, but again, that's not the real name. The real name is Spirit Lake. And that's of the Lakota, Dakota people. I was raised majority of my life here with my grandparents,

which is usually the traditional way of my people. The grandparents will take the children and raise But when Grandpa died, Grandma had no way to support us. So she went to the agency here to ask for help. And in retaliation, they took us and put us in a boarding school. What boarding school? Wapton, North Dakota, 1993. I was there until 1950 for three years, 56. And it was extremely brutal conditions.

How old were you? I was nine then when I went. Talk about the point of these boarding schools. Was your haircut? Did they stop you from speaking your language? They did all that. That was the purpose of the schools is to take the Indian out of the Indians

is what they literally was the order. It took us the boarding schools. The first thing they did, It was cut all our, buds cut, our hair, took it all off. And then we put us and took us into the shower. We showered and we come out of the shower. And we were poured all over our body's DDT.

As you know, that's poisonous. They poured DDT over your body? They poured DDT with all the cans on your head and the whole body. And then they give us an issue of clothes, beding, and assigned us to a bed. And that was the beginning of our treatment, not treatment. It was extremely, extremely strict school. And beatens were regular to, for any little violation of those rules. I might have been a little hot-headed, I don't know.

But when I first got there, there was a group they called themselves the resistors. and I immediately joined them and I became part of the resistors so we would sneak behind Jimmy Nazim and we would talk our language, we would sing some song even do some prayers yeah and we got caught

we got the shit beat out of us you wrote in your book Prison Writings My Life is My Sun Dance that you consider these boarding schools your first imprisonment Yes it was It was. I found the rules more restrictive than when I went, ended up in prison. So you go to this residential school with your cousin and sister for three years.

Where do you come back to? And how did you maintain your language and your culture? Well, I came back here to live with my father, and they were still living in log cabins. no electricity, no running water. We had to haul water, we had to haul wood. And we only had $55 to live on, which was my father's World War II military benefits. And that's what we had to live on. And we were facing the time of terminations.

The United States government wrote a bill, passed by Congress, signed by the president of terminations. In 1956, it was supposed to be completed by 1985. And the first one to be terminated was the Monominee Indians of Wisconsin. They had millions of making, millions of prime land, timber, and lakes, to make hunting lodges and other things out there. It was beautiful, which they did today. They got all those things out there today. But they came and took all that land from them.

Then they come here in 1958. Was there 58? Yeah, 58. I was 13 years old then. And they came and told us, we have been terminated, and we have to accept it. We were supposed to be the second reservation to be terminated. The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.

Band of Chippewa Cree, yes. And my father and all of them and their generation. A lot of people left on relocation. They said, it's hopeless. We can't fight these people. They're too powerful. They're just too powerful. You know, maybe life will be better over there and stuff like this on this relocation.

So they picked this city to go to. A lot of them went to Washington State in Oregon. and there was a small group of us stayed here and said, no, we're not leaving. So my dad in his generation said, well, what do you mean to terminate it? You can't come here and tell us that we've got to leave and you're going to just terminate us as a race of people

and tell us that we no longer exist. Go f*** yourself. Come on, let's fight it out. And literally, they were, I was proud of them. I was 13 years old. They stopped all provisions. One little girl died over here from malnutrition,

and that's what really got everybody angry. So they thought they would starve you out? Yeah, they were making conditions so hard that we were accepting termination. We were leaving. A lot of people took it. Well, at least my kids won't starve to death. And the BIA reversed its decision?

They reversed their decision. He gave us $50. Bouchers? Vouchers to go buy groceries here and Rala. Everybody got the whole reservation, got $50. And they didn't disband the reservation. No, they got the hell out of because we told them we're going to fight them. So this was really the beginning of the Red Power movement and the founding of AIM.

Well, I guess so, and so many were else. The American Indian Movement, which you want to rename the American. But they were doing that for, I mean, my people, been fighting back for 500 years, Amy. But the modern day. Yeah, the modern day stuff. But no, we went war with them. We went to all kinds of different levels of resistance.

Resistance, you know. So talk about the founding of AIM, the American Indian movement, which you today would like to rename the American Indigenous. Well, I was involved in a number of. different organizations before I joined Amos and one of the biggest ones that I was with I was I helped organize the United Tribes of all Indians and Washington State and we took over Fort Lawton that one of the treaties that we were pushing them there is actually our people was older people were pushing this too but they just passed

all of our knowledge came from traditionalists That's the policies, the American Indian Movement. We followed there. First of all, people are going to understand, the American Indian Movement policy is they can't come onto this reservation and they're dictating their policy. They have to be invited by the traditionalist

or tribal government or what else. We can't just go onto a reservation saying, you're going to do this, you're going to do that. No, we can't do that and we don't do that. We have to be invited first. So, anyway, this was before I joined the American Indian Union. I was involved with the fishing and hunting struggles over there. That was a big area that they really fought hard and got really...

