Daughter of slain activist welcomes AFN's rescinding of support for Leonard Peltier

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

It was a long time coming. 

But for Denise Pictou Maloney, the Assembly of First Nations' rescinding of support for imprisoned American Indian Movement (AIM) activist Leonard Peltier is a significant and welcome shift.

"It's pretty monumental," said Pictou Maloney, the eldest daughter of murdered Mi'kmaw activist Anna Mae Pictou Aquash.

"It sends a very loud message to families and to our women across this nation that they are valued and that their voices will be heard."

The assembly, representing more than 600 chiefs across Canada, reversed 37 years of support for Peltier on July 10 in Montreal, rescinding resolutions from 1987 and 1999 demanding his extradition and release.

Peltier, a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa band in North Dakota, was controversially convicted of murdering two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1975. He maintains his innocence after nearly 50 years behind bars.

Supporters believe Peltier, 79, is a wrongly convicted political prisoner, framed by the FBI, whose ongoing imprisonment is arbitrary and racist. But Pictou Maloney and the Aquash family believe Peltier was complicit in the oath of silence that protected her killers for decades.

Aquash, a prominent AIM member, was executed by gunshot to the head in 1975. She was 30 years old, a mother of two from Sipekneꞌkatik First Nation in Nova Scotia.

Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham, who were AIM members as well, were tried and convicted of the slaying in 2004 and 2010, respectively. 

AIM was an influential Indigenous civil rights movement that rose to prominence in the United States, using militant direct action like the 1973 armed standoff at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

But the FBI considered AIM a subversive organization and sought to suppress the group through covert counterintelligence tactics, which included planting a spy in AIM's upper ranks.

During the Looking Cloud and Graham trials, prosecutors theorized that top AIM members suspected Aquash was an informant — a motive for the killing.

In 2004, Darlene "Kamook" Nichols testified that Peltier bragged in front of Aquash and others about shooting one of the FBI agents as the agent begged for his life. At both trials, Troy Lynn Yellow Wood testified that Aquash told Yellow Wood that Peltier put a gun to Aquash's head during an interrogation and accused her of being a snitch.

In the case of Graham, who has maintained his innocence, this comment was deemed "inadmissible hearsay within hearsay" on appeal, however his conviction stood.

Peltier has maintained the FBI used the trials to advance its campaign of disinformation and discreditation. In 2004, his attorney Barry Bachrach denounced the Looking Cloud testimony as that of "paid informants."

"The trial was well-orchestrated — not to convict the man on trial, but to convict AIM activists and prosecute Leonard Peltier all over again (another violation of his constitutional rights, I would argue) in the court of public opinion," Bachrach wrote.

Advocates for Peltier were not available for comment.

Still questions

The Aquash family has long campaigned for the AFN to reconsider its support in light of the post-1999 testimony, Pictou Maloney said. She felt such support put the assembly in a conflict of interest when it began advocating for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

"If you're going to say that you centre and you're going to value the lives of our women, then it means unconditionally and unapologetically," said Pictou Maloney. 

While the resolution is just "words on paper," and nothing can bring her mom back or reverse the harm, it is a first step toward action, she added.

"I wouldn't say that it's a form of satisfaction for our family. It's a form of justice," she said.

Decades later, Aquash's murder remains subject of questions, particularly around who in AIM might have ordered it.

Graham, originally from Whitehorse, seeks to return to Canada to serve the remainder of his sentence. British Columbia's appeal court in 2022 questioned the procedural fairness of his initial extradition to the U.S.

Peltier, serving consecutive life sentences for the murders of special agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williamson, was denied parole last month at a penitentiary in Coleman, Fla.

Supporters continue to seek his release, citing misconduct and fraud by the FBI and prosecutors, which included presenting Canadian authorities with false evidence to secure Peltier's extradition and knowingly withholding ballistics evidence that would have helped his defence.

Support is available for anyone affected by these reports and the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous people. Immediate emotional assistance and crisis support are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week through a national hotline at 1-844-413-6649.

You can also access, through the government of Canada, health support services such as mental health counselling, community-based support and cultural services, and some travel costs to see elders and traditional healers. Family members seeking information about a missing or murdered loved one can access Family Information Liaison Units.