1994 Charges against the Bellecourts 2

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the elders who appointed him--and when such expulsion efforts caused Dakota AIM to threaten to split from IITC altogether-Bellecourt abandoned this line of attack. He then proceeded to engineer the purge of Morris and Churchill from the organization, thereby constricting the range of political opinion within IITC to something more nearly approximating his own. It is instructive, in view of Point 25, Charge One, that both Churchill and Morris are acknowledged in their letters of expulsion as being active members of AIM.

4. In February 1988. Vernon Bellecourt, as part of his fee-for-service arrangement with Lenora Fulani's 'Rainbow Alliance" (see Point 14, Charge One). contrived to have Fulani credentialed by IITC as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Because of Fulani's outrageous and offensive behavior during subsequent proceedings, IITC was officially censured by the UN. It took IITC eight months to regain its full Non-Governmental Organization [NGO) status.

5. From January 30 through February 2, 1988, Vernon Bellecourt, ostensibly acting as a representative of IITC, led an international delegation of indigenous peoples to Tripoli, Libya, to meet with Muammar al Khadhafi, the Libyan head of state. While in Libya, Bellecourt arranged for Chicano delegates to be excluded from certain meetings on the basis that they "are not real Indians." This event has resulted in long-term and fundamental damage between IITC and the Chicano movement.

6. In 1990, Libya announced it was preparing to bestow a human rights award, carrying with it a substantial cash subsidy, to AIM POW Leonard Peltier. Vernon Bellecourt, in a separate trip to Libya, intervened with Libyan officials, arguing that the award was being cast "too narrowly." A compromise was then effected whereby IITC, or a mechanism it created for such purposes, would receive and administer the cash award--reputedly $1 million, U.S.--on behalf of a number of indigenous rights organizations, including the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee (LPDC). To date, LPDC has received no such funds. In statements to the press, Bellecourt has indicated that LPDC and other indigenous organizations are "free to apply" for funds which may then be granted, subject to approval by a specially-constituted board in which he plays a prominent role. This situation self-evidently represents a perversion of the Libyan intent in making the award, converting their gesture into an instrument of financial coercion used by Bellecourt in his efforts to impose his will on the Movement as a whole (see Point 8, below).

7. In July 1991, Vernon Bellecourt played a significant role in bringing about the purging of IITC volunteer Bobby Castillo, the sole authorized International Spokesperson for Leonard Peltier, after Castillo declined to disassociate himself from Ward Churchill, an authorized National Spokesperson for Peltier. This action exacerbated difficulties in the relationship between IITC and LPDC, and tangibly undermined the Peltier defense effort, both in the U.S. and elsewhere.

8. During the summer of 1993, Vernon Bellecourt Communicated to Leonard Peltier that some $50,000 in funds obtained from Libya under IITC auspices (the amount should have been much greater; see Point 6, Charge Two, above) was available for the Peltier defense effort. The quid pro quo was that Peltier would be required to close the present LPDC office in Lawrence, Kansas, dispense with its staff, and dissolve his roster of National and International Spokespersons. A new office would then be opened and staffed in Minneapolis, under Bellecourt's control, and a new roster of spokespersons- selected by Bellecourt--would be assembled. Peltier declined this "offer. However, Bellecourt's duplicitous, coercive and dictatorial methods are abundantly clear. Equally transparent is his willingness to do material damage to both IITC and the Peltier defense effort in attaining his objectives.

9. In his phone calls to Dr. Kekuni Blaisdell in August 1993, attempting to smear Colorado AIM Co-directors Ward Churchill and Glenn Morris (see Point 23, Charge One, above), Vernon Bellecourt referred to himself as an 'international spokesperson" of IITC. He thereby reflected discredit not only on AIM, but on IITC as well among indigenous Hawaiians. It is instructive that, because of past incidents of this sort, no one associated with N-AIM or IITC were invited to participate in the International Tribunal on the Rights of the Kanaka Maoli.

10. In late December 1993, during an interview with reporter Shelly Davis in which he engaged in vitriolic denunciations of Russell Means, Ward Churchill, Glenn Morris, Bobby Castillo and others, Vernon Bellecourt implied that his sentiments represented those of the IITC Board. Specifically invoked was the name of Board Member Rigoberta Menchu. This was done despite the existence of an open letter from IITC Executive Director Andrea Carmen, dated December 22, disavowing the idea that any such denunciations represented the IITC Board. Such misrepresentations by Bellecourt, which are chronic, seriously undermine the credibility of IITC, and serve to preclude reconciliation between the organization and disaffected former members.