Fishing and hunting rights. Yes, treaty rights. In fact, Marlon Branda got arrested with us in 1955. He got arrested on one of them late. I wasn't there, but he was... he got arrested fishing and hunting with natives out there. So talk about the occupation of the BIA offices in Washington moving on to Wounded Knee and Pine Ridge.

Well, our resistance became extremely popular. American Union was growing. And not just here in America, Canada, Central America. said a lot and a lot of full bloods alter Central America more than people more than here in the United States and we were uniting with all

of them all those natives across this country across this whole continent I mean and we were we were pulling together with the American India that's why we became a threat to the government so

and they later on I was arrested, after I got arrested, this one guy was telling me, he said, yeah, I just went down to Mexico someplace, one of them towns. And he said, they were organizing resistance and stuff like this. I was down there, down there visiting him. He said, and I went to this old, this guy was told me he was some kind of medicine man or something. So I went down and visit him. He said, I went into his place

and to his, he had kind of a hut like home, I guess. And he said, what did I see? He said, I see a poster on one of the walls. That's so far back. But I wasn't, we went through all that stuff. And so anyway.

But especially for young people to understand. I mean, you're talking about this critical moment of 1973, four and five. Sixies, actually. What's that? Started with the 60. And also the height of the anti-war movement.

And the role and the effect of the anti-war movement on the Native American movement and vice versa. If you can talk about those critical moments. I was and others were, a lot of us, natives were, we were also involved in the peace marches and with the blacks and the anti-war movements. and things like that. We were involved in all that stuff too.

But we were working on trying to get their support and they were working on trying to get our support. Then the hippies came out and the hippies really helped us. The hippies did a lot to help us. They started dressing like natives. They started doing things like native people and a lot of them came from very wealthy families. A lot of people hated them.

That's for one of the reason. government hated them is because they were really pushing the native issues, you know, the culture and stuff like this. So the trail of broken treaties, that was 1972. Explain what it is, which was a takeoff on the trail of it. We knew that we had to get to get the government to start honoring our treaties because they never honored our treaties. And the only way we could do this is to go right straight to Washington. And so we organized a group, we call it the Trail of Broken Treaties.

And we all organized from all over the country. They sent representatives and old cars. We had all, nobody had new cars in days. And we all turned, we all went to Washington. You went? Of course I did. Of course I was there too, yeah. This is, of course, a takeoff on the Trail of Tears.

And most people in our schools, and maybe less so, especially now, will ever even know what the Trail of Tears was. Right, right, precisely. That was all past. Everything we did, we called it well like the Trail of Broken Treaties. That was done out of the Trail of Tears. and long walk, all the other events like that that happened. It wasn't just a Trail of Tears.

I said, people have to understand it. The Trail of Tears was just one of them that became so well-known because I think the 10,000 people died on that. And just they're laying alongside the trails and stuff from dying from sickness. malnutrition, all that stuff on the trail that tears it. That's why I guess...

This was under President Andrew Jackson? Yes, yes. The president who President Trump... It was over the year. He was a... He was a hater. And so we ever vented, we organized, we organized under

basically the same policies of of exposing what was done in the past and continued to be done. And we still find, it's still happening today, Amy. Anna Coulter had made a public statement that about native people that, we didn't kill enough of them Indians. That's a very dangerous thing to say about anybody. Because there's a bunch of nuts out there like, you know, you could take one of them haters and everything.

I mean, he could end up killing a lot of innocent natives for, just because of those type of words. You've got a president trying to do away with our treaties. If our treaties go, we go. This is the only thing to prove that we are a sovereign nation and a race of people. And if that goes, we go as a race of people. So it's not, I mean, it's not ending for us. we're still in danger. You know, you see it happening in the streets, you know.

I mean, right today. Are looking at what they're doing in Palestine, killing women, children, babies, unborn babies. That's what they did to us, man. And here it is still happening. So 52 years ago, 1973, the start of the American Indian movement, and 71-day occupation of the village of Wounded Knee on Pine Ridge Reservation, occupation helping draw international attention to the plight of Native Americans, the U.S. government responding to the occupation with a full military siege

that included armored personnel carriers, F-4 Phantom Jets, U.S. Marshals, FBI, state, and local enforcement during the occupation, two sum men shot dead by federal agents and a black civil rights activist, Ray Robinson, went missing. The FBI confirmed in 2014 decades later that Ray Robinson had been killed during the standoff. Most people don't know about this history. No. Maybe they've heard the book, bury my heart at Wounded Knee. So can you talk about Pine Ridge and Wounded Knee, especially for young people? who don't know the history. Well, I was in jail during the beginning of Wounded Knee.

