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Wounded Knee 29.12.1890 – 29.12.2022 - Free Leonard Peltier

Today, 132 years ago, the last great military massacre of the Native Americans in the USA took place near today’s Wounded Knee. That this was the end of the genocide against the Indians in the USA, as is currently conveyed in some newspaper and radio reports, is false. The programs that began to forcibly remove indigenous children from their families continued into the 1980s with respect to boarding schools, and forced placements in foster homes and institutions, as well as forced adoptions, still exist today. Forced sterilizations of indigenous women and girls did not end on a large scale until the late 1980s, but continue to occur sporadically today. Femicide against indigenous girls and women is another current phenomenon of ongoing genocide. And the many cases of ecocide also often affect indigenous communities particularly severely. In short, “Indian wars still aren’t over,” as the last chapter of our book “A Life for Freedom – Leonard Peltier and the Indi an Resistance” is aptly titled (M. Koch/M. Schiffmann, TraumFänger Verlag, 2nd edition 2017).

Leonard Little Finger, descendant of the chief Spotted Elk aka Big Foot, who was murdered in Wounded Knee on Dec. 29, 1890, led us again and again to the scene of this story, which is still trivially described on one government side with the ambiguous term “disaster”, within the framework of our German-Indian youth encounter projects. There we learned the story from the point of view of a descendant of both a victim and a survivor of this massacre, for which 20 members of the regiment received the Medal of Honor, the highest military award of the American government, for their participation. (This award is given for “conspicuous gallantry and fearlessness at the risk of life far beyond the line of duty in action against an enemy of the United States” and with this award history is being turned upside down and rightly so, there continue to be efforts on the part of Native people to have these awards revoked.)

Today, on 29.12.2022, the riders in Wounded Knee will commemorate the massacre of 132 years ago in the context of the memorial ride 38+2. We support the ride in several ways: on the one hand, because many young Lakota are interested in their culture and history again through this ride, because these annual ride actions point to the return of indigenous artifacts, because the events of Wounded Knee in 1890 are remembered annually, and because this motivates many Lakota to continue to stand up for their rights and concerns and to take history into their own hands.

All of this seemed reason enough for us to choose today as the launch day of our first Europe-wide Peltier campaign for 2023, because Days of Remembrance build a bridge to the here and now. And in Leonard Peltier’s continuing imprisonment, which will be 48 years old on February 6, 2023 (Peltier was arrested in Canada on February 6, 1976), the more than 500-year history of genocide, colonization, oppression and discrimination is more than clearly reflected in the present. No, Indian Wars still aren’t over, not in 2022, not in 2023, not in future. We will be asking partner groups and individuals across Europe to participate in this action today. A video slide show will premiere on YouTube on February 27, 2023, the day in 1973, exactly 50 years ago, when indigenous activists occupied WK. The two anniversaries of WK thus form a historical bracket for our action, in order to draw attention to the murders and injustices committed and still existing against the indigenous people of the USA (and all of the Americas), and in doing so also to the fate of the 78-year-old indigenous political prisoner Leonard Peltier. The struggle continues, the struggle for indigenous rights and concerns and the struggle for Peltier’s freedom – and we as an association will continue to clearly show which and whoms side we are on in this struggle.
- https://www.leonardpeltier.de/11626-29-12-1890-29-12-2022