Free film screening of INCIDENT AT OGLALA - the Leonard Peltier Story

INCIDENT AT OGLALA: The Leonard Peltier Story
A free film screening, with information about Native prisoners and resistance movements.
7:30pm at the Big Yellow House.

Film description from the DVD case:

In 1975 armed FBI agents illegally entered the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Gunfire Erupted--a Native American and two FBI agents fell dead. After the largest manhunt in FBI history three men were apprehended--only one Leonard Peltier was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. This is his story.

From the very beginning, Peltier's case has been dogged with controversy. Were the charges trumped up? Was the evidence falsified? Ware witnesses pressured to change their testimony? Many people, including some of today s greatest legal minds, believe that Peltier is an innocent man.

Twelve years ago Robert Redford visited Leonard Peltier in prison. Today after yours of struggle with the FBI and the prison system he and director Michael Apted are able to present incident at Oglala a riveting examination of the case and the real story of what my be one of the most outrageous abuses of justice in American history.

90 minutes / color / 1988

Some back story:

In the 1970’s a resurgence in Native American resistance occurred with series of land occupations and armed standoffs related to protecting sacred sites, opposing broken treaties, and fighting genocidal governmental policies. The American Indian Movement became a major target of the FBI’s Counter-intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) by at least 1972, when the Trail of Broken Treaties ended in Washington DC with the takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs office. The government repression resulted in the targeting and assassination of participants in the movement, including the death of between 70-250 people over a five-year reign of terror on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota (where prospectors had recently discovered one of the largest uranium deposits in N. America).

Leonard Peltier was convicted based on faulty evidence and FBI manipulation of the murder of 2 FBI Agents who started a shoot-out at the Jumping Bull residence on June 25, 1975.

John Graham: Leonard Peltier II?
A female leader of AIM named Anna Mae Pictou Aquash was found murdered a few months after the shoot-out; authorities attempted to conceal her body as well as information of death threats she had received from FBI agents. The government is now attempting to cover-up this shameful legacy and sow contempt in contemporary indigenous struggles by framing Anna Mae’s comrade, John Graham, for her murder. Cointelpro’s legacy of infiltrating, imprisoning and otherwise disrupting resistant communities continues to be used and improved on by law enforcement. AIM was targeted extensively in the 70’s because it successfully restored hope and pride in the Native American spirit of resistance.
To learn more about John Graham's case: http://www.grahamdefense.org/

Related links:
http://ourfreedom.wordpress.com/
http://www.freeleonard.org/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104504/