LAKOTA SIOUX BRAVEST AMERICANS

Thankyou KATHERINE GRAHAM for this excellent post.

I read that article with great interest!

May the LAKOTA SIOUX create their INDEPENDENT INDIAN NATION, without interference from the White European Serpent Illuminati, in Washington DC.

ALL this crap and B.S. occurred in America, with the genocide of millions and millions of the "RED RACE", (American Indians) because of the House of Windsor in Britain.

Yes, that is right, the BRITISH ROYAL FAMILY, the Royal Dragons of the United Kingdom (UK).

Hidatsa- Ena Sa

I beg to differ!!

[link to www.dickshovel.com]

Savage/Pipkin, Means and the Truth?
by Stephen E. W. Savage (aka Steve Pipkin)
July 17, 2000

Steve Pipkin-Savage/Russell Means Timeline

1981-82

I am arrested protesting Diablo Nuclear Power Plant at Avila Beach, CA. John Trudell is there also. I overhear him talking with others. Mary and my two children witness and support this first action.

I attend the Tribunal at DQ University. Banks is in exile there, protected by Jerry Brown. Russell Means is one of the speakers. He speaks from a prepared speech written by a friend in Florida: Its essence is economics. Russell does not participate in the "impeach Reagan" theme of the tribunal but chooses to talk about "economic revolution." (Later he tells me: "Ronald Reagan is the best thing that ever happened for revolution.")

At the end of the conference, he announces that a white man has shot himself up at Yellow Thunder Camp in the Black Hills, that the State is going to shut Yellow Thunder Camp down over it, and that he is leading a march for religious freedom in Rapid City. Banks says he is going to go and this sets off a reaction similar to what Russ describes in his book.

My family and I drive an activist from the Russian River (we are living in Sonoma County, CA) to the march. I write a statement "Leave Yellow Thunder Camp Alone" and distribute it during the march and after. My wife and children march with me. During the speeches I approach Russell and tell him that the family wants to support Yellow Thunder Camp with love gifts. We have seen hunger and poverty and extreme need there and are moved to help. Mary and I meet him in his office later and Mary hands him our first gift in the form of a check. Thus begins our regular love giving to Yellow Thunder Camp/Russell Means/American Indian Movement, which - in our naivete - are all the same thing. The giving will amount to between $125,000-$175,000 before we terminate it in 1995, a few months before publication of his autobiography. During this entire period, I have stopped paying taxes and sold off or given away or turned over to my family all ownership and monies.
1983-88

I commit to AIM in person at 444 Crazy Horse Drive, Porcupine, SD. Ted Means receives me and advises me not to drink on the res, after I told him that I drank: "they might take advantage of you."

The four of us "Pipkins" are invited to various events, including Sun Dances, at Yellow Thunder. We have been making pilgrimages to the Black Hills and to Wounded Knee before and during this time. We ask permission from Indians - Jack Black Elk, Matthew King, Frank Fools' Crow, Russell Means, Kenny Cane, and others - to be wherever we go in Indian country. At one point, Matthew King asks to see me. Kenny Cane witnesses the conversation.

King wants me to know that Russell has been charged by other Indians with mishandling Yellow Thunder monies and that the monies my family give should be given through the tribal council. I listen respectfully, then say: "I'm going to continue doing what I 've been doing." King says, "You're a good man. And if Russell has done anything wrong, the People will take care of it." We then discuss the return of the Paha Sapa to the Lakota People. When I ask, as always, how my generations will stand with his People, he says "You are welcome with our People always" or words to that effect. When I told Russell Means later about this conversation and asked that we share some the money with Matthew King and Kenny Cane, he blew up and said King belonged "in a dungeon." He wrote to me and said "beware Iktomi," labeling both King and Kenny as the Trickster. He also said they didn't need any support.

We attend a Sun Dance at which we are asked, by Russell, to represent "white people" in a prayer of the Four Sacred Colors(of humans) at the Sacred Tree. Louis Farrakhan represents the "black people." Russell's son-in-law, a dancer, represents the "red people" and an Asian represents the "yellow people." It is a thrilling experience for us, despite the fact that Farrakhan has just returned from shaking down a multi-million dollar "loan" from a notorious African leader. We find him to be a very warm man; he blesses my children and says to me: "You give us hope."

I spend two days with Fools' Crow, not by my request, and he teaches me many things and shows me his power with the "sky quarrelers" and takes me in through his eyes. He instructs me, in this way - through his eyes - to this day.

