![]() |
||
Home | News Stories | |
Graham Defense Update Who is
John Graham?
Statements of Support |
![]() Rush to Judgement — The Poisoning of a Potential Jury Pool
American Indian Movement (AIM) December 16, 2003 An Editorial by
WaBuninini, Indiz-Ni-Kaz
AKA - Vernon Bellecourt, Member
of the Executive Committee
PRESS STATEMENT -
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Under the United States Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Judicial System
imposed on Sovereign Indian Nations, and peoples by the United States one is
supposed to be cloaked with a mantle of innocence until proven guilty beyond
a reasonable doubt. While most of the mainstream non-Indian media,
newspapers, television, and radio journalists uphold the highest standards
of journalistic excellence, in that they almost always refuse to print or
publish information based on rumors, innuendos, conjecture, misinformation,
gossip, half-truths, and lies. While most journalists of the Native American
media also uphold these high standards, I am sorry to say that over the past
several years I have observed that some journalists of the Indian media have
lowered the bar of journalistic standards. The result has been to cloak
these Indian people in a mantle of guilt, rather than a mantle of innocence
even before an all-white jury, a jury not consisting of their peers, would
pass judgment in a court of law. The case in point is the indictments of two Indian men. Arlo Looking
Cloud is a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation who has been apprehended, and
is being held in the Pennington County Jail in Rapid City, South Dakota. The
other, John Graham, is a citizen
of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations
of the Yukon, Canada, and a Canadian
citizen who has also been apprehended on December 1, 2003 by Canadian
authorities, and is being held in Vancouver, British Columbia, and is
expected to fight extradition. They are alleged to have been involved in the
tragic death of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a member of the Mikmaq First Nation
of Nova Scotia, Canada, whose body was found on the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota
Nation in South Dakota twenty-seven years ago. These two men, along with an
elderly woman, who is also a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, has not
been indicted, and is currently living in a convalescent home suffering from
a stroke and Alzheimer's Disease, have steadfastly maintained their
innocence. Yet, some unscrupulous and unprincipled journalists of the mainstream
press and Indian media, and others who may have been misled have recklessly
thrown their names around, and have publicly accused these three individuals
and others of being responsible for this crime. They parrot the same message
of the FBI; and Federal Marshals such as Robert Ecoffey, and Denver,
Colorado Detective Abe Alonzo. Included are Russell Means; and others like
Robert Branscombe and Fred Youngbear who claim to be private investigators
who have all been overbearing and intimidating in their interrogations and
harassment of Indian people. Because of their actions, we realize there are
some AIM members and others who have been coerced and intimidated into
cooperating. Some have given statements to federal authorities, or may have
testified to one of the many grand juries connected to this case. Some of
these people did not know that you do not have to talk to either the FBI or
Federal Marshals, or anyone else, and that one can refuse to testify to a
grand jury unless given a grant of immunity. For those who have been coerced
and intimidated into making statements, we understand and we respect you. On
the other hand we realize that all of our tribes have always had “hang
around the fort Indians,” traitors, Indian scouts and collaborators who
would rather ride with the U.S. cavalry, the FBI in this case. We had them
in the past, we have them today, and we will have them in the future. The principal misinformation specialist who publishes these accusations
is Paul Demain. Demain is currently being sued by attorneys representing
Leonard Peltier. Everytime attorneys and people of the Leonard Peltier
Defense Committee embark on an effort such as Executive Clemency, or other
legal actions, Paul Demain, in his newspaper, accuses Leonard Peltier of
shooting the two FBI agents, and of being complicit in the death of Anna Mae
Pictou Aquash. He lines up with the hundreds of FBI agents, former South
Dakota governor, Bill Janklow, South Dakota Senator, Tom Daschle, and others
in opposing Leonard’s freedom. He says he gets his information from
confidential sources. At the end of this month, he will be deposed by
attorneys for Leonard. As expected, Demain continues to avoid court ordered
depositions. In another clear example of Paul Demain’s misinformation campaign is how
he characterizes the two indicted men as security agents for the American
Indian Movement. Other journalists, of course, then pick this up and also
report this exaggeration. The reality is that for the past 35 years during
all AIM functions such as powwows, conferences, feasts, weddings, funerals,
and community events, we always have young men and women volunteer to “pull
security,” nothing more, nothing less. It is likely that these young men
served in that capacity in the past, and they were usually rewarded with a
good meal, an AIM Security t-shirt, and gratitude from the people they
served. There was nothing as sinister as Paul Demain would have you believe.