CHARGE THREE: Collaboration with the United States government, and with other enemies of American Indian Peoples.

"You don't have to be a cop." according to the old adage. "to do a cop's work." True. But, then again, you might be. This is especially the case among those who have allowed thhemselves to become so financially or politically dependent upon their oppressors that their conduct is often indistinguishable from that of outright police agents. At best, the attitudes and activities of those who have become thus co-opted chronically reflect the needs and interests of the oppressor rather than the oppressed. Typically, the term used to describe individuals and groups falling into this category of behavior is 'collaborator" (as in the Vichy regime in France and quisling regime in Norway, both of which notoriously cooperated with Nazi occupation forces during World War II, each at the direct expense of their own peoples). Through this charge, we will establish a systematic, destructive pattern by Vernon Bellecourt to attain personal security and political aggrandizement through active collaboration with the federal government of the United States and other forces hostile to the well-being of American Indian people. In the process, we will demonstrate circumstantially that his relationship to the federaI pollce and intelligence agencies deployed to repress AIM and associated indigenous national liberation movements may be more formal than incidental.

Specifications

1. When AIM was founded in 1968, a policy was adopted not to accept federal funding as a means of underwriting Movement programs. The thinking behind this vow was that, in accepting such monies, AIM would necessarily be obliged to conform its outlooks and activities to those approved by the U.S. government. Self-evidently, abiding by such constraints would be contrary to AIM's mission as a movement committed to liberating American Indians from colonial oppression visited upon them by that very government. Nonetheless, within one year. Bellecourt was involved in accepting the federal grants made to AIM and/or spin-off organizations created specifically to accept such money. He has continued and escalated this pattern of behavior through the present moment, on the basis that he and his group "have as much right to apply for federal or other government funds as anyone else."

2. In June 1975. during the Fourth (and last) National AIM Conference, Vernon Bellecourt attempted to place a "snitch Jacket" on Anna Mae Aquash, a Micmaq AIM member from Nova Scotia. Asserting that he believed her to be an FBI informant. Bellecourt ordered AIM Security members Leonard Peltier and Bob Robideau to interrogate Aquash and, if they were dissatisfied with her responses, to "bury her right there." Although Robideau and Peltier were convinced by her answers that Aquash was solidly loyal to AIM, Bellecourt professed to be unsatisfied. Bellecourt-generated rumors continued to abound about Aquash, and she was found murdered in "execution style" some eighteen months later. The placing of such 'snitch jackets" (or "bad jackets." as they are also known) on bona fide activists Is a standard FBI counterintelligence technique.

3. On March 7, 1975, Vernon Bellecourt single-handedly exposed Douglass Durham as an FB1 agent provocateur, ostensibly on the basis of an inadvertently disclosed FBI informant report bearing Durham's signature. Inexplicably, Durham immediately began to cooperate in his own exposure, providing abundant details of his undercover activities to both AIM attorneys and the media. So atypical was Durham's "candor" in the immediate aftermath of his being revealed as an FBI operative that it raises serious questions as to whether his performance was not designed to divert attention from other infiltrators even more strategically placed within AIM, perhaps from Vernon Bellecourt himself.

4. After Anna Mae Aquash's body was found on Pine Ridge in late February 1976, Vernon Bellecourt appointed himself to head up an "Investigation" into her murder. He shortly wrapped up the operation, however, with the astonishing observation that he "couldn't find any real evidence that AIM people were involved (emphasis added)." At that point, the only entity which had implied AIM involvement in the Aquash murder was the FBI. Bellecourt's odd finding, absent any apparent investigation into the probability that Aquash had been murdered by federal agents or their surrogates, greatly aided the FBI's maneuver to shift suspicion onto AIM.

