Stop the Extradition of John Graham!

FREE LEONARD PELTIER!
HONOUR THE SPIRIT OF ANNA MAE AQUASH!

“I fear that John will not receive a fair trial in the US anymore than I did. I must remind you, it is court record that the FBI lied to extradite me back to the US.”
Leonard Peltier (Dec. 5/03, Statement)

Who killed Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash? The FBI & US federal government want us to believe it was two young members of the American Indian Movement (AIM), acting under orders from senior AIM leaders.

In March 2003, almost 30 years after her body was found in South Dakota, Arlo Looking Cloud & John Graham were charged with first degree murder. Looking Cloud, an alcoholic & drug addict living on the streets of Denver, Colorado, was arrested within days. Graham, a Tuchone from the Yukon, Canada, was not arrested until December 2003 in Vancouver, Canada. He now faces extradition to S. Dakota.

These charges came after a renewed investigation into Aquash’s death, which began in the early 1990’s. Along with this, there was also a media disinformation campaign in the years prior to the charges. Indigenous people in Canada, and in ‘BC’ especially, should be very familiar with police-instigated ‘smear and disinformation’ campaigns.

Blatant police lies, manufacturing of incidents, false evidence; all of these occurred during the 1995 siege at Gustafsen Lake (Ts’Peten), when 450 heavily-armed police surrounded a Sundance camp. During the siege, many people accepted the media & police disinformation without question! Only later, during and after the 1997 trials, did people come to realize the extent to which they had been deceived.

During the siege at Kanesatake (Oka) in 1990, media disinformation was used in an attempt to undermine widespread support & solidarity for the Mohawk nation. Mohawk warrior society’s were (and still are) portrayed as criminal thugs, seeking only to exert control & to protect their “illegal” markets.

Leonard Peltier was himself extradited from Vancouver, Canada, in 1976. Wanted by the FBI for the ’75 Oglala shoot-out, in which two FBI agents & one AIM member had been killed, Peltier was arrested in western Canada (where he sought sanctuary).

During Peltier’s extradition hearings to the US, the FBI used false affidavits signed by Myrtle Poor Bear. Claiming to have been at the fire-fight, Poor Bear stated she had witnessed Peltier shoot the agents, and that she was his girlfriend.

It was later revealed that Poor Bear was a mental case, terrorized by the FBI, and that she had never even met Peltier! Agents told her they “could get away with killing because they were agents.” They also showed her the severed hands of Anna Mae Aquash, telling her they would “put her through a meat grinder,” and nobody would ever know!

Today, the FBI tactic of pressuring weak & vulnerable members of our community to collaborate, give false evidence, etc., is well documented. This also appears to be the case in the recent trial of Arlo Looking Cloud.

The Looking Cloud Trial

“The Arlo Looking trial was nothing more than an indirect presentation of another Myrtle Poorbear to discredit AIM & myself, and to extradite John Graham.”
Leonard Peltier (Feb. 10/04 Statement)

In February 2004, Arlo Looking Cloud was found guilty of aiding & abetting in a 3-day trial in S. Dakota. While the prosecution called 23 witnesses, his government appointed lawyer called only one, an FBI agent!

Despite requests to change lawyers, the judge has consistently denied this basic right. Although he entered a plea of not guilty, his video-taped confession from April/03 was not challenged by his lawyer!

During this interrogation, Looking Cloud states that he is still under the influence of alcohol; the FBI not only continue to ask him questions, they get him to sign statements!

During the trial , government witnesses gave conflicting testimony, including that of an admitted informant: Kamook Banks (former wife of AIM leader Dennis Banks). Under cross-examination, Kamook revealed she was paid $42,000 by the FBI to wear wiretaps & record meetings with Looking Cloud, Banks, & others.

Due to an “unfortunate accident,” Denver police claim to have lost these critical recordings; the only evidence given was hearsay based on alleged conversations with Looking Cloud over the years. One of these government witnesses was former AIM leader John Trudell!

A large focus of the trial did not even concern Looking Cloud, but instead AIM & the case of Leonard Peltier. In a Feb. 7th news release, Peltier’s lawyer Barry Bachrach stated:

“Who was on trial? The majority of the testimony presented had nothing whatsoever to do with Arlo Looking Cloud, but prominent members of the American Indian Movement. There was not one iota of proof presented to support many witnesses’ “beliefs”. And for every witness presented, there are any number of other individuals who could be called to appear and who would tell very different stories.”

Arlo Looking Cloud now claims that, over the years, the FBI & police would periodically pick him up and feed him drugs & alcohol while indoctrinating him with their version of events.

