There's a pretty good chance you've never seen or heard of this man. His name is Leonard Peltier, and he's serving a life sentence for a crime he did not commit. His story is rooted in the US government's attempt to terminate all Native American tribes. 1/17

In 1953, Congress passed a resolution calling for the termination of all Native reservations, the ending of recognition of Native tribes, and the forced relocation of Natives from their reservations, from their land that was rightfully theirs, to inner city housing projects. 2/17

In order to hasten this policy along, the government cut off all commerce and supply of food and other goods to or from the reservations.

The choice the government gave the Natives was clear:

Move, or starve. 3/17

Let's be clear: the horrible things we were taught the government did to Natives in the 1700s & 1800s, were still being done in the 1950s.

Later court decisions would rule the termination policy illegal, as it blatantly violated the treaties between government & the tribes. 4/17

Leonard was an adolescent living on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa reservation during the time of termination, and it led him to become an activist and a warrior for his people. 5/17

Leonard's 1st battle with government was in 1970, when he & his compatriots peacefully, & legally, took over the abandoned Ft Lawton in Washington State. Ft Lawton was on surplus federal land which, according to the law, belonged to the Natives once it had been abandoned. 6/17

The government came in heavily armed and arrested the Natives, but they had already won.

The courts ruled that the takeover was perfectly legal.

Fort Lawton is now a Native cultural center. 7/17

Soon after, Leonard formed the American Indian Movement (AIM), motivated by the heroism of previous Native warriors such as Dennis Banks, John Trudell, Russell Means, Eddie Benton-Banai, and Clyde and Vernon Bellecourt.

Government was not pleased. 8/17

After many more successful protests & takeovers, the FBI's COINTELPRO program focused on AIM, the same way it had focused on the Black Panthers & other dissident groups in the US. Soon after, in Nov. 1972, Leonard was falsely accused of killing a Milwaukee police officer. 9/17

There were many witnesses, including the officer's girlfriend, who said that Leonard was not guilty, and he was eventually acquitted, but not until after those phony charges were mentioned in another trial, in which he was falsely accused of killing two FBI officers. 10/17

The basis for Leonard's extradition from Canada back to the US for these trials was done so under false premises that included coercion of a witness.

And it gets worse from there. 11/17

FBI testimony about the events that led to Leonard’s charges were contradictory. Witnesses testified to being coerced by the FBI into making statements against him. Ballistics evidence that would have exonerated him was not allowed to be presented to the jury in the trial. 12/17

In 1993, Leonard was denied his request for parole by the US Parole Commission, but the commission later admitted that “the prosecution has conceded the lack of any direct evidence that [Leonard] personally participated in the executions of the two FBI agents." 13/17

Let me repeat that, the US Parole Commission concluded that there was no good reason for Leonard to have ever been tried, much less convicted, in the first place, but they still denied him parole, and he still sits in prison to this day. 14/17

The facts of the case make it clear: Leonard never should have been imprisoned in the first place, and after spending the last 43 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit. 15/17

Libertarians believe that when power is concentrated into the hands of very few, it leads to harmful, abusive, inequitable outcomes. Government's abuse of Natives, which continues to this day, & COINTELPRO's destruction of anyone who resists, are perfect examples of this. 16/17

Free Leonard Peltier!