5. Beginning in 1981, with the rise of indigenous resistance to government policies in Nicaragua, Vernon Bellecourt--in his guise as a 'National AIM leader"--took a leading role In denouncing the Indians as "CIA-backed Contras" (see Point 2, Charge 2, above). He persisted in these accusations over the next decade, advancing particularly virulent allegations against the Miskito-Sumu-Rama organization MISURASATA and its leadership, even after prominent government officials such as Interior Minister Tomas Borge Martinez and Atlantic Coast Regional Commandante Lumberto Campbell publicly and repeatedly repudiated such notions in the pages of Barricada and elsewhere. Bellecourt's highly visible public posturing made an Indian/government reconciliation far more difficult than it might otherwise have been, a matter which materially contributed to the eventual collapse of the Nicaraguan government. Since, rather predictably, the sole beneficiary of this outcome was the U.S. government, serious questions are raised as to whether Bellecourt's perverse performance was not an example of "bad-jacketing on a grand scale."

6. Beginning in 1985, when Russell Means announced his support for the Miskito, Sumu and Rama resistance in Yapti Tasba, Vernon Bellecourt began a public campaign, not to articulate the nature of his political disagreement with Means, but to summarily denounce Means as a CIA operative." No evidence was ever produced to support such allegations, and it appears to have simply another bad-jacketing operation by Bellecourt.

7. Beginning at least as early as 1986, when Colorado AIM sided with Russell Means in supporting the Indian resistance in Yapti Tasba, Vernon Bellecourt added its co-directors, Glenn Morris and Ward Churchill, to the list of those he publicly labeled CIA agents." An added twist here, is that he sometimes voiced the idea that one or both had "manipulated" Means into his position. Interestingly, during this period he never once raised questions regarding Morris's or Churchill's blood quanta or "Indian-ness."

8. In April 1988, at a tribunal convened in Toronto, Canada, to consider vlolations of human rights in North America, Vernon Bellecourt utilized his position as an expert witness to publicly denounce Ward Churchill as a "federal agent," "the new Douglass Durham," and an "agent provocateur within AIM." No evidence of any sort was advanced to support these allegations, and it appears to have been another attempt at bad-jacketing.

9. Beginning in 1988, with publication of Ward Churchill's coauthored book, Agents of Repression, and accelerating in 1990, with Churchill's coauthored COINTELPRO Papers--both volumes-provide readers with detailed analysis of FBI counterintelligence techniques, especially as employed against AIM--Vernon Bellecourt has waged a public campaign to bad jacket Churchill as a "federal agent." Bellecourt claims this "fact" is "proven" by Churchill's citation of a broad range of confidential FBI documents in preparing his works-"Only an agent would have had access to some of this material"-although the documents in question have all been declassified and are available to the general public under the Freedom of Information Act. Aside from discrediting Churchill personally, Bellecourt's objective appears to be to discourage people from reading the author's exposes of FBI COINTELPRO tactics. The only obvious beneficiaries of people being denied these important tools for combating repression is the FBI and the government of which it is a part.

10. In 1988, radical investigative journalist Ken Lawrence uncovered the subterfuge practiced by and LaRouchian history of presidential candidate Lenora Fulani's "Rainbow Alliance, for which Vernon Bellecourt worked as a "political consultant" (set: Point 13, Charge One). Lawrence's findings were published as a series of articles in the progressive Jackson Advocate, published by long-time civil rights activist Charles Tisdale, in Mississippi. The Rainbow Alliance then sued Lawrence, Tisdale and the Advocate for slander, demanding damages which were calculated to bankrupt both individuals and put the paper out of business. A star witness for the plaintiffs was Vernon Bellecourt, once again in his guise as a 'National AIM Leader, testifying to the "sterling character" of his employers (Bellecourt's credibility before the jury sagged when he was forced to admit under cross examination that he had been paid "approximately $30.OOO" over the preceding twelve months for his services to the Fulani organization). The suit failed because it was established to the satisfaction of the court that what Lawrence had written was substantially true. The U.S. government emerges as the only beneficiary of Fulani's/Bellecourt's tactics.

11. Beginning in l992, Vernon Bellecourt added to the spurious "arsenal of evidence" by which he sought to discredit Ward Churchill as a "government operative of some sort." This consisted of the fact that Churchill had infiltrated the staff of So2dier of Fortune magazine for a period of Iess than three months during late 1976 and early 1977, working undercover as an independent Investigative Journalist. Predictably, Bellecourt habitually fails to mention that, as a result of his stint inside SoF, Churchill was subsequently able to publish groundbreaking exposes on the magazine's involvement in mercenary recruitment by Rhodesia (in Africa Today) and in training and equipping the notorious Atlacatl Battalion in El Salvador (in Covert Action/lnformation Bulletin). All told, Bellecourt's approach to bad-jacketing Churchill appears to follow the Hitlerian formula that "a lie, repeated often enough, takes on an aura of truth."

