Letters to the USA

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American Embassy in Prague
His Excellency John Shattuck
Trziste 15
118 01 Praha 1
Czech Republic

Prague, 12 December, 2000

Dear Sir,

I am writing you in order to inform you about a letter addressed to President Clinton delivered to an Embassy employee on Sunday, December 10 by representatives of Leonard Peltier Support Group - Czech Republic. I have read your speech on human rights given on the same day with a great interest and was very pleased by your concern regarding Native American issues. For this reason I would like to attract your interest to the case of Leonard Peltier, an American Indian unjustly and unfairly treated by the US judiciary system. I am sure that due to your past involvement in human rights issues you must be aware of this case and of the fact that President Clinton declared to take a decision regarding the request of executive clemency for Leonard Peltier in the forthcoming weeks.

The case of Leonard Peltier has been virtually unknown to the Czech people until recently, when I started an effort to spread awareness on this cause in the Czech Republic. There are already over hundred Czech signatures under the online petition supporting his clemency (over 26 000 signatures were already handed over to the White House and more are signing) and our Sunday’s March for Peltier was attended by over 70 people – which in our Czech reality is not too bad, as you certainly know. Our action was organized in solidarity with the New York Native American Walk for Justice attended by more than 4000 people, which took place on the same day. We have received a coverage of the Czech TV3 in a 2 minutes reportage in the Prime News.

I am addressing you as a person known by a sincere interest in justice and human rights defense and I am asking you to consider Leonard Peltier’s case in the light of all the evidence released since his trial - in particular, the recent testimony of Myrtle Poor Bear made in front of a Canadian Justice. Her testimony is very enlightening with respect to methods used by the FBI in this shocking case, which is strongly reminding manipulated trials of Communist courts in the fifties in the former Czechoslovakia. I am asking you to take a moment of your precious time and consider your eventual support in favor of Peltier’s release by President Clinton.

For the case that my Sunday’s letter to President Clinton wouldn’t be transmitted to the White House yet, I copy the letter hereunder.

With my sincere respect,

Bushka Bryndova
Leonard Peltier Support Group Czech Republic
(skipped)

bushka@volny.cz
http://www.bushka.narodni.cz/freepeltier.html

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Letter to President Clinton asking clemency for Leonard Peltier, handed over to the US Embassy in Prague after the 10 December Peltier March

President William Jefferson Blythe Clinton
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington DC 20500

Prague, 10 December 2000

Dear Mr. President,

I am writing you to ask you to grant executive clemency to Leonard Peltier, an American Indian sentenced to life prison for aiding and abetting to a murder of FBI agents Coler and Williams committed in Pine Ridge Indian reservation 24 years ago. I am following his case for more than 10 years and although I am not a lawyer, I think to have a fair knowledge of his case. I believe that Leonard Peltier has never received a fair trial – the documents of FOIA released posteriori to the trial established that witnesses who testified against Peltier were intimidated and evidence which could have proven his innocence was concealed from the defense. Other two persons indicted for participation in the same incident were released after a court ruling saying that they acted in self-defense. During one of many appeals that followed the original sentence, the prosecution itself declared not to know who did actually kill the agents. Ms. Poor Bear, who had signed the affidavits leading to Peltier’s extradition from Canada, testified recently in front of a Canadian judge that she agreed to implicate Mr. Peltier in the 1975 shooting deaths only after she had endured months of unrelenting harassment and threats from other FBI agents. The release of FOIA documents on this case had brought clear evidence that the FBI used illegal methods and this is why I have serious doubts about the objectivity of Mr. Freeh’s emotional letter enumerating arguments against Leonard Peltier’s clemency.

I know that even courts in a democratic country can be wrong - law systems are not always reflecting the real justice and the wheels of their machinery can crush even an innocent man. I believe that this is the case of Mr. Peltier and therefore I ask you to intervene in his favor. Leonard Peltier has a honorable record of good deeds behind bars, like sponsoring a Native scholarship program, adopting children in Central America, supporting battered women's centers and substance abuse programs, and sponsoring an annual Christmas clothing and toys drive for the children of Pine Ridge. He has become a talented artist-painter and an accomplished writer through his book “Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sundance”, already translated into four languages until present. His present clemency request is supported by a petition signed by more than 15 000 people and by calls for his release issued by the National Congress of American Indians, the Assembly of First Nations, the Amnesty International and others. His past requests were supported by personalities like late Mother Theresa, The Dalai Lama, Nobel Price laureate Rigoberta Menchu, Nelson Mandela, Sen. Daniel Inouye, Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Robert Redford, Oliver Stone, Whoopi Goldberg and many others.

