Mme Mitterand to Visit Peltier, Mumia


 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

 [The KANSAS CITY STAR, April 10, 1999, Saturday]

 SECTION: METROPOLITAN; Pg. B3

 HEADLINE: France's former first lady to visit Peltier in prison
 BYLINE: MARK WIEBE, The Kansas City Star

 In a show of support for imprisoned American Indian activist
 Leonard Peltier, Danielle Mitterrand, widow of former French
 President Francois Mitterrand, plans to visit Peltier at the U.S.
 Penitentiary in Leavenworth.

 The announcement comes at a time when Peltier and his supporters
 say the prison staff is not adequately treating him for lockjaw.

 Mitterrand's visit is tentatively scheduled April 30. She also
 intends to visit Mumia Abu Jamal, a death-row inmate in Pennsylvania
 who says he was wrongly convicted of killing a police officer.

 An assistant for Mitterrand, president of the human-rights
 organization France Libertes in Paris, confirmed the visit Friday.

 Mitterrand may be accompanied by Nobel Peace Prize laureate
 Rigoberta Menchu, who is to appear April 30 in Lawrence on behalf of
 the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee.

 Mitterrand founded France Libertes in 1986 and has been active in
 several human-rights campaigns, including efforts to improve the
 plight of Kurds in Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria.

 Peltier, 54, is serving two consecutive life sentences for the
 slayings of two FBI agents on a South Dakota reservation in 1975. He
 has long said he did not commit the killings.

 Peltier's recent plea for better medical care prompted supporters
 to flood the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington with e-mail,
 faxes, letters and phone calls.

 According to a Bureau of Prisons official, the barrage began
 nearly six months ago and tapered off in the last three weeks. A
 small percentage of the messages claimed to be from people waging
 hunger strikes, the official said.

 Peltier's medical condition also attracted the attention of the
 European Parliament, which passed a resolution Feb. 11 calling for
 him to be transferred to a hospital for "appropriate medical
 treatment. " The Parliament also restated its plea for the United
 States to grant Peltier clemency.

 Gina Chiala, a volunteer for the Peltier Defense Committee in
 Lawrence, said Peltier has requested treatment from a physician at
 the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

 Chiala said Peltier had two surgeries in 1996 at the U.S. Medical
 Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield. Peltier told the Defense
 Committee that, rather than improve his condition, the surgeries made
 it worse. Peltier now refuses to return to Springfield for more
 treatment, Chiala said.

 A written statement from the Bureau of Prisons says that a
 "thorough review of inmate Peltier's medical record reveals he is
 being provided appropriate medical attention addressing both his
 medical complaints and his medical condition."

 According to the statement, Peltier's second surgery at
 Springfield, in May 1996, re-established "good opening and closing
 of the mandible (the lower jaw). " A third surgery was scheduled for
 October 1996, but Peltier refused it.

 Chiala said Peltier, whose lockjaw stems from a tetanus infection
 he had as a child, refused the surgery because the previous two had
 neither alleviated his pain nor improved his ability to chew food.

 According to Chiala, Peltier suffers constant headaches from his
 condition and can open his mouth little more than a centimeter.

 GRAPHIC: Photo, Peltier

 
=================================================================
  NY Transfer News Collective   *   A Service of Blythe Systems 
           Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us          
              339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012             
  http://www.blythe.org                  e-mail: nyt@blythe.org 
=================================================================
 
nytrc-04.24.99-10:55:30-25945