I consider Russell to be my "main man" with AIM and am quite taken away with how inclusive the Indians are of this white man with his Christian and military background. That we have given up a lucrative career and dropped out of the "Empire" but are heavy donors and advocates of the People and that the money may be the main thing with the Indians - or Russ, at least - occurs to me once in a while. But we have been ostracized by our own People, I was assaulted and nearly killed by a close family member, we are "on the run" (1984-1986.5) and in shock and my brains are scrambled and I have increased my drinking whenever I am not on an action. And so we keep sharing our income(based on royalties from a business we sold out to some employees - as this small business goes, so go we and so goes our giving) in a manner that keeps us broke from funding cycle to funding cycle.

We tolerate the Flynt thing, but don't like it and are glad when it is over.

In late 1983 I do the "Joey Green" action in WVA, which is effective. Russ gives me permission to smoke the Pipe during an action. I use a faux pipe I find at a tourist store.

In January, 1984 I am assaulted in my parents home and my brains are scrambled severely and I am in a constant state of paranoia and despair for years after. I become suicidal and drink heavily, but find that I have a high tolerance for alcohol.

A month after the assault we are in Florida and I decide to make a "mercy run" to Pine Ridge because of the sever winter. Mary and I leave the children with a relative and do a fund raiser in West Virginia which nets about $1600 in cash and checks and fills the motorhome, our home now, with used clothes for the Indians, who reportedly are burning clothes and furniture to keep warm.

We meet up with Russ in Rapid City. He receives the money, views the damage to my head, we joke about some things, and then he takes us to a friends place to dump off the clothes. ("She'll be angry," he said and appears ungrateful for the used clothes. She wasn't there, so we offloaded the boxes).

Sitting in the motorhome, he shares some thoughts with us and suggests we give him our motorhome. I explain that my family of four lives in it now. Russell appears to be under the illusion that we are wealthy.

We take Doc Columbus, whom we have met along the way, with us to the first Sun Dance. En route, I brief Doc on Russell Means: "He may have killed people," I say. "But he's my brother." Doc: "You're scaring me again." I explain that, whatever he's done, he is the person the Great Spirit attached us to and that we are going to be faithful so long as he is serving the People. Doc is a "real doctor" from Canada and goes to Yellow Thunder and even sweats with us, at Russell's invitation, but leaves early and is disillusioned, he and I "have words," and we never hear from him again.

Russ Forrest is our teacher at Yellow Thunder on one occasion. We see him off to Minneapolis before the Sun Dance.

Kenny Cane makes this statement to me: "There is no hardcore AIM anymore; there's just you, me and Russell Means."

Russell Means goes to Nicaragua, raising money from us, his "last" supporters on the "left" (we aren't leftists), he says. Everyone else has forsaken him, he says. "For political reasons," he says. We trust, support and defend him all through this. I question who we are supporting and suspect that Brooklyn Rivera is an agent of NSA, but Russell says this will help Indian People(the Miskito) and so we hang in there, despite the right wing feel of it all. Being raised a right-winger and earning medals as a patriotic speaker, I know how hypocritical the right wing is and "left it" because of that. At this point I began to suspect that the old AIM was dead and that we were stuck with Russell Means if we wanted to help Indians. We participated in several actions after this that involved Russell Means only. In every case we attempted to get as much publicity for him as possible.

At some point I realized that he had left Yellow Thunder and tried to get the family to support Yellow Thunder by sending money to Bruce Ellison for YTC. When I told Russell about it, he blew up. I think the check was not cashed. He claimed that Ellison had turned on him.

We were "on the run" (from family and the system) in Canada when I heard/read about the drug busts that went down on Minneapolis AIM. I knew that Russell had been pulling away from original AIM for years, but this publicity was the last straw for me.

I also read the LA Times article by Bella Stumbo that showed the rift in the Means family and, apparently between Means and Banks, over Nicaragua. I was sickened by these events and planned on talking to Russ about them at the upcoming Sun Dance. When I got to the Sun Dance grounds at Yellow Thunder a day before it started, Russell and Dennis were there together, waiting to talk with us. Dennis invited me to his Sun Dance and left. The next day, warriors showed up to rescind that offer. I was confused.

By early 1988, I was convinced that we (Russell and I) were no longer attached to either Yellow Thunder or original AIM, that original AIM is in public disgrace and that Russell needs to retire and write his autobiography and move on into "capitalizing" on his image, something he shows a lot of interest in. So, in Bakersfield, CA, we call a press conference and officially and finally retire him from AIM and announce the autobiography project. We are going to transcribe, edit and publish his autobiography at first, but after one session, I realize that neither he nor we are up to it at this time. He is involved with Libertarians and various other scams anyway. I am really getting sick, my father disowns me and my nuclear family(in writing), we change our name and I enter the worst years of my life.

