1994 charges against the Bellecourt Brothers 3

COAIM BLOG
(latest news,
updates, opinions,
etc.)

CO AIM
principles
councils
history
photos
in the media

LATEST NEWS
community
upcoming events
urgent issues

MEDIA
alternative
indigenous
mainstream

RESOURCES
educational
legal
perspectives
links

STRUGGLES
native struggles

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

authoritarian and dictatorial tactics. He has consistently sought to misrepresent himself, both internally and in the movement's external relations, as a 'national leader" of AIM, without the consent or authorization of the AIM membership. In furtherance of this agenda, he has attempted to overide local decision-making processes by claiming authority, to formulate policies conforming to his own views and interests and by mandating their adoption by local/regional AIM Chapters. His methods have typically included smear campalgns against individuals and entire AIM chapters, appointing "eaders" without regard to local or regional authorization or consent, threats against AIM organizers, and the use of public media to foster division within AIM.

Specifications

1. At the time then National AIM Coordinator Dennis Banks was forced into political exile in July 1975, membership authorization for maintenance of a National AIM Office in Minneapolis, Minnesota, lapsed. It has never been renewed. Nonetheless, Clyde Bellecourt has persisted in the pretense that such a facility legitimately exists.

2. Although, by consensus, AIM abolished further use of any and all "national officer" titles in l979, after the murder of AIM National Chairman John Trudell's family, Clyde Bellecourt began in that year to publicly portray himself variously as being the Chief Executive Officer, "National Director," and "National Chairperson" of AIM, positions which never existed, and to which, in any event, Bellecourt had never been appointed by the membership (he was never selected or ratified for such office prior to 1974, and no general membership conference through which such a title might be ratified having been convened since that year). As lately as 1993, he was causing to be broadly distributed an article stating that at "the core of the movement is Indian leadership under the direction of Clyde H. Bellecourt."

3. There is strong indication that, in addition to maintaining his "leadership position" through fraud, Clyde Bellecourt has utilized tactics of physical coercion, intimidation and violence against those within AIM--and the Indian community more generally-who have challenged or disagreed with him.

4. As regards women, there is strong indication that Clyde Bellecourt has employed rape and other forms of sexual violence as a means of compelling "political" subordination. A variation on this theme appears to have been the employment of such violence against women related to or otherwise closely associated with men whom Bellecourt wishes to punish for "insubordination."

5. An "AIM Summit Meeting"-an event distinct from a General Membership Conference--was conducted in San Francisco in September 1982, and was attended by Clyde Bellecourt. Specific mention was made and agreed to by all chapter representatives present, that no AIM National Office and/or national leadership existed, or was necessary. A resolution was passed requiring all AIM people across the country to cooperate with one another, and not to criticize or otherwise speak negatively of other AIM people or chapters in public. Clyde Bellecourt has regularly violated these resolutions and decisions during the years since.

6. On November 13. 1985, Clyde Bellecourt, acting in his self-appointed capacity as "Chief Executive Officer" of AIM, conducted a press conference at which it was proclaimed that Russell Means had been "totally expelled from the American Indian Movement, and from this day forward his name shall not be mentioned in relationship with the American Indian Movement." Means' ostensible "offense" was having extended his support to the Miskito, Sumu and Rama Indian Nations of Yapti Tasba in their struggle for self-determination vis-a-vis the government of Nicaragua. This unauthorized action created great division and disruption within the American Indian Movement.

7. In February 1986, an AIM Summit was called for at Oglala, South Dakota, during the Wounded Knee Anniversary. The summit was hosted by Dennis Banks, and was attended by representatives of Colorado AIM, Russell Means, Bill Means, and Clyde Bellecourt. The meeting was designed to resolve AIM's public dispute over the issue of Nicaragua. It was agreed , that, consistent with the above-mentioned 1982 resolution, a truce would be called, and that no further statements to the media condemning other AIM members would be made. Clyde Bellecourt has repeatedly violated the terms of the Oglala Agreement through public condemnations of other AIM members.

8. On November 24, 1993, a nationally-circulated letter from the "National American Indian Movement, inc.," signed by Clyde Bellecourt and others, purported to expel Ward Churchill and Glenn Morris from AIM. It further ordered that they "are never to say that you are, or were a leader or a member of the American Indian Movement." This assertion was made despite the fact that Churchill and Morris had been repeatedly ratified by the membership of Colorado AIM over a nine-year period as co-directors of that chapter. The letter insults the integrity and intelligence of the membership of Colorado AIM by referring to them as "naive," and the arbitrary expulsion is an attempt to subvert and ignore the autonomous authority of each AIM chapter to decide its own leadership.

