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AIM Supporters Convene in Minneapolis for
Ceremony
by Paul DeMain
While supporters of the "new" International
Confederation of Autonomous Chapters of the American Indian Movement (ACAIM)
were preparing for a tribunal hearing in San Rafael, California, over 200
supporters of the American Indian Movement met in Minneapolis March 20th to hold
a pipe ceremony and hear from community members.
The advice of the community members was that the
Bellecourts should not attend or respond to the allegations and that the work
the Bellecourts have accomplished in Minneapolis, Minnesota and other parts of
the country would speak for itself. Spiritual leaders of several native
religious groups representing the Midewin and Sundance societies, elders and
community members recited the history of the formation of the American Indian
Movement and answered attacks against the movement by what was characterized as
the Edgewood group, led by an AIM faction in Colorado headed by Russell Means,
Ward Churchill and Glenn Morris.
Time and time again, the memories of the original AIM
neighborhood patrol and organization that was founded by Clyde Bellecourt,
Dennis Banks, George Mitchell and Harold Goodsky was touched upon by community
elders who helped support its efforts and build its community roots.
Russell Means, touted by the mainstream press as a
co-founder of the AIM, did not come onto the scene until later and in 1969 was
still known only as an accountant with the Cleveland American Indian Center. He
is said to have since resigned from the American Indian Movement at least six
times. Once to run as Chairman of the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1974. Once in
1984 to seek the vice presidential ticket with Larry Flint of Hustler magazine,
and again in 1985 after saying he was tired of babysitting the Yellow Thunder
Camp in the Black Hills.
His most famous resignation from AIM was in January 1988
when, nationwide, his resignation from AIM was reported (from Bakersfield,
California) in order to write an autobiography entitled "Where White Men
Fear to Tread: Portrait of A Patriot."
And while some speakers said there was room for
reconciliation because AIM was more than any of the individual leaders, that it
was a spiritual, cultural and social movement that went beyond egos, there were
those that felt that people had gotten ahead of the movement. "Russell
Means needs to come back home," said Edward Benton-Banai, Ojibway and a
founding board member of the National American Indian Movement Inc., formed as a
legal corporate entity in order to receive educational, training and other funds
through legal channels.
"I have to ask Russell, who was it that you went
into the sweat lodge with? Who was it that sundanced with you? Who was it that
went with you to the BIA, Mt. Rushmore, the Abbey?" asked Benton. Benton
said that if a tribunal should be held anywhere it should be held in
Minneapolis, where AIM was born, where the first American Indian prison program
in the nation was implemented, where many of the elders who were part of the
growth of the movement are and where the membership of AIM would have an
opportunity to respond to the charges made against the Bellecourts.
A small delegation of AIM members comprised of Bill
Means, President of the International Indian Treaty Council, Clyde Bellecourt,
AIM National president, along with Ellie Favel, who carried with her a medicine
bundle and pipe from the Minneapolis ceremony, traveled to the tribunal to try
to come to terms with the group.
They were joined by Northern California AIM director
Carole Standing Elk, Southern California AIM director, Fern Mathias, CAIM
publicist Patti Jo King, Floyd Westerman, and IITC Information Director Yvonne
Swan. A request to move the tribunal to Minnesota was apparently successful, but
not before the tribunal declared the Bellecourts guilty on some of the charges.
Bellecourt says Tribunal is a smokescreen for other concerns
But, while some members of AIM were looking for
reconciliation, Vern Bellecourt in an earlier interview was unrelenting in
proclaiming the tribunal a smokescreen for other issues within AIM, and in
particular the sources of extra-legal documents that only law enforcement,
prosecutors and Peltier's parole commission have been allowed to see.
At one time the FBI and several other intelligence
agencies had targeted AIM as a terrorist organization and spent millions
developing informants, infiltrating the organization and wiretapping phones.
Some people in the community have characterized the issue as AIM dirty laundry,
and play out a "who done it" scenario.
Who actually killed at close range FBI agents Jack Coler
and Ronald Williams on June 26th 1985, people have asked; who killed Anna Mae
Aquash on February 24, 1976?
Her murder has often been blamed by AIM, on the FBI and
vice-versa and the subject is still an emotional issue to many AIM members. It
may be that only a handful of AIM members or FBI agents know the true answer to
either question.
Both issues were brought up during interviews with Bob
Robideau and Ward Churchill by News From Indian Country correspondent Shelly
Davis (Mid-Jan, 94) when Robideau claims that the Bellecourts provocateured (or
bad-jacketed) Aquash as an agent, which eventually led to her death. In
addition, Robideau goes on to say that the now infamous Mr. X segment filmed for
Incident at Oglala was made in Ward Churchill's home.
"The American Indian Movement doesn't need whitemen
wannabes claiming to be Indians, claiming to be AIM directors running around
representing the movement" said Bellecourt. "Who is Ward Churchill? Is
he an agent, I don't know, but look at the pattern. He admits infiltrating
Soldier of Fortune. It is he who has been disruptive and vindictive trying to
set himself up as an AIM spokesman, an AIM director and trying to take editorial
control of Leonard Peltier's Defense Committee newsletter. Churchill is a man
without a tribe. If this thing goes, its going to go big," said Bellecourt
moving through a stack of information that he has been collecting on the man who
is a professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder and widely written author.
Bellecourt said it was with the help of Churchill that
Means went to Nicaragua during the 1980s through Honduras and the CIA contra
pipeline, and that Bellecourt has heard that both met with Elliot Abrams, the
Asst. Sec. for Latin American Affairs and close confident of Ollie North in the
Iran/Contra-CIA connection. The issue of supporting pro-Sandinista Indians,
negotiating for autonomy, or pro-Contra Indians fighting for autonomy, led to a
major split in AIM philosophy in the International Indian Treaty Council in the
early 80's and eventually to Ward Churchill's expulsion from the organization.
Said Bellecourt, "Leonard Peltier does not need a
triggerman or Ward Churchill, he has been declared a prisoner of conscience by
Amnesty International and there are many good people around the world who
continue to work for his release."
"None of this has done Peltier any good," said
Bellecourt, who says he believes that both Bob Robideau and Russell Means are
being used by Churchill. "Hell, I keep saying...Russell we love you, we
just hate what you are doing."
Carole Standing Elk, who Churchill allegedly spit upon
at the California tribunal, adds, "Russell better stick to his Hollywood
scripts. He's not going to win any academy awards for this act."
When AIM meets this September 1-4 at Fort Snelling in
Minneapolis, Minnesota, for its annual International Solidarity Gathering and
possible reconvening of the tribunal, Bellecourt said he'd like to see the panel
look at the disruptive tactics of the federal government. The Bellecourts have
suggested for the panel names like Rigoberto Menchu and others with an easily
recognizable international reputation."I doubt if this other group will
even show up," said Bellecourt, "the damage they wanted to inflict by
repeating things like the drug dealing issue, which is history and is not going
on now, has already been done."
But Robideau says that something had to be done about
the Bellecourts and what he calls self-imposed leadership. "Don't think
that I enjoy doing this," said Robideau, "but there hasn't been a
general membership meeting to decide AIM leadership in years."
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