1988-1995
- During this time, the business royalties increase, as does our giving to Russell Means. He becomes more demanding and, while we have tried and failed to do business together, he begins to treat our love gifts as "payments" and speak of our relationship as a business relationship. He does not respect the fact that I am a spirit-man nor does he apparently understand that it is my family, not me who has nothing, that is supporting him - and me - financially.

We also stand beside him during this time on several actions which don't make it into his book. The evidence, from Gloria (whom we know and love) and others and our own observation, is that he entered an all out scam phase. He, indeed, documents some of them in his book.

We do many actions that do not involve Russell Means, including allying ourselves whenever possible with the "Free Peltier" movement. Russell never attends a rally for Peltier that we attended. When I ask him about it he is vague and usually starts by saying, "Look, I know these guys..." and sort of [defuses] our interest in any activity that did not further his agenda.

To my astonishment (we were now living in Washington State), Russell restarts an AIM office in Colorado. He does this with two men I have never met, only heard about: Ward Churchill (who wrote the details of the Nicaragua story that appears in the first person in Russell's autobio) and Glenn Morris. (Both of these men have been discredited/censured by Minneapolis-AIM.) Russ sends me material on this new venture. Since he retired from AIM in 1988, I view this as another scam and later discover documents that support that theory of the essence of "Confederated Autonomous AIM" chapters which started then.

During this period, I suggest - at a family business meeting - that we terminate our giving to Russell Means. After some discussion, the others decide to continue so I withdraw my objections to supporting him. In retrospect, I believe they were afraid to stop because of what might happen to me. They always respected my love for and personal commitment to Russell Means as my elder-brother and ally. But I don't think they understood that I have always had a higher commitment to The People and to Honor. - Russell went to treatment center. He told me that he did so because his Indian medicine didn't work. He tried to get both Mary(for co-dependency) and me(for anger), who were having extreme difficulty in our relationship, to go to his choice of treatment centers. Mary tried to make arrangements; I resisted, saying that I was a medicine man and that I wanted to trust the Great Mystery, my "Christ," and the "spirit-helpers" to help me and heal me; that if they couldn't do it, I didn't want to give the wasicu credit the way he was doing. Jokingly, I asked him how much money he made off these referrals and he just smiled.

In 1989, we conducted a Russell Means rally and sold tickets. At this rally he smoked a peace pipe with a local celeb who represented the "cowboys" and "frontiersmen." This rally was harshly criticized by our local allies, was poorly attended and served to further the image of Russ as a con artist. We paid his fee out of our pockets. This was in addition to our regular giving which he was now representing to others as his take from a real estate magazine business we were partners in. (That business never published or had any income and went defunct as soon as the $10,000 seed money, which Russell raised, was spent. I took full responsibility for this failure, even though it was my family's backers who let us down at press time on the first mailer. The reason they bailed? Russell Means. They didn't trust him).

In the early 90s, w e do an action at Point Roberts with Russell that puts us, in a picture, on the front page of the Seattle Times. We do another, local (Port Townsend) action that makes local papers. Russell then proceeds to influence the temporary breakup of my relationship to Mary.

1995

Mary and I work things out, the IRS hits my family hard, we stop giving to Russell, I quit drinking "cold turkey," and Russell offers me a "partnership" in T.R.E.A.T.Y. Productions in Santa Monica, CA. I accept. In 3 months, I discover that he is a fraud, that he is just ripping people off, that he just wanted to be famous again (his own statement), that "Dennis Banks is not my ally" , that "I have no elders," that "AIM is in disarray," that he is the "true AIM," that "I don't take care of anybody," that he would kill an unborn child he fathered to save face (only he wanted me to arrange it), that his just-released autobiography misrepresents our relationship, contains numerous omissions (like the 1988 retirement that was published around the world) and is an unchecked fiction, and that - to Russell Means - "love is just fucking." And I leave him, honorably and confronting him, listening to him say, "I love you." And I love him, too - unconditionally. Yet, the People need to know these things, I believe, from someone who has been there. My commitment to the People takes priority over my commitment to Russell Means. I will stand with him if and when he faces the People on these matters and many others known to others.

1996 - Present

I devote myself to rebuilding my own extended family nation, with great success; to develop avenues of publishing on the internet and dovetailing with old technologies/ strategies "on the ground," with great success and wait for "original AIM" to surface.