9. In addition to the specific charges outlined immediately above, Clyde Bellecourt has sent his agreement and support, either active or passive, to the actions and practices of his brother, Vernon, as outlined in the first section of this indictment. For his role in the unauthorized activities carried out in the name of AIM by his brother, he is also charged.

CHARGE TWO: Subversion of the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), the international diplomatic arm of AIM.

Although his direct involvement with IlTC has been far less extensive than his brother's, and his opportunities to engage in subversion therefore more limited, there is evidence that, through his actions. Clyde Bellecourt has nonetheless generated a negative effect upon the organization. Through this charge, we will demonstrate that he has been complicit in undermining the organization's credibility and effectiveness.

Specifications

1. lITC is the international diplomatic arm of AIM. By publicly posturing himself as "National Director" or "Chief Executive Officer" of AIM while peddling dope on a massive scale (Charge Five, below), Clyde Bellecourt did much to confirm pervasive rumors that IITC was engaged in the smuggling of drugs from Nicaragua and North Africa to the United States.

2. By engaging in espionage activities against the Miskito, Sumu and Rama Indian Nations of Yapti Tasba, and the Creole and Garafuni peoples of the Nicaraguan Atlantic Coast region (see Charge Four, below), all while acting in a capacity linked to IITC, Clyde Bellecourt did much to arouse distrust of IITC among indigenous peoples, not only in Central America, but elsewhere.

3. In publicly supporting his brother, Vernon, in the latter's more systematic subversion of IITC (see Charge Two, inclusive, "Charges Against Vernon Bellecourt," above). Clyde Bellecourt was complicit in producing the damage to IITC which has resulted.

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

Through this charge, we will establish a systematic, destructive pattern by Clyde 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 federal police 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 funds as anyone else."

2. In 1976, after his brother's bizarre handling of AIM's "investigation" of the Anna Mae Aquash murder (see Point 5, Charge Three, Charges Against Vernon Bellecourt," above), Clyde Bellecourt endorsed the findings, thereby lending credibility to the results and reinforcing the FBI's effort to shift suspicion onto AIM.

3. Beginning at least as early as 1982, Clyde Bellecourt began to openly support his brother's propaganda campaign against the indigenous resistance in Yapti Tasba (see Points 6, 7 and 8, "Charge Three, Charges Against Vernon Bellecourt." above), thereby lending weight and credibility to what appears to have been a CIA "Black operation."

4. Additional indication that Clyde Bellecourt's relationship with U.S. police and intelligence agencies may be other than "oppositional" can be found in his interesting record of avoiding criminal prosecution for "revolutionary" acts, and receiving only token punishment for engaging in outright criminal behavior, to~ wit:

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 month trial. Crow Dog, Camp and Holder were later tried, convicted and sentenced to prison. Only the Bellecourt brothers were never prosecuted.

o In January 1986, Clyde Bellecourt was arrested, along with a group of Indian and non-Indian associates, in possession of an estimated $125,000 worth (5.000 "hits")of LSD and other "hard" drugs (cocaine). Charged on eight counts of being a major drug distributor, each compounded by a conspiracy charge, Bellecourt accepted a plea bargain arrangement and confessed, entering a guilty plea to lesser felonies shortly thereafter. Amazingly, Federal District Judge Paul Magnuson--at the height of the Reagan "War on Drugs"--then sentenced him to only five years imprisonment (of which he served less than two). By contrast, an individual arrested on the Pine Ridge Reservation the same year in possession of less than a pound of marijuana--a "soft" drug--received an four year sentence. No explanation of Bellecourt's astonishingly light sentence has ever been offered.

5. Beginning in 1990, Clyde 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 Movenent'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.

6. Clyde 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 1982 and 1991, Clyde Bellecourt openly supported the collaboration of his brother, Vernon, with a settler government, to wit: the Government of Nicaragua, in the oppression, imprisonment and killing of members of the Miskito, Sumo, Rama, Garifuno and CreoIe peoples of the Atlantic Coast region of Nicaragua, known as Yapti Tasba (see Point 2. Charge Two; Paints 5 and 6, Charge 3, "Charges Against Vernon Bellecourt." above). To this extent, and through various actions of his own, Clyde Bellecourt may also be said to have collaborated. Through this we charge, we will establish that Clyde Bellecourt's collaboration also went much further, to include the com- mission of espionage against the Miskito, Sumu and Rama Nations, as welI as the Creole and Garifuno 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 Bellecourts 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 Tatsbapauni 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.