Looking Cloud has been sentenced to a mandatory life sentence of 25 years.

John Graham’s Arrest

“If you want to know who is responsible for Anna Mae’s death, just look around and see who else has been irresponsibly pointing fingers at proven warriors. This kind of behavior is doing the dirty work of the FBI & the corporate entities that seek to control or own Native lands & resources.”
Leonard Peltier (Feb. 10/04 Statement)

On Dec. 1/03, the second FBI suspect in the death of Aquash—John Graham—was arrested in Vancouver, Canada. His arrest occurred after Kelly White, a local Native radio show host (and former AIM member), brought Vancouver police directly to him & informed them as to his identity.

Graham was held in the North Fraser pre-trial center for 6 weeks while seeking bail. After letters of support from his family, friends, community members & organizations (especially in the Yukon, where he is from), Graham was finally granted bail in January, 2004. He was held under house arrest.

John Graham was a member of AIM. That’s why he was in Colorado and S. Dakota. After many years of involvement with the movement, he returned to the Yukon to be with his wife & family.

Beginning in the 1990s, Graham claims the FBI & police approached him on several occasions & offered him immunity to testify against former AIM leaders. He refused, and the FBI threatened him with charges of kidnapping, rape, & murder.

Mr. Graham has always maintained his innocence, and admits to driving Aquash from Denver to Pine Ridge, where she was left at another safe house. He claims he was friends with Aquash, and only learned later that she had been killed.

In 2007, John Graham was ordered deported to stand trial in S. Dakota. As of September 2007 he is imprisoned awaiting deportation while his family & lawyers seek an appeal at the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Case of Anna Mae Aquash

“We do not know for certain who pulled the trigger on Anna Mae Aquash. But we are horrified by the way her spirit is being defamed and used against the people she fought so hard for. We sympathize with the desire of Anna Mae’s family to achieve closure on this matter. And so, we urge them to look towards the ones most strongly pointing the finger at John Graham. We believe the real killer is hidden among them.”
The Friends of John Graham, February 2004

Anna Mae has long been a symbol of Indigenous resistance and the ideals of the American Indian Movement, to which she belonged. She was a Mik’maq from Nova Scotia, Canada, and one of the most prominent women members of AIM. She had participated in the occupation of the BIA offices in Washington, DC, in 1972, and the siege of Wounded Knee, 1973. On Feb. 24, 1976, her frozen body was found near Wanblee, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in S. Dakota.

At first, the FBI and its official coroner, WO Brown, attempted to pass the death off as a “Jane Doe” who had died of exposure. Brown’s coroner reports were routinely used to minimize or conceal the cause of deaths resulting from police/paramilitary attacks during this period.

Claiming they were unable to identify the body, her hands were cut off & sent to an FBI lab in Washington, DC, for fingerprint analysis. Still unidentified, her body was buried in Pine Ridge on March 2, 1976. The next day, the FBI Identification Division revealed the body to be that of Anna Mae Aquash.

On March 5, her family in Nova Scotia was notified, and they demanded a second autopsy. This was performed by an independent coroner who immediately found a .32 cal. bullet in the back of her head. She had been shot execution-style.

For over 20 years, it was generally believed that Anna Mae had been killed either by paramilitary death squads then active on Pine Ridge, and/or the FBI. Aquash had been only one of 67 members/associates of AIM to be killed in S. Dakota in the 1970’s by police, FBI, and paramilitaries.

Shortly after Aquash had been identified, the FBI denied any involvement in her killing (despite the attempted cover-up), and speculated that perhaps she had been killed by AIM as a suspected informant. These allegations were not considered credible, as it was well known that the FBI was still then engaging in counter-insurgency operations against AIM.

Nor is the Aquash case the only one in which the FBI & media have accused AIM of killing as a ‘suspected informant’ (i.e., Ray Robinson, a black civil rights worker, along with Jeanette Bissonette, both believed to have been killed by GOONs).

In the early 1990s, police re-newed their investigation into Aquash’s death. One of the main investigators was Robert Ecofee, a BIA police officer in Pine Ridge during the ‘70s period, and one of the first Natives to become a US Marshall. Ecofee has been described as an “Oglala GOON” (p. 236 Agents of Repression), who also testified in Peltier’s 1977 trial.

FBI Dis-Information

“It is obvious to anyone who looks at the past few years with an open mind and a rememberance of COINTEL-PRO, that the FBI’s program of misinformation & discrediting of activists is alive and well. I encourage all who come into contact with this finger-pointing behavior to also look at the person pointing.”
Leonard Peltier (Dec. 5/03 Statement)

The FBI case is based largely on the confessions of Looking Cloud, allegedly told to others over the years, & in a video-taped confession to police in April, 2003.