2000

Original AIM resurfaces on the Net. I make contact. Serle Chapman comes in to interview me for a book on AIM to be published in 2003, he says. I send a statement about Russell Means/AIM to him, TREATY, and AIM GGC. AIM GGC sends me invitation to come to the 32nd Anniversary Conference in Hayward, WI. Mary and I attend. They were drafting a Manifesto when we left. We talked with Clyde Bellecourt and Dennis Banks, two of the original founders of AIM. We also said a few words to the assembly. As far as I am concerned, this is the AIM I joined or thought I was joining, as an ally, at 444 Crazy Horse Drive, Porcupine, SD in the early 80s, the sponsor of Yellow Thunder Camp(Bill Means founded it, I understand; Russell just ripped it off). And, by the way, I understand that Russell moved in to exploit two more murders in SD/NEB in the Camp Justice action, stealing thunder and heart from Tom Poor Bear and destroying the public perception of what is going on there via another Russell Means publicity stunt.

He also advocates opening up a liquor store to fund his AA-based "treatment center" for "alcoholics"! The official AIM position on AA "treatment centers," I note in my recent visit to Hayward, WI, is that one expressed by Paul Richey: he pointed out that the 12-step program begins with a statement of failure and that there was no devil or failure here in Indian country until the invader brought the devil and failure here. Thus, a true AIM treatment center would be administered by old-ways medicine people and based on success and goodness. Russell's huckstering of wasicu treatment centers is tantamount to creating "co-dependency" (on a wasicu program), not curing it. In addition, I have yet to meet face to face with anyone who claims membership in the "Confederation of Autonomous AIM Chapters." I believe that the correct title for these "chapters" should be "Malcontents for Russell Means". And, as I wrote to him recently, I hope he had nothing to do with the death of Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash; but, just today, my darkest suspicions have been aroused again by reading this from David Seals . This, coupled with my experiences with Russell Means - only a few that are outlined here - lend new light to the statements he made to me in 1995, speaking to me of his about-to-be-released autobiography: "I wrote it for white people" and "I think I covered myself pretty well."

An innocent, open, truehearted man has no need to "cover himself." May the People handle this. This is my prayer and request and ultimate belief. Everything is good. To all my relatives!

Stephen E. W. Savage
a.k.a. Steve Pipkin
Savage Extended Family Nation
P.O. Box 647
Nipomo, CA 93444

Clarifying my thoughts regarding Russell Means

Anna Mae

American Indian Movement
First Nations

Well, except for the part where it turns out that Means wasn't speaking for any of the tribes...just himself and his nutball activists.

More's the pity. I would have LOVED to see what happened.

Hidatsa- Ena Sa

[link to www.dickshovel.com]

Clarifying my thoughts
about Russell Means
by Stephen E. W. Savage
July 17, 2000

Having been to the mountain to clarify my thoughts and determine what would be best "published" about my relationship to Russell Means/AIM from the early 80s to the present, please accept the following summary statement that it is my desire to have The People know:

My family gave to the American Indian Movement, beginning at Yellow Thunder Camp, between $125,000 and $175,000 over the years, according to my sources. The source of the funds was a business we sold to employees, in full, in 1982, via a perpetual (lifetime) royalty payout contract that was based on the success of the business and was NON-ASSIGNABLE. The person to whom my family gave the love gifts was Russell Means/T.R.E.A.T.Y.

At no time did anyone in my family or in the business source enter into an arrangement with Russell Means that gave him any control over the business or the amount of the funds.

Mr. Means began, after his retirement from AIM in 1988, to demand the love gifts, to thwart our efforts to "share" them with others, and he began - upon occasion - to speak of those gifts as if they were "payments." We viewed those statements and his public claims to being a "business partner" who received "royalties" with curiosity, amusement, and silent contempt for the misrepresentations and lies that they were.

In addition, when we began our love giving to the Movement, we did so by sharing what we had with the needy at Yellow Thunder Camp, through Russell. We did so voluntarily, not because anybody asked us to. We were not wealthy. I personally have not owned anything since I took my vow of possessionlessness in the early 80s and completed my move to possessionlessness in January, 1984. I have not owned anything, except perhaps 49% of T.R.E.A.T.Y. Productions which Russell Means said he gave to me in 1995 and from which I have received no reports nor income, since that time. I reported no income to the Federal Government(IRS) from 1982 on because 1) I did not file any reports as my signal to the Feds that I was breaking my relationship with the US government totally and completely and forever and 2) because I personally had no taxable income to report.