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 "Natlonai Office" in Minneapolis. Accountability for these funds by those running the 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 Clyde Bellecourt has engaged in the misappropriation of funds intended for specific 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: Clyde alone claimed $4,000 in unitmized "personal expenses." One consequence was that some people received no filancial support at all.

2. Clyde Bellecourt has never accounted for the millions of dollars in church and other private contributor funding which has passed through his Minneapolls operation over the years.

3. Beginning in 1990, Clyde Bellecourt has acted as part of the narrow clique headed by his brother, Vernon, which has sequestered a reputed $1 million in Libyan funds designated for dispersal to American Indian liberation struggles throughout North America (see Point 4. Charge Six, "Charges Against Vernon Bellecourt," above).

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, marijuana and hashish--have been added to the chemical arsenal. Rumors have abounded in Movement circles since virtually the first moments of AIM that Clyde Bellecourt is a chronic alcohol and drug user, and, as he himself has admitted in federal court, he has served as a major drug distributor, peddling of dope to American Indian people, adults and children alike. Before proceeding with the evidence supporting this charge, it should be noted that, although he may have been held (somewhat) accountable for his drug crimes by the U.S. government, Clyde Bellecourt has never been held accountable to us, the membership of AIM. For him to now parade himself around as the "National Director of AIM" as if nothing untoward had ever happened , and as an example to be emulated by our youth, is not only degrading to our Movement, it sends precisely the wrong message to our children. Our collective failure to publicly repudiate him for drug dealing, and for his long-term drug and alcohol use, tell our young people not only that such behavior is "okay." but that it is to be rewarded by personal profit, power and sociopolitical prestige.

Specifications

1. 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. Clyde 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 Vernon was subject to the same rules as everyone else.

2. During the Sundance at Crow Dog's Paradise inAugust 1974, Clyde Bellecourt was stopped entering the premises by Northwest AIM security. A search of his car revealed four boxes of marijuana, which were confiscated. Bellecourt then issued threats against the security group in an effort to recover his drugs.

3. At a treaty conference in 1984, attended by many youth, Lakota elder Matthew King noticed a bag fall to Clyde Bellecourt's feet while Clyde was holding forth as an "AIM leader" at the microphone. After Clyde finished and walked away, Mr. King picked up the bag and sniffed it. He then used the mike to announce, "Clyde Belecourt, you dropped your bag of dope. Would you please come back to the speaker's stand and retrieve it?"

4. In January 1986, Clyde Bellecourt was arrested, along with a group of Indian and non-Indian associates, in possession of an estimated $125.000 worth of LSD and other "hard" drugs. Charged with being a major drug distributor, Bellecourt confessed, entering a guilty plea shortly thereafter. Among the locations in which Clyde Bellecourt seems to have plied his trade most consistently--using his self-bestowed title as an "AIM Leader" as cover--were the Minneapolis Indian Center, Heart of the Earth School, and the Little Earth Housing Project, in which American Indian people comprise a substantial portion of the residents.

5. At the time of his arrest as a major drug distributor, Clyde Bellecourt was in possession of small amounts of substances other than LSD. These items, which were construed by arresting officers as being for personal use, included marijuana cigarette, a baggie containing marijuana, and a "bindle" containing traces of a white powder believed to be cocaine.

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 policies 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--doeso 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 disappearanc of the group as a whole (hence, the Nazi extermination of the Jews and Gygsies 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 the fie 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 brining 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 Clyde 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 the 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 and alcohol, and because of his admitted dope peddling within our communities Clyde Bellecourt has plainly participated in the visiting of this genocidal circumstance upon us (see Charge Six, inclusive, "Charges Against Clyde BelIecort." 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, Clyde Bellecourt's avid endorsement of his brother's public support of the Nicaraguan government--and his own commission of espionage against the targeted indigenous nations, in behalf of the Nicaraguan government , constitute primafacie evidence of his complicity in this genocidal process (see Point 3, Charge Two, and Charge Four, "Charges Against Clyde Bellecourt," above).

3. Clyde 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 encumberance by the United States (see Point 6, Charge Three, "Charges Against Clyde Bellecourt, " 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. Clyde Bellecourt's open support to the 1990 "Act far 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 5, Charge Three, "Charges Against Clyde 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 guilty of 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 Clyde Bellecourt.