The result of their reporting is to paint, with a negative stroke of the
brush, all American Indian Movement members past and present who have today
become presidents and council members of their tribal governments; heads of
local, regional, and national organizations, and college professors;
doctors; and lawyers, etc.; all who continue to serve their communities and
people. We see self-hating white men like Ward Churchill, Jordan Dill, and others
who are seemingly infatuated romantically and mystically with being Indian
to the point that they are willing to fraudulently take on the identity of
being Cherokee. Both of these individuals have white grandfathers and
grandmothers, and consequently, white mothers and fathers. Our
investigations have shown that these misinformation specialists have much
more sinister motives. Jordan Dill declares that he is the editor of Native
American Village on the Internet. Would you agree with me that if there is
to be a Native American Village Website, the editor should be a real Indian?
Other people who fraudulently misrepresent themselves as Indian and AIM
representatives, and are putting out false information on the Internet are
Bob Rocha, Santos Suarez, Carl Wittaker, Lawrence Sampson, Derek Diskin, and
Glen Morris to name a few. These people are in some way or another connected
to Russell Means and Ward Churchill. Ward Churchill is best described as a ventriloquist to erstwhile former
personality of the American Indian Movement, Russell Means who has resigned
from the American Indian Movement in favor of making cheap Hollywood movies.
He has made statements that Pocahontas was the greatest movie ever made
about Indian people, and referred to wild Bill Janklow, the former governor
of South Dakota, as an "old friend.” The quote was “old friends are true
friends when he said I beg your pardon.” Did Russell Means forget what Bill Janklow was quoted saying while the governor of South Dakota? “The only way
to deal with AIM leadership was to put a gun to their heads and pull the
trigger.” Most grievous is his standing outside the federal building at FBI
headquarters on November 3, 1999 with his ventriloquist, Ward Churchill and
with Robert Branscombe, Richard Two Elk, and Paul Demain present. Russell
Means made public accusations against the three previously mentioned people,
and other members of the American Indian Movement as having been complicit
in the death of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. He has continually collaborated with
the FBI, federal marshals, and the witch hunts of the all white South Dakota
federal grand juries. This misinformation campaign is a continuation of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation’s covert extra judicial programs that first targeted the
American Indian Movement by the Nixon administration during the Trail of
Broken Treaties March on Washington D.C. in 1972, and during the struggle at
Wounded Knee in 1973. These programs involved the recruitment of extremist
informants, agent provocateurs, and mercenaries, Indians and non-Indians
alike to infiltrate the American Indian Movement for the purpose of
misrepresenting, misdirecting, disrupting, and discrediting its leadership
in an effort to neutralize the Movement. The Bureau of Indian Affairs Police
and the FBI also implemented a program to train, arm, finance, and direct
their mercenaries to unleash a campaign of terror against the American
Indian Movement, the Oglala Lakota Oyate (people), friends and supporters at
Wounded Knee, and across the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. This program led to numerous assaults and murders of Indian people such
as the FBI/BIA sniper killing of Vietnam veteran, Buddy LaMont, and Frank
Clearwater at Wounded Knee. Also the murders of Anita Wilcox, Byron DeSersa,
Pedro Bissonette, Jeanette Bissonette, and Jancita Eagle Deer. Jancita Eagle
Deer was found dead on a Nebraska highway while in the company of FBI
agent/informer, Doug Durham who was exposed by the American Indian Movement.