12. Beginning in l992, Vernon BelIecourt again added to the "evidence" by which he sought to discredit Ward Churchill as a 'federal agent," this time contending that only a government agent "could have gained access to all the FBI documents" Churchill had obtained in the course of his research on domestic counterfntelligence (all of which are available under provision of the Freedom of Information Act and/or through various attorneys, pursuant to discovery motions). Bellecourt's accusation was knowingly false insofar as he himself had brought about the disclosure of several thousand pages of FBI documents at the end of the Longest Walk in 1978. Alternatively, if obtaininng initial access to previously classified FBI documents is evidence that one is a federal agent, the facts indicate that it is Vernon Bellecourt rather than Ward Churchill who has been fulfilling such a role.

13. Additional indication that Vernon Bellecourt's relationship with U.S. police and intelligence agencies may be other than "oppositional" may be found In his extraordinary record of avoiding criminal prosecution for "revolutionary" acts, to wit:

o During AIM's June 2, 1971, demonstration at the Mount Rushmore National Monument, Vernon Bellecourt declined to be arrested along with other AIM members--including Russell and Ted Means, Mitch Zephier, and even Clyde Bellecourt--stating that defense of the Paha Sapa (Black Hill) was a "Sioux thing." Vernon Bellecourt's picture, standing among non-Indian tourists at the Mount Rushmore Visitors Center while the action was going on, was on the front page of the Rapid City Journal the following morning. As the others were being dragged off the mountain and arrested, Vernon Bellecourt went to the nearby town of Keystone and took the helicopter tour of Mount Rushmore.

o On July 4, l97l, Vernon and Clyde Bellecourt headed a demonstration involving Rosebud, Denver and Minneapolis AIM members at the Flagstaff Indian Rodeo and Fair, disrupting the event, which they (correctly) described as being "exploitative of Indians." Both Bellecourts were arrested, along with several other AIM members. Russell Means and Dennis Banks then arrived in Flagstaff with reinforcements and a commitment from United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez to join a "March Against Racism" in the town to underscore Indian/Chicano unity. Vernon Bellecourt, however, thwarted this effort by agreeing to an arrangement in which prosecutors would drop charges against him (and Clyde) in exchange for his making a public apology for disrupting the rodeo/fair and promising never to do so again. Other AIM members were astonished and infuriated by the Bellecourts' abject sell-out in the face of minor jail time.

o On February 6, 1973, during a police riot at the county courthouse in Custer, South Dakota, several AIM leaders are arrested. While the others arrested are eventually tried, convicted and sentenced to varying periods behind bars, only Vernon Bellecourt was not prosecuted.

o During the 71-day Siege of Wounded Knee in 1973, Vernon Bellecourt decided to go to Italy on a speaking tour (in the midst of the siege, he wired those inside Wounded Knee that they should "keep it up" because they were "getting great press"--which increased his own celebrity--in Europe). On his return to North America, he was arrested at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, in possession of$17,000 in cash raised in Europe to support the Wounded Knee defenders. He later claimed that he was forced to post bond with the money, although Jesse Jackson's Operation Breadbasket asserted that it had provided funds for this purpose. In either event, Vernon Bellecourt was not prosecuted.

o In April 1973, during the Siege of Wounded Knee, Vernon Bellecourt, visited an AIM support camp located at Crow Dog's Paradise, on the nearby Rosebud Reservation. Over the strenuous objections of those inside Wounded Knee-who felt his grandstanding might divert public attention from their own struggle--Bellecourt announced to the press that he would personally lead a march from Crow Dog's to Wounded Knee to "lift the siege." It should be noted that the two messages (which were ignored) for Bellecourt not to proceed with the march had to be sent through militarized federal Iines, at great personal risk to the messengers. Predictably, the march was stopped by federal agents at the Rosebud/Pine Ridge boundary, and approximately half the participants arrested (a matter which impaired the flow of supplies to the Wounded Knee defenders). Of the "ring-leaders," only Vernon Bellecourt was not arrested.