The FBI’s version is that Aquash was taken from a house in Denver, Colorado, by Graham, Looking Cloud, and Thelda Clarke. She was then driven to various offices & apartments in Rapid City, S. Dakota. One of these included the legal offices of the Wounded Knee defense committee. From there, she was taken to houses on Pine Ridge, then executed on a desolate road near Wanblee, on or around Dec. 12, 1975 (where her body was found two months later).

According to the FBI, Aquash was suspected of being an informant and had sensitive info related to the Oglala shoot-out. Because of this, she had to be killed.

Looking Cloud’s video-taped statement reflects the FBI’s version of events, except in one important detail: according to Looking Cloud, he did not know what was occurring until moments before John Graham took her out of the car and shot her.

The story itself raises many obvious questions, including:

* Why would an AIM “hit squad” take Aquash, in the presence of so many witnesses, from one city to another, across two states, to several apartments and a defense office (more than likely under surveillance), then execute her?

* If the FBI seriously considered the death of Aquash to have been carried out by AIM in 1976, we can be sure vast amounts of resources would have been devoted to this case at that time. Instead, the FBI attempted to cover it up!

The FBI’s version of events has always been based on rumors within AIM that Anna Mae was a suspected informant. Candy Hamilton, a friend of Aquash, reports that it was common for people to be suspected of being an informant at this time (CBC The Fifth Estate).

Over the years, many people had in fact informed or gave evidence to police. It is a common practice of police and the FBI to use informants & collaborators. In 1975, Douglas Durham was exposed as an FBI infiltrator who worked at the highest levels within AIM.

Nor is the Aquash case the only one in which the FBI has accused AIM of killing suspected infromants (i.e., Ray Robinson, a black civil rights worker, and Jeanette Bissonnette, an Oglala traditionalist.

Despite all this, it was never the practice of AIM to punish, let alone execute, informants or collaborators.

Defend the Spirit of Anna Mae Aquash!

Today, the FBI’s version has taken on the appearance of truth, bolstered by confusing & contradictory statements from former AIM leaders (seemingly motivated by bitter & hostile divisions, conspiracies, etc.), and testimony from government witnesses & informers (also former members of AIM). Added to this are the demands from Anna Mae’s two daughters for justice & convictions of those responsible, one of whom is herself an RCMP officer.

Due to the nature of the charges against her alleged killers (Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham), and because of the success of FBI disinformation, many in our own movement have distanced themselves from this case. They refuse to take a stand, let alone investigate the matter, and this reveals the extent to which they’ve accepted the FBI version of events.

At this time, the strategy of the FBI is to destroy anything positive associated with AIM (and by extension all Indigenous resistance), to further undermine the case of Leonard Peltier (falsely convicted in the 1975 killing of two FBI agents in S. Dakota), and to turn Aquash from a symbol of this resistance to one of injustice.

Out of this process, the FBI will emerge as heroes who have solved the murder-mystery of Anna Mae Aquash, while Indigenous resistance will be smeared as the work of assassins and thugs. Only by erasing the memory of struggle can this be done, for even a brief glimpse at the 1970’s period in S. Dakota clearly shows who the real assassins & terrorists are: the FBI & the US federal government.

Info:
www.grahamdefense.org
www.freepeltier.org

See:
Incident at Oglala, Dir. Michael Apted, 1991

Read:
Agents of Repression; the FBI’s Secret War Against the Black Panther Party and AIM, by Churchill/Vanderwall, 1988, 2000, Pub. by South End Press.

FBI COUNTER-INSURGENCY & COINTEL-PRO

Contrary to a public statement released by Anna Mae’s daughters, Denise and Deborah Maloney Pictou, on Dec. 19/03, that their mother’s death was “not a consequence of political unrest or violence,” the killing of Aquash was only one of scores of deaths in Pine Ridge in the 1970s. It was, in fact, a war-zone. Nor was Aquash the only execution-style killing to have occurred.

A similar death occurred to Sandra Wounded Foot in 1976. The 15-year old was shot in the head execution-style and her body dumped in a remote area of the reservation by BIA police officer Paul Duane Herman, Jr., who pled guilty to manslaughter charges and was sentenced to just 10 years in prison.

Between 1973-75, an estimated 67 AIM members or associates were killed in S. Dakota, during a reign of terror carried out by a corrupt tribal president (Dick Wilson), supported by US government authorities.