We will not be suing Russell Means over these matters in any wasicu courts, because we believe that Indians will solve Indian problems and Russell Means is an Indian problem. That he has been a problem for some of us white people is only just because of my ancestors' abuse of Indians. And all he has cost us is disposable income and pride, so we feel lucky to atone for our ancestors at such a low personal expense. And we enjoyed many wonderful moments and learned a great deal from this relationship and hope for more of the same in the future, once Russell returns to his center.

It should be further noted that we did not differentiate between Russell, Yellow Thunder Camp and the American Indian Movement which originated in 1968 in Minneapolis, MN until after the "retirement" that I coordinated in 1988. We saw that retirement as "putting a positive face" on AIM and reorienting the Movement toward expansion at the grass roots level. It was at that time that AIM stopped being "driven" by "leaders" from the past and became the Movement of the People.

Now some have told me, in private, that Russell Means is a "bad Indian."

I believe Russell Means is a "poor Indian." I believe him to be a self-confessed liar, a con artist, and a Nietzschean malcontent who has entered the consequent "softening of the brain" phase that deludes him into thinking because he and his "groupies" see Russell Means as superhuman, he is superhuman. (I would remind all who are so inclined to remember that the step before becoming superhuman is to be human, that the step before becoming supernatural is to be natural.) Russell told me that he wrote the amalgam of truth and error, fabrications and telltale omissions that he calls his "autobiography" for "white people" and said "I think I covered myself pretty well."

I cannot disagree with that last thought more: I think , in this autobiography, he exposed himself and all who are co-dependent with him, including the current wife and "board members" he has duped, to charges of fraud and corruption of the meanest and basest sort. I know that his publisher, St. Martin's Press and co-author, Marvin Wolf, did not verify several "stories" he fabricated, including the claim to be getting his money from us from a business partnership to which he was party.

I also see Russell Means as my brother and call him to repentance for what he has done to injure the People. I have also suggested to him ways and means of doing this in an honorable fashion.

Whether he repents or not, I love him unconditionally and will stand by him and share any guilt with him to the greatest extent possible as determined by the People, should the People require us to stand before them in judgement for what we have done.

Everything that is of, by and for the People is of AIM; everything that is of, by and for greed is AIM-less.

Everything is good, regardless of these matters, because the Spirit-Helpers/Christ make "all things work together for good" to all those who are truehearted and honorable in their love for Sacred Medicine, the Earth, and the Future Generations.

These statements have been made, in some form or other, in front of witnesses. All statements about the business source of the funds can be verified by persons and documents. I know of no disproving documents in existence. I would make these statements in front of any audience if the Spirit were to direct me to do so. I would make them under oath were I subpoenaed and I stand by them as I have written them here.

If there are any contradictions between this statement and anything I may have said elsewhere, let this statement stand as the corrective version.

Stephen E. W. Savage (previously known as Steve Pipkin)

Hidatsa- Ena Sa

[link to www.coloradoaim.org]
Open Letter to Paul DeMain
by Bob Robideau, Spokesperson for New Mexico AIM (reprinted with Permission from Dark Night Field Notes Summer, 1994)

I read with consternation and disgust what editor Paul DeMain claims is his "balanced and objective" assessment of the recent AIM Tribunal conducted in San Raphael, CA, and related matters ("Aim Supporters Convene in Minneapolis for Ceremony," News From Indian Country, April 8, 1994). In response, I would say that if DeMain's article is what passes for balance and objectivity not to mention accuracy in Indian Country, then the quality of native journalism has gone astray.

The truth is that Paul didn't bother to adhere to even the most minimal standards of professional even-handedness in writing his story. For example, he provides Vernon Bellecourt with ample space to make all sorts of ridiculous accusations Colorado AIM leader Ward Churchill, without so much as contacting Churchill to see whether there might be another side to the story. This obvious bias translates itself into a number of inaccuracies. One example is that Bellecourt is allowed once again to repeat as "truth" the blatant falsehood that Churchill is a Non-Indian. The truth is that Churchill's genealogy has been checked out by two separate Cherokee researchers, both of whom have concluded that he is indeed of Cherokee descent. Further, Ward has been formally and repeatedly recognized as an Indian by significant sectors of the Denver and Boulder Indian communities. The last I heard, naming your relatives and community recognition were still respectable ways of verifying Indianness...or are things done differently up there in Great Lakes country?

Actually, if Paul had done the sort of homework he requires of his reporters when it came time to write his own "analysis," he would have known that there was something seriously wrong with Vernon's story, right from the start. In the first place, Ward and Vernon have had strong political differences since 1985. During that whole period, Vernon has been trying to discredit Ward as being everything from an FBI Agent to a CIA Agent. But never once during the 1980s and early 90's did Vernon claim Ward was not an Indian.