Mr. Peltier has spent the last 24 years in prison and he is suffering of diabetes, heart condition and sight problems. I am afraid that if he is not granted clemency before the end of your mandate, it is highly probable that he would die in prison. Leonard Peltier has become a symbol for the Native American community, which would perceive his release as a very positive sign in the healing of centuries old history of injustices and pain resulting in the present situation of American Indians. Granting of clemency to this internationally notorious US prisoner would certainly strengthen the image of your country as a worldwide guarantor of human rights and democracy. The case of Leonard Peltier has become known in my country, too and is gaining support in the Czech public opinion.

I humbly ask you to consider my request and try to imagine that in Mr. Peltier’s situation would be someone of your family or friends. Therefore I ask you to consider his case with the mind of an excellent lawyer and the heart of a sensitive human being that you are.

With my sincere respect,

Bushka Bryndova
Leonard Peltier Support Group Czech Republic

US Ambassador John Shattuck - Remarks at UN Information Center Observance of Human Rights Day in Prague

I am delighted to be able to join you on this occasion to celebrate International Human Rights Day. This will be my last speech as Ambassador in the Czech Republic, and I have been asked to speak on the subject which is closest to my heart and my life's work. This meeting here today symbolizes the commitment our countries to work harder to guarantee the human rights of all citizens in the Czech Republic, in the United States and throughout the world.

The United States government is sometimes accused of preaching to the world on human rights. Every year, our State Department produces an assessment of the human rights situation in every country in the world, both allies and non-allies. However, we do not exempt ourselves from this scrutiny, and that is what I want to talk about here today.

In 1995, when I was the Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights, I had the privilege of being the first U.S. government representative to report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee on the political and civil rights situation in the United States (to the dismay, I might add, of some members of our Congress).

I told the U.N. Committee that human rights have a special resonance for Americans, for we were the first country to be explicitly founded on the principles of inalienable freedom. Those who wrote our Constitution and Bill of Rights did not draw these ideas out of thin air. They distilled them from what they knew of the great philosophical, religious and ethical traditions of the world. Our Constitution laid out a blueprint for civil and political rights and freedoms, but it has been a long road toward the realization of those rights for many parts of our society. This road, and many perils along the way, has unfolded over more than two centuries, through many chapters of history, some noble and others dark, and the road continues to this day. Over the course of our history, America has experienced egregious human rights violations, such as the enslavement and disenfranchisement of African Americans and the virtual destruction of many Native American civilizations.

The profound injustices visited on African Americans were only partially erased after our Civil War, and then a century later by the civil rights movement of the 1960s. This movement carried the banner of freedom though the segregated cities and towns of America, and it fought many hard battles along the way. The American Civil Rights Movement combined heroic leadership with grass-roots organizing and legal challenges in courthouses and legislatures. In many ways, it changed the face of our society and broadened our democracy.

Those efforts to undo the bitter legacy of slavery continue today. The lessons learned from our unfinished battle with racial discrimination can be shared with other members of the international community. Simply put, our national experience demonstrates that legal guarantees of human rights are a prerequisite to social progress, and that rights do not really exist in practice until they are fought for.

Not only African-Americans, but the members of other minority groups have suffered injustices in the United States. Our country is largely a nation of immigrants. We continue to draw wave after wave of men and women from around the world seeking a better life, with annual immigration now surpassing 900,000. However, immigrants to our shores, like immigrants everywhere, can sometimes meet with discrimination and resistance that makes their lives difficult. The openness of our society has permitted, with time, a high degree of mobility for American immigrants, and many immigrant groups have enriched our national identity.

The ongoing struggle for full realization of the rights of women is another central feature of the human rights process in America. Women did not have the vote in the United States until 1920, a century and a half after the founding of the republic. With growing strength, women have moved to claim their equal place in the political, economic and social life of the country. Today, women in all sectors of American life are pressing for broader opportunities and an end to remaining discrimination. The legal framework for combating discrimination, founded in our Bill of Rights and built upon throughout the course of our nation's history, requires that all of our citizens be treated equally, with equal opportunity, protection, and dignity. But we have found that we must always work to make this a reality. We know that we need robust laws and regulations that incorporate human rights into civil and criminal codes that are enforced by a effective police, and are interpreted by an independent, impartial and well-trained judiciary, laws that guarantee the same rights to all people - not just those who look like us, talk like us and share the same beliefs as we do. But laws and regulations are not enough.