Among these authorities was the FBI, who helped organize & equip the paramilitaries used by Wilson to maintain control. They were known as GOONs-- Guardians of the Oglala Nation. Along with Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) police, the GOONs were responsible for scores of killings, assaults, arson, etc. Their main target was AIM.

By this time, the FBI had also targeted AIM with a counter-insurgency campaign entitled COINTEL-PRO (Counter-Intelligence Program). This involved the use of surveillance, informants, police arrests, assaults, break-and-enter, planting evidence, frame-ups, imprisonment, and executions of movement members, and especially organizers. The goal of COINTEL-PRO was to destroy organized resistance movements by any means necessary.

COINTEL-PRO had its roots in the anti-communist campaign of the 1950s (when the Cold War began). Its first targets were communist & socialist groups. In the 1960s, new liberation movements emerged around the world. US involvement in Vietnam and the fierce resistance of the Vietnamese people contributed to a climate of insurgency & rebellion.

In the US, the black civil rights movement transformed into organized resistance. An important organization to emerge at this time was the Black Panther Party. The Panthers were quickly targeted by the FBI, who launched sophisticated and often deadly COINTEL-PRO operations against them.

One common tactic was to foster inner-group divisions & hostilities. False communications were sent between members, including allegations of betrayal by other members, or death threats. Under conditions of deadly repression, these kinds of rumors took on far greater importance; unchecked, they often led to bitter divisions, assaults, and in some cases death.

Another tactic was to label genuine members as informants, agents, or collaborators. This was known as a “bad-jacket” or “snitch-jacket.” Having such a label attached could result in interrogations, divisions, paranoia, assaults, and even death.

Often, the FBI would use informants to spread rumors and plant evidence on targeted individuals. During raids & arrests, target individuals would be continually released with little or no bail. In jail cells, information might be ‘slipped’ that certain individuals were working with the police.

In March 1971, FBI offices in Media, Pennsylvania, were raided by militants who discovered classified documents detailing the nature & extent of COINTEL-PRO. Government inquiries were held and the FBI stated that it officially rejected it as a doctrine.

At this same time, AIM became the primary target of the FBI’s ongoing COINTEL-PRO. AIM’s national leadership was based in the mid-west, including S. Dakota. Amidst government plans to secure large deposits of uranium on Pine Ridge, AIM became embroiled in the Lakota struggle for sovereignty, symbolized in the 71-day siege at Wounded knee, 1973.

It was at this time that Wilson declared war on AIM and the GOON reign of terror began. It did not subside until the June 26, 1975 shoot-out at Oglala, when two FBI agents were shot & killed, along with one AIM member (Joseph Stuntz Killsright). As a result, Pine Ridge was militarily occupied by heavily-armed FBI agents who conducted an extensive man-hunt for the insurgents. FBI agents have themselves declared that revenge was a main motivator at this time.

On this same day, the corrupt tribal president Dick Wilson signed away 133,000 acres of the reserve, now known to contain one of the largest deposits of uranium in the US. It is widely believed that the shoot-out was an intentional incident to divert attention away from Wilson’s activities (but one that went terribly wrong, with two FBI agents killed).

In contrast to the resources devoted to the death of the two FBI agents, scores of other deaths went univestigated and/or were brushed off as accidents. While the world heard about the FBI deaths, little was heard about the ongoing campaign of terror on Pine Ridge, where shootings and even fire-fights were frequent, almost daily occurrences.

Eventually, Leonard Peltier was tried and convicted for the deaths of the two FBI agents and remains in prison to this day, the longest held Prisoner of War in the US. Two other defendants, Dino Butler & Bob Robideau, were found not guilty on grounds of self-defense in a separate trial. To this day, the FBI has continued to wage a campaign against any efforts to obtain Peltier’s release through court appeals, parole, or clemency.

While the FBI hunted for Peltier, they focused on Anna Mae as a possible link. She was not present during the Oglala fire-fight, but the FBI believed she would have information about it or know the location of Peltier. After an interrogation in Pierre, S. Dakota by agent David Price, Anna Mae alleged that Price had threatened her, saying she would be dead within a year for not co-operating. Ron Williams, one of the FBI agents shot dead at Oglala, was a close friend of Price.

Several months later, her body was indeed found. Price was himself one of the first FBI agents on the scene. The FBI brushed it off as a Jane Doe, death from exposure. Former FBI regional director Norm Zagrossi has himself stated it “looked like a cover-up” (CBC The Fifth Estate interview, see also “Chapter 7: Assassinations & ‘Bad-Jacket’s,” in Agents of Repression, Churchill & Vanderwall).