It's only been within the past couple of years that he began saying that. There's something definitely rotten in Vernon's actions here. More evidence can be found in how he keeps going on about how Ward and Glenn Morris (also of Colorado AIM, and another target of Vernon's "white man" charges) were expelled from the International Indian Treaty Council. He seems to have forgotten that in order for them to have become IITC delegates in the first place, they had to have been accepted as Indians. At one point in 1982 or '83, Bill Means even went to Harvard, where Glenn was in law school, and asked him to take over as Director of IITC.

For Churchill's part, he says he was originally recruited into AIM by Clyde Bellecourt way back in 1973, during one of Clyde's speaking tours. So, since when did Clyde start recruiting "white men" as AIM members? I remember Ward from Yellow Thunder Camp during the early '80s (when I was LPDC director and we had a camp in support of the effort), where he was accepted by all the AIM members there as Indian. I don't remember either of the Bellecourt brothers showing up to help defend the Yellow Thunder site, though. Maybe, unlike Ward, they were too busy pushing drugs to Indian kids back in Minneapolis. (This was, after all, the period of activity which resulted in Clyde's arrest and confession of nine counts of distribution; these were crimes against our people that we cannot forget.)

From here, things begin to get truly bizarre. Vernon insinuates that Ward "must be" some kind of "CIA operative" because he and Russell Means once met with Elliot Abrams. I seem to remember hearing that Vernon himself met with Nixon aides John Ehrlichman and Frank Carlucci during the 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties. Should we therefore conclude that Vernon is a closet Republican? Frank Carlucci went on to head up the National Security Council and CIA. Should we conclude that Vernon must be a U.S. Intelligence agent of some sort? Or, as Churchill himself put it, "I also met with Tomas Broge and Fidel Castro in Cuba, why doesn't Vernon accuse me of being a Sandinista or a Cuban intelligence agent?"

In another outlandish insinuation, Vernon has implied that Ward is "government connected" because of the number of "secret" FBI documents he's been able to access in researching two books he co-authored with Jim VanderWall, Agents of Repression and the COINTELPRO Papers. The reality is that none of the documents are secret. Churchill reviewed 12,000 pages of documents pertaining to AIM at the law office of attorney Bruce Ellison in Rapid City, South Dakota. Another 21,000 pages of documents on AIM are microfilmed at the University of South Dakota; 17,000 pages are available to anyone who wants to review them at the FBI Reading Room in Washington, DC. Perhaps Vernon has forgotten that he himself caused about 10,000 pages of the material to be released under the Freedom of Information Act in 1978 during the Longest Walk. Black Panther documents? Call the law offices of Jonathan Lubbell in New York, where 170,000 pages are stored. Or try the Peoples Law Office in Chicago for another 110,000 pages. Puerto Rican Liberation Movement? The Center of Constitutional Rights in New York has a whole file cabinet full of documents. The only thing Ward is guilty of in going through all this stuff is a lot of hard work.

About Ward's famous "association" with Soldier of Fortune magazine, which Vernon throws out there from time to time to "prove" something he's never been quite clear about. This boils down to a less than 90-day period in late 1976/early 1977 when Ward hired on with the magazine to find out what they were up to. He found out quite a lot. And he published his findings exposing the recruitment of U.S. mercenaries to fight in Southern Africa in one of the 1980 issues of Africa Today (look it up in the library, Paul). His expose of U.S. mercenary involvement in Central America was later published in Covert Action Information Quarterly - hardly a "right wing" publication - and then reprinted in The Best of Covert Action Information Quarterly in 1990. Ward's only "crime" here seems to have been to have succeeded at the kind of investigative journalism Paul DeMain ought to be doing and encouraging rather than condemning.

The most absurd part of Vernon's nonsense about Ward that found its way into Paul's article was the idea that Ward "orchestrated" the December 1993 AIM Summit meeting held in Edgewood, NM. The fact of the matter is that the summit meeting was first proposed by Russell Means, I coordinated it, and New Mexico AIM hosted it. Ward Churchill attended it along with other members of Colorado AIM, and representatives of a dozen other autonomous AIM chapters nationally. The one thing we all agreed on at Edgewood was that Vernon and Clyde Bellecourt have absolutely no authority to dictate AIM policy, to appoint or remove AIM members in any chapter, to call themselves "National AIM Leaders," or to run a "National AIM Office." That's what we thought, that's what we said, and we didn't need Ward Churchill to say it for us.

