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Photo: NDN Collective protestors call for release of Leonard Peltier outside the White House in September 2023. (Courtesy NDN Collective / Facebook)
With President Joe Biden’s term coming to a close, supporters of Leonard Peltier are urging the president to grant executive clemency.
Peltier has been serving two consecutive life sentences for the murders of FBI Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams in South Dakota in 1975.
This Wednesday, representatives of NDN Collective and Amnesty International sent a letter to President Biden, citing the number of tribal nations and leaders, Nobel Peace Prize laureates, and law enforcement officials who’ve supported Peltier’s release.
This includes James Reynolds, the former U.S. Attorney whose office oversaw Peltier’s prosecution.
In a 2021 letter sent to Biden, Reynolds wrote: “In my opinion, to continue to imprison Mr. Peltier any longer, knowing all that we know now, would serve only to continue the broken relationship between Native Americans and the government.”
Peltier is now 80 and is being held at a federal penitentiary near Orlando.
An Anishinaabe-Lakota tribal member, he is reportedly in poor health and requires a walker.
The agents’ deaths occurred during a shootout with American Indian Movement members.
One AIM member, 23-year-old Joseph Stuntz of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, was also killed.
Courtesy C-SPAN
Tribes were mentioned several times during Thursday’s U.S. Senate hearing for President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of former Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) for Secretary of the Interior Department.
Senators on the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources said there’s support for Gov. Burgum’s confirmation from the five tribes in his state and the Coalition of Large Tribes.
A letter of support was read from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North and South Dakota.
Much of the three-hour hearing focused on energy development.
Public lands, water, and conservation were also discussed.
Democratic senators including U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) were among those to mention tribal consultation.
Burgum described how he sees it.
“Spending time, going to the tribes, listening, sometimes listening for hours, to really understand what the issues are. We achieved MOUs on law enforcement. I mean some of the scarcest and most devastating law enforcement in the country is the lack of BIA agents on federal land. Some of the tribal reservations have become harbors for criminal organizations because they that we don’t have enough resource there, and then our local county sheriffs, the state police -in many cases- didn’t have jurisdiction.”
While the Department of the Interior manages the country’s natural and cultural resources, it also oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education.
Outgoing Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) made history as the first Native American to hold the position.
During her time in office, she made tribes a priority in the department, including working to strengthen consultation and launching an investigation into federal Indian boarding schools.
The Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribal flag display in the South Dakota capitol rotunda. (Photo: Lee Strubinger / SDPB)
In South Dakota, a flag representing the Flandreau Santee Tribe is being displayed in the Capitol rotunda following the tribe’s announcement that it’s lifting its ban against Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD).
Last year, all nine tribes located in the state banished Gov. Noem from reservation lands.
SDPB’s Lee Strubinger has more.
In a letter dated January 14, Flandreau Santee Tribal President Anthony Reider said the Republican governor met one of their stipulations contained in its banishment resolution — an apology.
President Reider said Noem apologized in several meetings for comments she made last year about Native parents and kids, which for tribal officials was the final straw after a series of contentious exchanges.
A spokesperson for the governor’s office said multiple tribal members attended those meetings.
Flandreau is the first tribe to lift its ban.
The Flandreau tribe’s flag is the first to be displayed in the Capitol since the Rosebud and Standing Rock tribes displayed their flags almost a year ago.
Both tribes asked their flags be removed following Noem’s comments last year.
David Flute, Secretary of Tribal Relations, is encouraging other tribes to consider sending their flags to be displayed in the South Dakota capitol.
That, he said, would continue Noem’s vision have having all nine tribal nations represented in the rotunda.
The Flandreau Tribal president wished Noem luck ahead of her Senate confirmation hearing for the Department of Homeland Security.
That hearing was scheduled for Friday morning.
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