A2 - Sunday, February 27, 1983 - North Shore News by Bob Hunter IT IS NOT OFTEN that you get a book that successfully combines~history with journalism, politics with prophecy, expose with vision. Yet in documenting the modern “Indian war” which has pitted the uranium in- dustry and the Pentagon against native people in the United States, former North Shore News reporter Rex And he manages to illuminate his dark tale with flashes of profound hope. Weyler, who works now as an associate publisher at New Age Magazine in Boston, takes as his main theme the lopsided struggle of the American Indian Movement (AIM) against the FBI, CIA and eventually the RCMP. Titled Blood Of The Land, Weyler’s book is grim reading at one level, but always powerful, as in his description of the 71-day seige of Wounded Knee. South Dakota, in 1973, when General Alexander Haig sent the U.S. Fourth Army to crush the emerging (or rather, re-emerging) in- dependent Oglala Sioux nation. Blood Of The Land is a chronicle of the continuing oppression of native people in North America. Perhaps its central character is Leonard Peltier, the AIM acuvist who fled what he claimed was a frame-up by the FBI, only to be arrested in Canada and extradited. Peltier is currently serving a double life sentence in an Illinois) prison. Canada's handling of his case has been criticized by Amnesty In- ternational, which accuses the FBI of having fabncated evidence against Indian leaders, and the Canadian courts of having gone along for the ride. Author Weyler draws the conclusion that Peltier was a “uranium = refugee.”” The charges against him—that he murdered two FBI agents-- grew out of the conflict on the Pine Ridge Reservation which turned into the siege Peltier and others in AIM had tried to prevent the transfer to the federal government of 133,000 acres of uranium-rich tribal lands by a corrupt reservation administration. Documents obtained through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act since Peltier’s imprisonment contain an FBI memo in- structing its agents to “develop information to lock Peltier...into this case,” meaning the deaths of two agents during a gun battle. The only evidence against Peltier was an affidavit by an ex-girl frend who claimed she saw him fire the shots. During Peltier's' ex- tradition hearings in Van- couver, his lawyer, Don Rosenbloom, learned tht the FBI was hiding an earlier affidavit in which the woman the FBI in the pursuit of Petti ie i admitted she hadn't even been on the reservation at the time of the shooting. But the court denied Rosenbloom’s appeal to have Peltier released. Then justice minister Ron Basford signed the extradition order. Weyler charges that the RCMP acted as an arm of strictly personal Council agenda highlights “ N. VAN DISTRICT COUNCIL (Monday, 7:30 p.m.) Public hearing .. . Strata conversion request, 1077 Roosevelt Crescent Delbrook renovation costs . Job creation programs report ... 1983 Operating budget . . . Sales of freehold lots (approvals). N. VAN CITY COUNCIL (Monday, 7:30 p.m.) Guidelines for licensed premises Review of Parking Commission Bylaw Ald. J.W. Sorenson jurisprudence proved remarkably unalert in the face of American demands for the AIM leader's return. Although published in the U.S. and mostly concerned with the American situation, Blood Of The Land was actually written in Van- couver. Weyler is a well- known local journalist and photographer whose previous work includes a study of the Japanese- Canadian community in Stevenston. I think Blood Of The Land is a worthy successor to Dee Brown's Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee and Vine Delona Jr.'s Custer Died For Your Sins The book made my hair stand on end. It made me angry and ashamed. And, finally, it left me _ feeling unexpectedly uplifted. To be continued... 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