Vernon's misrepresentation of what happened at Edgewood is indicative of a wider pattern of behavior on his part. The membership of Colorado AIM has unanimously reaffirmed Ward Churchill as a member of its Leadership Council on separate occasions over the past several years. Each time, Vernon has been off in Minneapolis, completely out of the picture and claimed that Ward has "manipulated the outcome" or "duped" the membership (it should be noted that on at least two occasions, Ward wasn't even there when the vote was taken). When Russell Means wrote a letter in 1993 stating that Ward, a "member of the leadership council of Colorado AIM," was authorized by the membership to speak for Colorado AIM, Vernon falsely asserted that Ward has "forged" it.

When the Elders Council of Colorado AIM put out a similar letter in early 1994, Vernon lied again, saying that Ward had written it for them. What Vernon is really saying is that other Indians are so stupid that we can't make our own decisions. If we disagree with him, he calls us "naive" or "misled." Without his brilliant instructions, so the story goes, we will repeatedly pick a non-Indian FBI or CIA agent to be among our leaders. I, for one, am sick of his self-serving, patronizing bullshit. And I'm really getting sick of writers like Paul DeMain playing along with it.

Nothing is true, or even "partly true," just because Vernon Bellecourt says so. To the contrary, as anyone familiar with his history can attest, he has quite a record as an accomplished liar (e.g., Vernon's efforts to portray Russell Means as a CIA agent in the mainstream press during the 1980s. Now Vernon says he "loves Russ.").

This takes us to the AIM Tribunal conducted on March 26 and 27. Paul allows Vernon to pass the whole thing off as yet another undertaking by Ward Churchill. No mention is made of the fact that sixteen separate AIM chapters signed on as plaintiffs in the 26-page indictment of the Bellecourt brothers which the Tribunal assembled to consider. Paul contacted the representatives of not a single one of these chapters in order to find out if they saw things differently. Nor is mention made of the fact that the five-member Tribunal itself included such long time, respected AIM members as Joe Locust (Cherokee, co-founded of Denver AIM, along with Vernon), Regina Brave (Oglala Lakota, a Wounded Knee veteran), Dian Million (Athabascan, of Northwest AIM and former spokeswoman for Leonard Peltier), Sharon Venne (Cree, legal counsel to the Treaty 6 Chiefs in Canada and former IITC delegate to the United Nations), and Cal Poly University History Professor Donald Grinde (Yamasee).

How a group of this caliber might have been conned into participating by a "white man masquerading as an Indian" is truly mysterious, and Paul DeMain never bothered to contact any of them to find out. Instead, he quotes Vernon Bellecourt who wasn't even there - to the effect that the whole thing was just a sham conducted by Ward Churchill, and, in boldfaced type no less, that the "Tribunal is a smokescreen for other concerns."

What other concerns? Well, according to Vernon, it's all part of an ultra-high-level government plot designed to destroy the Bellecourts because they are genuine Indian radicals. Now, we've finally arrived at an element of truth. It appears that there is some kind of conspiracy going on. And it does seem to be aimed at genuine Indian radicals. But the question is: who are the radicals, and who are the conspiring provocateurs who have been assigned to destroy them. Maybe a couple of questions will help clarify things in this respect. Ask yourself what kind of radical is it that receives, by his own estimation, more than $4 million per year in federal funding. What kind of radical is it that receives, again by his own estimation, more than $3 million per year in major corporate bucks. And what kind of radical would accept money from Honeywell, a corporation that is responsible for creating weapons capable of mass human slaughter. Answer: neither the government nor big corporations fund radicals, because radicals (by definition) are out to oppose both the government and the corporation. But the above amounts are what the Bellecourt brothers themselves acknowledge receiving from such sources.

Taking another direction, one of the standard techniques used by FBI (the US government's political police force) operatives is to "bad-jacket" genuine radicals. That is to say, they spread rumors and false information designed to make real activists appear to be agents. Now, go back and read the sort of unsubstantiated shit Vernon Bellecourt has been spreading about Ward Churchill [and Glenn Morris, Bobby Castillo (Leonard's International Spokesperson), Russell Means, and me, among others]. If this isn't a classic case of bad-jacketing...try this other fact out regarding Vernon's behavior. I know that for a fact. I know because I was there when Vernon put the bad-jacket on Anna Mae Aquash that eventually cost her her life. My knowledge is first-hand. I was one of the AIM security guys Vernon instructed to take Anna Mae out on a mesa near Farmington, NM, in 1975, and interrogate her about being a federal informant.

