Save Iron Thunderhorse

Letter from Ruth Little Owl to Texas Governor Perry, President Bush, and Senator Hernandez :
UPDATE ON INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT LEAGUE ACTIVITY
October 29, 2005

TO THE ABOVE-NAMED AND ALL UNDISCLOSED FRIENDS AND FAMILY, WONKUM (GREETINGS)!

      I hope this finds you well and in good spirits. It is with great excitement that I learn what is being done in France to try to obtain justice and protection from torture for my husband, Iron Thunderhorse.

      Most of you are aware that Iron sent a letter-petition to the United Nations Working Group on Human Rights a few weeks ago. Most of you have seen "The Torture of Chief Iron Thunderhorse" written by Tom Big Warrior Watts, which is on many websites and can be easily found by doing a Google Search on "Iron Thunderhorse." Many of you have signed the petition set up by the Unified Veterans Coalition, protesting the abuse and asking for clemency (as you, of course, know, my husband was wrongfully convicted and even won an overturning of the sentence for which TDCJ now shows). IF YOU HAVE NOT YET SIGNED THE PETITION, PLEASE DO SO. This, too, can be found on the Google Search.

     I was permitted to see my husband on the 15th and he is not the same man he was before the Polunsky officers instigated the racially-motivated, unprovoked, and premeditated attack on June 7. He remains in excruciating pain due to the destruction of his glasses and UV shields by ranking officers. His legal work continues to be hindered by the confiscation of his typewriter on May 18 and by the commissary restriction which limits postage stamps, whereas his lack of glasses and lack of typewriter makes it necessary for his to write with big letters in order to see it and results in more postage necessary in order to respond to the court as required.

Also after June 7 Polunsky denied my husband the use of handicapped mail stickers (for postage) which he had used for over a year prior to that time.

TDCJ also hampers legal proceedings by delaying every letter from Iron to me and some from me to Iron in which there is information relevant to the litigation. I sent Iron a self-addressed stamped envelope for priority mail in which to send legal documents to me to copy and mail to AG and the court, but, although he is entitled to one SASE per time period and has had none, he was denied this $3.95 postage on a SASE. Neither has the envelope with the stamp been returned to me.

As you have been informed, the warden still refuses to permit me to send in "freeworld" glasses with the same prescription as those destroyed by the ranking officers on June 7, nor will he even permit my husband to purchase reading glasses and sunglasses to help him see and to reduce the excruciating pain caused by the OC pepper spray June 7 and caused by the bright light of day now forced upon his extremely light-sensitive eyes by the destruction of his tinted glasses and UV shields. PLUS the wardens refusal to expedite TDCJ's replacement or permit him to buy sun glasses or permit me to have them sent in.

As you can see from the scenario, Iron's life is in danger. Just this week he sent me an SOS letter because he had been without his blood pressure meds for days. He had been taking this medication twice a day for 20 years. Iron was in such distress physically that his letter to me was dated October 27, the same day I received it (impossible) and the copy of the letter he had written to Dr. Zond about the meds was dated November 25. THESE ARE MISTAKES THAT MY HUSBAND NEVER MAKES. This worried me and the medical staff promised me that he now has his meds. Helga, a new friend in TX, has called a health care person to go out and check to be sure Iron has his meds. I won't know until I see him what really happened.

Since all of this retaliation and all these hate crimes (too numerous to detail here) began AFTER the evidentiary hearing and it has all been geared to either destroy his life or his vision and to impede the litigation, we do not believe that any transfer to any other TDCJ unit will result in any degree of safety.

Although my husband did submit a written Life-Endangerment request May 30 - over a week before the June 7 attack on him, the request to be transfered to a safe place because his life was in danger was ignored until after the June 7 attack and then, as I understand it, refused because the threat on his life came from ranking officers. TDCJ is apparently violating their own rules of conduct. IRON NEEDS TO BE MOVED OUT OF TDCJ.

Therefore, we mailed out on October 18 a campaign strategy hoping to get Iron moved out of TDCJ and into either a federal prison, a Canadian prison (since he lived in Canada as a child), or another state prison, such as Indiana, where my house awaits our return.

ANYTHING ANYBODY CAN DO TO HELP PROTECT MY HUSBAND'S LIFE, TO HELP GET HIM MOVED; ANY SUGGESTIONS WOULD BE APPRECIATED.

PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY AND SEND LETTERS OF SUPPORT TO MY HUSBAND. THE EXCRUCIATING PAIN IS GETTING HIM DOWN PHYSICALLY AND I AM GREATLY CONCERNED ABOUT HIS BEING ABLE TO SURVIVE THIS TORTURE AND DEPRIVATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS MUCH LONGER.

IF THE WORLD LOSES IRON THUNDERHORSE, THEY HAVE LOST A WALKING ENCYCLOPEDIA OF INFORMATION ABOUT HISTORY, CULTURE, AND LANGUAGE OF NATIVE AMERICA AS WELL AS A HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST WHO HAS SACRIFICED HIS HEALTH AND WELL-BEING TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE. THE WORLD CANNOT AFFORD TO LOSE A MAN OF HIS CAPABILITY AND INTEGRITY OF CHARACTER.

His wife is devastated by what TDCJ is doing to my husband. I see with my own eyes how his letters have changed and how his health is failing under this abuse.

So I express my deepest appreciation to Jean-Luc for what he has done and to all of our friends and family for what you have done and continue to do.

I will also forward to friends and family some legal information put together by a paralegal in Jean-Luc's organization to help you know more about the legal ramifications of what the Polunsky ranking officers and their superiors have done to my beloved husband.

WANISHI (MAY YOUR PATH BE BEAUTIFUL),
Ruth Thunderhorse

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