But I got out, it was about halfway true. Then I went up there, and I helped pack in stuff into Wounded Knee, and I stayed out there on the outside forces. After we made all those trips to Washington and all stuff to all those other demonstrations and all those promises, they were going to do this and do that, they were going to investigate, everything, all of our acquisitions and all that stuff.

And we soon found out, we knew anyway, but we soon found out that it was all a lie. They weren't going to investigate. And they didn't. And so finally the elders and the chiefs made the decision to go to wounded knee. AIM had no part in that decision. We cannot go anyplace in the Indian country. make policies. We can't. That's not, that is not us. We can't do that. Now, and we can't go unless

we're invited by those people. And they just got fed up with so many more false promises and what was happening. They were being terrorized by a group, organized by a missionary group, I might add, they were provided with intelligence, armored, pursing, ammunition, sophisticated weapons, surveillance and stuff like this, automobiles and stuff. And the leader made that, admitted that on a national interview. So, you know, that's all true. They try to deny it at first.

but they called themselves the guardians of the Oval of a nation and the goons. The goons. Dick Wilson's. Dick Wilson and all them.

Nixon ordered 82nd Airborne to go and investigate what's going on down there. And if there was if they were like the government was claiming that we were

communists and Marxists and and we were being financed by the communists. They were to go out there and wipe us out. When Nixon's got the 82nd Airborne involved in it, we filed a lawsuit and took us 10 years, but we got all this information out of the files

that they had to turn over to us, right? And we found that they had went to the Army and checked out $250,000. rounds of various caliber ammunition different sophisticated weaponry armored personnel carriers and finances and surveillance and stuff like that see that was all illegal and that's how we found out a lot of lot of stuff about what they were doing there and was all illegal if it would have been left to Nixon he was going to wipe us out. But

it didn't because we heard his wife stepped forward and said, no, don't you do that. Now, still going back 50 years, what landed you in jail? I want to go to the words in democracy now

in 2003. The occupation of wounded knees considered the beginning of what Oglala people refer to as the reign of terror from 73 to 76. Over 60 residents killed in this period. Murders went uninvestigated by the FBI, which had jurisdiction. The period culminating in the June 26th shootout,

for which Leonard Peltier was imprisoned. First of all, I don't know who the shooter is. Our shooters. And I wouldn't tell you if I did know. So I'm not going to tell you anything of that area. But I'll tell you, I'll speak on the other issues because it's public knowledge and it's been our attempts to continue to expose that stuff. But there were a lot of native people, traditionalists, whose homes were burned, whose houses were driving by shootings, people were pulled over. and beaten and some shot some killed and those things are literally recordings on this we've got records

of all this stuff now so people can't deny this stuff the only ones that are denying the It is the United States government, the FBI, and people like that. But we faced a time called the reign of terror when they were getting away with all of the shit. None of them were getting investigated. A lot of the older people that seen these people identified them, but the FBI still wouldn't investigate. They were able to kill people at random. They were getting away with it, because they didn't.

They had no fear of being prosecuted. The only fear they had was of us, the American Indian movement, because we wouldn't take their shit every chance we got together. We got a confrontation with them. And that's the only fear they had of anything, of any retaliations, any arrests or anything else. We're spending the hour with indigenous elder Leonard Peltier released to home. confinement after nearly 50 years in prison. Stay with us. exclusive. We're continuing our conversation with indigenous leader Leonard Peltier,

released a home confinement in February after nearly half a century behind bars. I asked him about his claims that his extradition from Canada and trial were marked by prosecutorial misconduct. Talk about the coerced testimony of Myrtle Poor Bear, who she is. Who is she? I know you didn't know her at the time. I never know her. Her father came to my, was going to come testify at my trial, that she had a serious mental problem. And her sister was going to testify that on the day of the shootout,

they were sitting there drinking beer, and we got this all on tape. And they were sitting there drinking beer, and they ran out of beer. And they were watching TV, she said. And they decided to make a run off the reservation because it was a dry reservation. No alcohol was allowed there.

And so to go buy some more beer, come back and watch some more TV. And they started driving down the road, and all of a sudden, a bulletin came over the radio. Big shootout in Oglala between the marshals, FBI, BIA cops, goon squads against the American Indian movement. So they were over 50 miles away. Finally, Myrtle admitted that she didn't know me. But she, her testimony said that. The testimony of the grand jury when you got us all indicted.