o As a result of their various roles with regard to Wounded Knee, a cast of "Key AIM Leaders"--Dennis Banks, Russell Means, Pedro Bissonette, Leonard Crow Dog, Carter Camp, Stan Holder, and Clyde and Vernon Bellecourt--were indicted in 1973 on an assortment of charges, including seditious conspiracy. Bissonette was murdered before going to trial. Charges were dismissed (with prejudice) against Banks and Means because of gross misconduct by the FBI and prosecutors during their eight-and-a-half month trial. After the "Leadership Charges" against them were subsequently dropped, Crow Dog, Camp and Holder were later tried on lesser felony charges, convicted and sentenced to prison. Only the Bellecourt brothers were never prosecuted,

o Also in 1973, Vernon Bellecourt was "arrested and indicted on various charges, along with 47 Lumbees and Tuscaroras--many of whom were physically assaulted--in Prospect, North Carolina, during a demonstration over the quality of local education. Bellecourt was never prosecuted.

o Following the April 30, 1974, riot at the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Courthouse, a number of AIM people--Russell and Ted Means, Bobby Joe Tiger, Curtis Bald Eagle, Vernon Bellecourt, David Hill, and two non-Indian allies--were arrested. Vernon Bellecourt was not prosecuted, despite prosecutors having a videotape clearly showing him smashing the front doors of the courthouse with a weapon. Ostensibly, this was because, having polled 108 potential jurors for bias without being able to seat a jury, the presiding judge determined it would be "impossible for [Bellecourt] to receive a fair trial in this jurisdiction." However, the same judge, in the same jurisdiction, subsequently allowed the polling of more than 200 jurors in the trial of Russell Means on the same charges without declaring a mistrial. Means, along with the other defendants was convicted and sentenced to prison.

o During the period 1974-1975, a period when the federal government was seeking through every means at its disposal to convey the public impression that AIM was a "criminal organization," led by "thugs and sleaze artists," Vernon Bellecourt--as always, under the mantle of being a "National AIM Leader"--engaged in a genuinely astounding nation-wide spree of credit card scams, defrauding of inn-keepers (i.e., running up astronomical phone, bar and room service bills, then skipplng out on the tab) and the like. Ultimately, this was the only misbehavior on the part of "AIM's leadership" the Senate Internal Security Committee was able to document in its infamous 1975 report denouncing the Movement as a whole. The fact that the committee could find documentary evidence to support any of its allegations had the effect of lending credibility to other, more serious, but completely unsubstantiated claims of "AIM criminality" contained in the report. The net effect of Bellecourt's conduct, then. was to serve the government's purpose of discrediting AIM before the general public. Perhaps most telling was the fact that, despite federal investigators having turned up what the committee described "clear evidence" of his habitual wrongdoing--including commission of interstate fraud, a federal offense--no charges were ever brought against Vernon Bellecourt in this connection.

o In July 1988, Bill Means and Vernon Bellecourt of IITC, and Bob Brown of the All-African People' Revolutionary Party, were subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand fury investigating charges of laundering/misappropriating Libyan funds lodged against Mousa Hawamda, a Palestinian travel agent in Washington, D.C., and members of Peoples Committee for Libyan Students. Mousa Hawamda quickly left the U.S.. becoming a "fugitive" still pursued by the FBI. In September. Bill Means testified and was released. Vernon Bellecourt and Bob Brown refused to testify and were jailed for contempt. Suddenly, although the term of the grand jury had not expired, and he reputedly never agreed to testify, Bellecourt was released. Bob Brown was indicted on an 'inter-related matter" and was eventually tried, convicted and sentenced to prison. Libyan student leader. Saleh Juma, and others were also tried, convicted and sentenced to prison on related charges. Bellecourt was never charged, and has apparently even been allowed to keep money he claimed to have received from the Libyan government (see Point 6. Charge Two).

15. Beginning in 1990. Vernon Bellecourt, acting as a "National AIM Leader," threw his support behind the racist and divisive "Act for the Protection of American Indian Arts and Crafts," federal legislation which, both directly and indirectly, reinforces U.S. colonial control over the identification of American Indian people (see Point 15. Charge One). His activities in this regard have led to noticeable confusion, disruption and divisiveness both within AIM and in the Movement's relations with allied groups. Self-evidently, the entity benefiting most from the sort of polarization of Indian Country Bellecourt's conduct has exacerbated is the federal government of the United States.