Discrimination based on race, religion, ethnic origin, and gender has been outlawed for decades, but lawsuits alleging discrimination, both individual and institutional, are still commonplace. So-called "hate crimes" have been defined by law for almost a decade. Today, there are special sections in police departments dedicated to investigating them, and numerous cases are being prosecuted. Sadly, hate crimes continue.

As President Havel once said, "let us not be mistaken: the best government in the world, the best parliament, and the best president, cannot achieve much on their own. Freedom and democracy include participation and therefore responsibility from us all." Each member of a democratic society owes it to his or her fellow citizens to work to protect them against intolerance, hate, and racial violence. Individual commitment to tolerance, fostered through education and bolstered by a strong set of anti-discrimination laws, must be the foundation for a nation that aspires to protect the rights of all its citizens.

I recall today a film that was screened here in Prague recently, a documentary about the spontaneous local efforts of a small city in the state of Montana to resist religious intolerance and hate. My wife, Ellen, invited the filmmakers to the Czech Republic because she believes, and I agree, that the story the film tells is a heartening example of the way individual citizens can stand up to discrimination outside the framework of formal laws. Entitled "Not in Our Town," the film describes a wave of vandalism against property owned by Jews and Native Americans in the mostly-white, mostly-Christian city of Billings, Montana. Although the perpetrators were not known and the police were unable to make any arrests, the citizens of Billings reacted quickly to offer support and comfort to the victims of the attacks. In one case, a group of white labor union members went, unasked and during their off hours, to the vandalized home of a Native American family, painted over the racial slurs defacing their walls and repaired other damage. In another instance, when someone began throwing rocks through windows displaying Jewish menorahs, a local newspaper and town businesses printed thousands of paper menorahs which people throughout the city displayed in their windows. Because the community rose up to defend human rights, the attacks ceased. Two messages were sent. To the attackers, "we do not tolerate hate here," and to the victims, "you are one of us, no matter what your ethnicity or religion." The film has sparked interest throughout the U.S. and has been used as an inspiration and model by other American communities interested in fighting intolerance.

In addition to laws and individual action, there is a third ingredient required for human rights protection: non-governmental organizations. NGOs are a vital voice outside of government, providing a framework for individuals to remind the government of its responsibilities to citizens and a forum for finding creative, effective solutions to problems of discrimination. In the U.S., NGOs like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch annually turn a critical, unblinking eye on the human rights situation in the United States, releasing critical reports on continuing human rights problems that play an important role in our national debate on human rights. Organizations like the NAACP (the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), the National Urban League, and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) are ever-vigilant to reports of discrimination and bias. In addition, regional and local organizations numbering in the tens of thousands are dedicated to a broad array of civil and human rights, including freedom of speech and expression, freedom of assembly, equal opportunity in employment, and equal access to government services. These organizations not only react to individual cases of discrimination, but also work continuously to educate Americans about the need for tolerance and the national strength that flows from diversity. The presence of many of you here today is an indicator of the growing strength and vibrancy of the NGO sector here in the Czech Republic.

To sum up, our formula in the United States for fighting discrimination and protecting human rights is based on three elements: a legal framework and the government institutions that enforce it; the work of an organized and dedicated system of non-governmental organizations; and, most importantly, the willingness of individual citizens to refuse to accept hate and to fight for their rights and the rights of other citizens.

In Montgomery, Alabama, there is a monument to remind Americans of the price we have paid as a nation in the struggle for human rights. A simple slab of granite over which flows a thin sheet of water, the Civil Rights Memorial is dedicated to all who have died fighting for civil rights and equal protection of the laws of our country. Inscribed above the memorial is Martin Luther King, Jr.'s favorite verse from the Bible: "Let justice roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream." On a day like today, which both commemorates the United Nations' history of working to protect human rights and honors the beginning of a new year in that history, I can think of no better image to remind us of the importance of remembering the sacrifices made in the name of human rights. And I congratulate those of you present who have made a similar commitment to the Czech Republic and to people all over the world.

Thank you.