These are just a few of many people in addition to Anna Mae Pictou Aquash
who lost their lives during this reign of terror. Joe Stuntz was murdered by FBI or BIA snipers in the aftermath of the
gunfight sparked by FBI extremist/informants at the Jumping Bull residence
in the Oglala community on June 26, 1975. This led to the deaths of FBI
agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler. According to sources, BIA Policeman
Robert Ecoffey was present. With the exception of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash and
the deaths of the two FBI agents, there have been no Justice Department or
grand jury investigations into these many other deaths, why not? Rather, the
FBI and U.S. Justice Department officials coerced Myrtle Poor Bear to sign
perjured statements that she was Leonard Peltier’s girlfriend and present at
the Jumping Bull residence, and saw Peltier shoot the FBI agents. This, of
course, was a lie. Yet U.S. Justice Department officials submitted these
false affidavits to the Canadian Justice Minister in order to illegally
extradite Peltier from Canada. In a trial that reeked with manufactured evidence, coerced testimony by
witnesses, and other prosecutorial wrongdoing, Leonard Peltier was then
wrongfully convicted. U.S. prosecutors have stated that they do not know who
shot the agents, yet Leonard remains in prison after 28 years. Asked about these indictments for the past several months, one must ask
why after 27 years. The answer becomes transparent. It represents the
continuation of a 32-year campaign to neutralize the American Indian
Movement. Remember it was the American Indian Movement, along with hundreds of
Indian people of many tribes, and Hank Adams of Survival of American Indians
Association, who was one of the principal architects drafting the Trail of
Broken Treaties 20-Point Manifesto. This visionary document called for
restitutions, reparations, and restorations of land for the construction of
an Indian future in America. $137 billion and counting has been stolen for more than 100 years to date
from U.S. Government Treasury Individual Indian Money Trust Accounts. This
is money owned by individual Indian people from leases for petroleum,
timber, mineral, grazing, and water rights. The Trail of Broken Treaties
20-Point Manifesto first raised the issue of sovereignty as the basis for
true Indian government, and self-determination that has enabled all Indian
nations to exercise their political and economic power. AIM bumper stickers
read, AIM FOR SOVEREIGNTY. The leadership of the American Indian Movement have been consistent in
speaking out against U.S./CIA involvement and support for the death squad
governments of Guatemala, and those responsible for the counter-insurgency
campaign that have slaughtered at least 150,000 civilian Mayan people in the
past 15 years. The death squads continue to operate to this day. These
crimes against humanity are well documented in the Historical Clarification
Commission Report released in 1999 by the Guatemala Human Rights Commission.
We continue to demand that the various United States government officials
and their Guatemalan counterparts responsible for this genocide be held
accountable for these war crimes, and other high crimes against humanity.
We also stand in firm opposition to the U.S. government war against the
people of Iraq, an illegal war that has taken the lives of our young men and
women. We also oppose the Bush Administration’s support of the Israeli
occupation of Palestine, and crimes against the Palestinian people. We, of
course, continue to work to free Leonard Peltier. These are some of the reasons that the United States government, through
its agents, continues these attacks against the American Indian Movement
leadership. This represents the implementation of the so-called Patriot Act.
Finally, prominent attorneys who have studied this case have stated that
they do not think this case will ever go to trial. However, we caution the
media to discontinue being a part of the process of poisoning a potential
jury pool preventing a fair and impartial jury should this case go to court.
Respected elders of the American Horse, Black Crow, Bull Bear, and
Looking Cloud families have requested that the American Indian Movement
assist them in organizing a competent legal defense team to defend those
indicted in hopes of guaranteeing a fair and impartial jury, and a fair
trial. Studies have shown that a fair trial for Indian people is not
obtainable in South Dakota. A change of venue is an absolute option. The
American Indian Movement is honoring this request from the families. We request that First Nation leadership, friends, and supporters across
Canada, in view of the misconduct by U.S. authorities in lying to the
Canadian Justice Ministry to illegally extradite Leonard Peltier, to now
come to the support of the John Graham family by providing legal support to
resist the extradition of John Graham to the United States. Tecumseh, the great martyred leader of the Shawnee Nation teaches us
that, “we should never underestimate the deceit and treachery of the white
man.” © Copyright 2003 |