Said she was your girlfriend and she had seen. She had witnessed, oh, God. Seen all of this. This was, when the lawyers came to me in Canada, they said, Leonard, they said, Leonard, we got bad news for you. And I said, yeah, what kind of bad news? And they said, your girlfriend's testifying.

against you. And I looked at him, I said, my girlfriend, what do you mean, my girlfriend? He said, your girlfriend. And I said, I don't have a girlfriend. I got a wife, two kids. So talk about James Reynolds, the former U.S. attorney in charge of the prosecution that helped convict you. He later becomes an advocate for your release stating the prosecution could not prove that you had committed any offense, and the conviction was unjust. He wrote to president after president. He himself was appointed by Carter right through to Biden. Yes.

Well, about 10 years ago, James Reynolds started to have a change of heart, I guess. James Reynolds said that there is no evidence, Bernard Pilter committed any crimes on that reservation. And that's pretty. in charge of everything. What this ultimately leads to is your imprisonment for 49 years. Yep. The majority of your life behind bars, what this institutionalization meant for you, what it meant

to be both a prisoner and considered a political prisoner around the world and a symbol of the fight for Native American rights and what happened. to you when you engage in it, all of those things? Well, okay, I think I'm going to ask this question quite a bit and it's hard for me to answer, but I think what really kept me strong was my anger. I was extremely angry about what they did to me and my people. And I'm still still very, very angry.

And there was no way in hell I was going to get justice. I had at least 14 constitutional issues that I should have been released on, at least that many. And I knew it wasn't going to get it. I knew it was the courts were not going to give it to me. And I mean, even the Supreme Court that wouldn't refuse to hear my case and stuff like that. But I knew why. you know, I found evidence of them meeting with Judge Haney. And Judge Haney became a strong advocate for my release.

But we found evidence. He worked with the FBI. And I just, I felt so much hate and anger. And what they did to Native people in this. country this continent and that kept me strong it kept me from oh kept me from i've been offered numerous times a few times anyway that if i accepted responsibility and made statements that everything we said dang a table about the united states government uh what their past history was and their dealings with our with what what with us as people in the nation and they would

turn me loose and I refused to do that I refuse to bow down to them and I still refuse to bow down to this I'm gonna die with my beliefs and I just refuse to to me it's treason against my nation my people you're a major symbol

of indigenous power not only in the United States but around the world what does that mean to you well I hope I can use it to benefit my people I mean

as I said earlier we're still in danger it's not over for us. We don't get to live like the rest of people in this country. And without fear of what

would happen to us if we had our treaties taken away from us. We don't get to live like that. We still have to live under that fear. We are losing our identity,

losing our culture, our religion and stuff. most americans don't have to worry about that we do and so the fight for the struggle still goes on for me i'm not going to give up i'm not going to i haven't surrendered i don't want to go back to prison uh and i heard that uh trump was going to try to take away all the bides pardons and and everything else like that. What would you say to young indigenous people, I'm looking behind you at a photograph of,

is it a picture of your great-granddaughter? Yeah, this one, right here. And she's wearing a T-shirt that says strong. How old is she? She's now 11, now 11th. We adopted her when she was a little baby. When taken care of hers ever since. And she loves me and thinks I'm the great,

thing of the world. I love her because she is the greatest thing of the world. And she was, she's a now champion fly swimmer. She was going to, her plan was if she wins the Olympics, she was going to take those Olympics and say, this is for my grandpa, Leonard Peltier, who they illegally put in prison. This is for him. I said, where do you come up with that? She just won't say that.

She just looks at me. You know, we've been covering the climate movement for so many years. We're here in North Dakota covering this standoff at Standing Rock of the Sioux-led, indigenous-led global movement to preserve the environment. And this year, the UN Climate Summit is in just the tip of the rainforest, Bilem, in Brazil. And each of these UN climate summits, we see indigenous. people, especially young indigenous people there, fighting for the planet.

Do you see the voice of indigenous people on the climate movement as hopeful? We've been talking about this for 250 years or no, since America was first organized. We still, when we pray and whatever we do, we still talk about Mother Earth. Other environment stuff, we even stopped. We never will stop. You know, we are still a strong environmentalist. Well, Bernard Paltier, I want to say thank you so much for inviting us into your home. I'm so glad we're not coming to a prison.

Well, so am I. Indigenous leader, Leonard Peltier, at his home on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota on his 81st birthday weekend. Special thanks to Turina Nodura, Sam Malkoff, Dennis Moynihan, Mike Burke, and two observant ones to my popzazu, the news, hon. I'm Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.