16. Vernon Bellecourt has also openly supported the "Native American Free Exercise of Religion Act," which allows the United States to use a lower standard than the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in denying American Indian religious freedom, and subjects Indian religious practices to the scrutiny and whim of the Secretary of Interior.

CHARGE FOUR: Espionage against indigenous nations.

Between 1981 and 1991. Vernon Bellecourt collaborated with a settler government, to wit: the Government of Nicaragua, in the oppression, imprisonment and killing of members of the Misklto, Sumo. Rama, Garifuno and Creole peoples of the Atlantic Coast region of Nicaragua. known as Yapti Tasba (see Point 2, Charge Two: Points 5 and 6. Charge 3, above). Through this we charge, we will establish that Vernon Bellecourt's collaboration included the commission of espionage against the Miskito. Sumu and Rama Nations, as well as the Creole and Garifino peoples of the Nicaraguan Atlantic Coast region.

Specifications

1. Testimonial evidence, including their own, indicates that, as "guests" of the Nicaraguan government, Vernon and Clyde Bellecourt traveled to the Yapti Tasba region in 1981, while the indigenous peoples of Yapti Tasba were engaged in an armed struggle to defend their rights from the Managua regime. At this time, the BelIecourts represented themselves as North American Indian Leaders who had come to Yapti Tasba to assist the Indians in their struggle. The Bellecourts gained the confidence of the Indian people by speaking in spiritual terms, and by making reference to a "sacred pipe" they would bring on their return trip to Yapti Tasba. As a result, in the community of Tasbapauni in particular, the people took the Bellecourts into their confidence, speaking against the government and revealing certain strategic information such as the identity of those in the local resistance. Shortly after their departure, however, the Nicaragua military came. Those whose identity had been revealed to the Bellecourts were killed or imprisoned by these government forces. The community members of Tasbapauni are convinced that the Bellecourts engaged in espionage against them. Some members of the community have stated that if the Bellecourts return, they will be executed for their treachery.

CHARGE FIVE: Misappropriation of funds directed for use of AIM, IITC, and LPDC.

Over the years, several million dollars has been contributed by a wide variety of individuals and organizations to AIM, the great bulk of it via the "National Office" in Minneapolis. Accountability for these funds by those running Minneapolis office has always been poor, especially after 1975. One consequence of this has been that, historically, individual AIM chapters--i.e., those who do the work--have been chronically strapped for funds, while the Minneapolis "leadership" group and its cronies have been correspondingly "rich." Through this charge, we will show that a significant part of the basis for this persistent problem concern's Vernon Bellecourt's misappropriation of funds intended for various purposes to other uses, including personal gain.

Specifications

1. At the end of the November 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties occupation of the BIA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., the Nixon Administration provided more than $60,000 for purposes of securing transport for grassroots Indians, including many elders, to return to their homes. The largest amount dispersed to any individual for travel is $400, except the Bellecourt brothers, acting in their "leadership" capacities, who demand and receive much larger amounts: Vernon alone claimed $7,000 in unitemized "personal expenses." One consequence was that some people received no financial support at all.

2. The earlier-mentioned $17,000 in funds raised by Vernon Bellecourt during his1973 speaking tour in Italy, intended to support the people inside Wounded Knee (see Point 13, Charge Three, above) has never been accounted for. Even if Bellecourt was telling the truth when he claimed it had to be used to post his bond, the money would have been returned when the charges were dropped against him.

3. During the 1974 trial of Dennis Banks and Russell Means in St. Paul, Minnesota, an amount estimated as being upwards of $100,000 disappeared from accounts designated to receive monies contributed to support their legal defense. Although the theft has typically been attributed FBI infiltrator Douglass Durham (see Point 4, Charge Three, above), who had access to the accounts, his guilt has never been proven. It should be noted that Vernon Bellecourt had similar access to the accounts in question.

4. From 1981 to 1991, Vernon Bellecourt is reputed to have received varying amounts of money from the Nicaraguan government. He has never denied the truth of these rumors--to the contrary, he has at times seemed to brag about it--thereby confirming them by implication. The aggregate amount, intended purpose, and disposition of these funds has never been revealed.

5. From 1990 onward, Vernon Bellecourt's sequestering of as much as $1 million provided by the government of Libya to support Indigenous liberation struggles in North America is entirely contrary to purposes for which these funds were granted (see Point 6, Charge Two, above).