It's this kind of thing - not some kind of "manipulation" by Ward Churchill which caused the AIM Tribunal to be convened. And it was the proof of this kind of thing which caused all five members of the Tribunal to find both Vernon and Clyde guilty of subverting AIM at the end of the San Raphael session (Clyde was also found guilty of being a drug dealer). And there still is a lot of unanswered questions concerning this kind of thing which has caused us to schedule a second session of the Tribunal for Minneapolis in September.

We are going to get to the bottom of this stuff, and we're going to do so in a way which is open and above board, not through whisper campaigns. Here is just a sample of the questions we want answered in September.

Whatever happened to that million dollars Vernon claimed to have brought back from Libya in 1990? How was Vernon Bellecourt able to get all nine of his "political" charges against him dismissed? (Every other AIM leader except Clyde has done time because of their politics, including Leonard Peltier who continues to be confined.) How much did Vernon receive for campaigning (as a "Famous AIM Leader") on behalf of LaRouche-connected presidential candidate Lenora Fulani in 1988?

Maybe I'll also get an answer to another set of questions which have been bothering me for a long time now. Why didn't Clyde or Vernon Bellecourt lift a finger to help Leonard Peltier, Dino Butler and me during our trials after the 1975 Oglala firefight? Why haven't the Bellecourts done anything at all to create a platform for Leonard's freedom since he was railroaded into prison? I mean, they've never to my knowledge contributed a dime, nor given a radio interview on his behalf, nor written anything in his defense in the 18 years he's been in prison. And I think if they'd done anything I'd know about it, since he's my cousin as well as my co-defendant, and I've served as the National/International Director of his Defense Committee during two separate periods since my release from Leavenworth Federal prison in 1979 after serving four years for my political acts.

This brings up an even uglier question. Why is it that every time the Defense Committee has started to get something going for Leonard, the Bellecourts have gone into a frenzy trying to undermine the credibility of key people involved? In this, Ward Churchill is a perfect example. Over the past five or six years, he has published two major books drawing public attention to Leonard's case. He's also published a couple dozen articles on Leonard, made hundreds of speeches, given interviews on radio, TV, and in the newspapers, and even teaches a class on the topic at the University of Colorado. He's done these things voluntarily, and he's not made money from them (any "profits" go directly to the Defense Committee).

All this readily explains why Ward has long served as one of the handful of people authorized by Leonard to speak on his behalf, while neither of the Bellecourts have ever been empowered in that way. What it doesn't explain is why Vernon in particular has gone to such lengths to try and convince us that a man with Ward's record is "federal infiltrator." At this point, I won't say that Vernon is himself an actual agent (although if I had to pick between Ward and Vernon as to who is a cop, I'd choose Vernon every time).

And it is about time Paul DeMain begins reporting the way it is rather than the way he wishes it was.

Perhaps if the OP quit fawning over Russell Means for a minute and actually saw him for what he is (Al Sharpton in buckskin and mocassins) she might change her statement to "SOME LAKOTA SIOUX MOST GULLABLE OF AMERICANS" (notice I didn't say all!!)

before you get all shitty


your forgetting the queens german


your hatred is going to destroy you

DING!

This is the best hoax in years.

well no one is perfect.. if u were u wouldnt be HERE NOW !

HOAX.. NO..

ENA SA.. means i am reptile.. SA.. from the house of EA>. N= house.. and S= serpent.. dah.. yea.. i know who u r.. unfortunatelly EA had to work with the reptiles.. etc.. however, he broke away.. quite well.. i would say

ah ho WIO

WA = 7 (61)
SI 21/13
CU= 26= 8 (DEATH)

a white person to the indians is 11- reptilian .. uc.. SI.. and the CU.. means of a death cult.. or just death.. whites of death ..

WASICU.. WHITEDEATH..

ahhoWIO

b4 u guys throw your support behind the lakota natives, r u aware they are racist and cant stand whites ?

sorry wio it means first people-

last incarnation- Touch the Clouds-Mahpia Icahtagya

born in 1836 shortly after my death of smallpox while a Hidatsa youth of 3 or 4 years of age, I chose my destiny then for one reason as I have this time as Hidatsa, TRUTH!

Hidatsa- Ena Sa, sorry that was me, Turtle Island and I have a long history,enuff said!,





Big Foot was my brother when he was cut down by rookies who had no business with a weapon, the 29th is a few days away, trust me I still have not forgot- Russell Means is known by his people and the Elders know his heart.

And maybe they have a reason for that, beside not everyone is the same.

i know of a white jew lawyer that danced the dances and was
given title of chief from texas

proud to be Lakota .. Oglala