6. Vernon Bellecourt has never accounted for, nor been made accountable to the membership for, the many thousands of dollars he has raised in the name of AIM and/or its "National Office" over the years. The sources of these funds include direct solicitations, governmental and/or private grants, church contributions, non-U.S. governmental contributions, and speaking fees. The question of how, without his being gainfully employed, he can afford to own a 1993 Cadillac automobile--and his wife a 1993 Mercedes Benz--automatically presents itself.

CHARGE SIX: The Use, Sale and/or Distribution of Drugs and Alcohol to American Indian people.

It is generally understood that alcohol has served as a chemical weapon through which the government of the United States and its colonial predecessors have sought to undermine and/or destroy American Indian people. During the second half of the twentieth century, other substances--notably LSD, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, barbituates, mariuana and hashish--have been added to the chemical arsenal. Direct, verified reports have abounded in Movement circles since virtually the founding of AIM that Vernon Bellecourt is a chronic alcohol and drug user, and that he has been at least complicit fn the peddling of dope to American Indian people, adults and children alike. Through this charge we will demonstrate that the truth of such allegations.

Specifications

1. During the First Annual AIM General Membership Conference in 1971, a proposal was introduced by National Director Dennis Banks that all AIM members vow not to consume alcohol or drugs. Among the most vociferous opponents of this measure was Vernon Bellecourt. Subsequently, when he discovered that Banks intended to reintroduce the proposal at the 1972 AIM conference, Bellecourt, along with his brother, Clyde, mounted a campaign designed to unseat Banks and replace him with someone (preferably Clyde) more amenable to substance abuse.

2. In June 1971, Vernon Bellecourt, acting in his capacity as "Chairman of the Denver Chapter of the American Indian Movement," publicly objected to a "no alcohol" policy being enforced at the annual American Indian Pow-wow conducted at the Garden of the Gods State Park, near Colorado Springs. This was reported in the press.

3. At the founding conference for the International Indian Treaty Council in July 1974, at which all drugs and alcohol were banned, Vernon and Clyde Bellecourt were apprehended by Northwest AIM security, led by Leonard Peltier, while attempting to transport both substances onto the conference grounds in their car. Vernon then went to Conference organizers, demanding that his 'property" be returned, and that the security personnel be "disciplined," because, 'as AIM leaders" (actually, neither was ratified to any position outside their own chapter) neither he nor Clyde was subject to the same rules as everyone else.

4. At the time Clyde Bellecourt confessed to having been a major drug distributor in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Indian community (1986). Vernon Bellecourt made no public statement suggesting that such activity was antithetical to the principles of AIM. By implication, his silence might be construed as suggesting that drug dealing is an appropriate and acceptable behavior for an "AIM leader" to engage In.

5. After Clyde Bellecourt's release from prison, Vernon Bellecourt resumed promotion of his brother as the preeminent "National AIM Leader," as if nothing untoward had happened. The clear message sent by Vernon Bellecourt's behavior was/is--especially to young people--that there should be no community consequences visited upon those who peddle drugs to the people. To the contrary, Vernon's message suggested that, far from being sanctioned, dope dealers should be elevated to leadership status.

6. In November 1989, after the commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the Alcatraz Island occupation in San Francisco, Vernon Bellecourt and others--having charged admission to a 'Sunrise Ceremony" they had conducted on the Island--were observed skimming a substantial sum from the proceeds for purposes of buying a pound of dope" (in this case, marijuana).

7. On June 14, 1993, Vernon Bellecourt led Minnesota State Police on a high speed chase, at the end of which he abruptly stopped, got out, and ran away from his car. Shortly thereafter, he meekly returned and submitted to arrest. The assumption of both pollce and community members is that he engaged in this odd performance in order to be able hide drugs he was transporting for sale on the White Earth Reservation.

CHARGE SEVEN: Complicity in Genocide, both physical and cultural, of American Indian peoples.

Genocide, according to Dr. Raphael Lemkin, the man who coined the term, should not be confused with simple mass murder. Instead, it involves the implementation of polices designed to bring about the disappearance of identifiable racial, ethnic. Religious or national groups, as such. The outright killing of the members of a targeted group is certainly one way to accomplish genocide, but killing--even of large numbers of group members--does not necessarily imply genocide. The question is whether or not the purpose and/or likely outcome of such killing is intended to result in the disappearance of the group as a whole (hence, the Nazi extermination of the jews and Gypsies was genocidal; the mass murder of Catholic priests and nuns in El Salvador was not). Non-lethal policies can be a surer route to accomplishing genocide than direct physical extermination. For this reason, under the United Nations 1948 Convention on Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, only one of five specified categories of genocidal conduct involve outright killing. The other four concern involuntary sterilization, forced transfer of children, the infliction of systematic and serious physical and/or psychological harm upon those targeted members for purposes of destroying the cohesiveness and integrity of their group. and/or bringing about other conditions to accomplish the same result. By and large, the last three specifications center in "assimilationist" policies of various states when directed at minority groups and/or indigenous peoples. Through this charge, we will show that Vernon Bellecourt has been complicit in advancing such assimilationist policies in at least three ways, and over an extended period of time.

Specifications

1. Of all the tools used historically by colonial powers to undermine the physical and psychological well-being of indigenous people in North America, alcohol has to rank among the very worst. Lately, the effects of alcohol have been compounded by the saturation of indigenous communities with drugs. The cost of alcoholism and drug addiction to American Indian nations, both physically and culturally, is simply incalculable. Suffice it to say that more of our people, and more of our social and spiritual vitality, have been lost to these substances than to all the armed force employed against us by our colonizers over the past 200 years. Through his open use and advocacy of drugs, because of his persistent apologetics for his brother's admitted dope peddling within our communities, and by his own participation in the same activities, Vernon Bellecourt has plainly participated in the visiting of this genocidal circumstance upon us [see Charge Six. inclusive, "Charges Against Vernon Bellecourt," above).

2. The Indian Policy of the Nicaraguan government during the 1980s was to bring about the forced incorporation-politically, economically. militarily and culturally--of the indigenous nations of Yapti Tasba into the 'broader" (Latino) state. Whatever else may be said of this policy, it represented a classic example of the assimilationist approach to relations with indigenous people. The intended end result was, in the words of the government's Minister of Interior Tomas Borge Martinez, that there would "be no more Indians"; instead, as Borge put it, "We are all Nicaraguans now." Self-evidently, Vernon Benecourt's avid public support of the Nicaraguan government--and his commission of espionage against the targeted indigenous nations, in behalf of the Nicaraguan government--constitute prima facie evidence of his complicity in this genocidal process (see Points 6. 7, and 8. "Charge Three, and Charge Four, Charges Against Vernon Bellecourt." above).

3. Vernon Bellecourt actively supports the "Native American Free Exercise of Religion Act," which threatens our existence through denial of our right to practice our spirituality without interference or encumbrance by the United States [see Point 15, Charge Three, above).

4. Perhaps the most insidiously genocidal aspect of U.S. assimilation policies against Indians has been its assertion of legislative and regulatory control over our identity, a circumstance which has allowed our colonizers to literally "define us out of existence," both individually and, often enough, as entire groups. Vernon BelIecourt's open Support to the 1990 -"Act for the Protection of Indian Arts and Crafts," with its assertion of "standards" of federal recognition as an "acid test of Indian-ness"--as well as his pattern of engaging in vicious, unprincipled and unrelenting attacks upon the identities of those among his political opponents who defy "federal authority in this respect--have contributed greatly to the consolidation of procedures for the "definitional extermination" of our people (see Point 14, Charge Three, Charges Against Vernon Bellecourt," above). This too constitutes prima facie evidence of his complicity in genocide.

CHARGE EIGHT: High Treason against the membership of the American Indian Movement and American Indian People more generally.

Historically, in indigenous societies, certain behaviors were considered so offensive, egregious, and dangerous to the welfare of the people that the individual engaged in such behavior would be ostracized or banished. In contemporary terms, such conduct would be called treason. We believe that the total weight of the evidence marshaled in the charges above provides a prima facie case of High Treason against Vernon Bellecourt.

Charges Against CLYDE BELLECOURT

CHARGE ONE: Subversion of the American Indian Movement, its principles and activities.

Through this charge, we will establish a systematic destructive pattern by Clyde Bellecourt to impose his will on others, and to fabricate and assume powers that have neither been bestowed on him nor confirmed by the members or chapters of AIM. Defendant has attempted seizure and control of AIM through deceptive,