The FBI today is yesterday’s cavalry June 30, 2007

“The FBI today is yesterday’s cavalry, is yesterday’s Custer. Agent David Price today is yesterday’s Custer. He’s no different. It’s the same organization, a criminal organization…

“They’re doing this against my family, my loved ones, my people, and they’ve been doing it against Leonard [Peltier], his loved ones and his people for a lot of years now…

I’m a warrior. I was a warrior when I first went to South Dakota and I’ll be a warrior this time when I have to go to South Dakota.”

- John Graham, Tutchone Nation warrior and former member of the American Indian Movement, speaking just before being taken into custody and the announcement of his appeal to the British Columbia Supreme Court being rejected, June 26, 2007, 32nd anniversary of the shootout at Oglala,

Aired on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, National News Prime Time, Tuesday, June 26th, 2007

Graffiti in Coast Salish Territory, Vancouver, Canada

 

John Graham, spokesman for the Native Peoples’ Embassy in Ottawa

Native Embassy Condemned

by Walrus Oakenbough

The Georgia Straight, March 6-13, 1975

(Ottawa) John Graham, spokesman for the Native Peoples’ Embassy in Ottawa told a community meeting Monday, Feb.17 that Indians occupying the Carbide Mill are looking for a new headquarters nearby. The National Capital Commission had succeeded in driving Indians out by shutting off heat and electricity to the old embassy last week. Police intimidation and harassment by the Ottawa Fire Department contributed to the decision to leave.

The brief five month history of this Native People’s Embassy reflects in miniature the entirety of European derived “western” treatment of Indian Nations spanning three centuries in Canada…

…When the first Native Peoples’ Caravan reached Ottawa last Sept.29, the National Capital Commission promised to let them stay in the historic Carbide Mill on Victoria Island…

…About 350 people moved into the Carbide Mill.

One day later, during opening parliament ceremonies, violence flared. Members of the caravan marched up the stairs to the Peace Tower with the intention of addressing Canada’s parliament about the plight and vision of Native People throughout the country. A brutal confrontation resulted when the previously dormant RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] special riot squad joined hundreds of RCMP regulars in evicting the caravan and its supporters from Parliament Hill…

By November 28, a second Native Peoples Caravan arrived to take up residency at Victoria Island…

…John Graham, caravan member from the Yukon, read the Embassy statement to the press while drums thundered in the background.

“We, in the spirit of Louis Riel, whose statue was unveiled by your Prime Minister on Oct.2, 1968, hold onto this embassy as a symbol of resistance for the social justice Mr. Trudeau spoke of so easily… The Native People here on Victoria Island in Ottawa, as in Cornwall, Alcatraz, James Bay, Cold Lake, Wounded Knee, Kenora, Cache Creek, and Parliament Hill, ask all of you to help us win the battle for our culture and our independence. We ask this because we believe in the right of self-determination of all people.”

“Stand with us Canadians and maybe one day we can stand together in peace! When that day comes, we will turn the flag of your nation right side up, as it should be when people are free.”

[Excerpts from article]

John Graham team vows to fight on June 28, 2007

John Graham team vows to fight on

By Matthew Burrows
The Georgia Straight (Vancouver, Canada)
Publish Date: June 28, 2007

The lawyers representing Southern Tuchone Native John Graham told the Straight they plan to fight his extradition on a U.S. indictment all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Greg DelBigio and Terry LaLiberté acted as Graham’s defence counsel at the B.C. Court of Appeal June 26. Graham was appealing his initial extradition, granted by the B.C. Supreme Court and former federal justice minister Irwin Cotler in February 2005. The latest appeal was dismissed unanimously by the three-person panel at a packed courthouse. Speaking the same day, LaLiberté said, “We definitely don’t want it to end here.”

Yukon-born Graham is wanted for first-degree murder in the 1976 execution-style killing of Nova Scotia Micmac and American Indian Movement member Anna Mae Pictou Aquash on the Pine Ridge reserve in South Dakota. Graham, who has always maintained his innocence, has 30 days to seek leave to appeal at Canada’s top court.

According to LaLiberté, there has been an “error at the Court of Appeal”.

“Now we have to find out if it’s serious enough to go to the Supreme Court of Canada,” he told the Straight by phone.

On July 21, 2006, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled on a landmark extradition case between the U.S. and Shane Tyrone Ferras, to which both lawyers referred.

“If there is a divergence of view between courts of appeal from different provinces, then sometimes that increases the chances that leave will be granted [to go to the top court],” DelBigio told the Straight . “Interestingly, the decision adopts a somewhat different approach to extradition law–in particular to the interpretation of the leading Supreme Court of Canada decision [Ferras]–than the Ontario Court of Appeal. On initial reflection, there does appear to be that kind of divergence or discrepancy of opinion on an important issue.”

BC Supreme Court Dismisses John Graham’s Appeal June 26, 2007

Update June 26, 2007: The BC Supreme Court dismissed John’s appeal, his bail has been revoked, and he is being kept in jail. There is now a 30 day appeal period.

[Source: John Graham Defense Committee]

Incident at Oglala

Incident at Oglala
The Indian Wars Continue

by Contributor

On June 26, 1975, FBI agents and Bureau of Indian Affairs police laid siege to an encampment of American Indian Movement members at the Pine Ridge reservation, killing AIM warrior Joe Stuntz Killsright and leaving two FBI agents dead. Leonard Peltier was later framed for killing the agents. One of the BIA police officers who took part in the attack on the AIM camp was Bob Ecoffey. He also testified against Leonard Peltier at his 1977 trial.

In the 1990s, Ecoffey became the primary “investigator” of the murder of AIM warrior Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. He videotaped a “confession” about the killing from AIM member Arlo Looking Cloud who stated during the interview that he was under the influence of alcohol. Looking Cloud later recanted his confession, pleading not guilty at his trial.

Ecoffey told a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television documentary that Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham took Anna Mae across a fence to the edge of a bank on Pine Ridge.

“She was brought here by members of the American Indian Movement, and she was executed right on top of this hill. She was shot in the back of the head, fell over the bank, and then laid where she was found, and basically left to die. And I feel that it was a result of paranoia amongst people within the American Indian Movement that she was an informant,” said Ecoffey.

He later repeated this story at Arlo Looking Cloud’s trial, adding that Arlo had said that when Anna Mae got to the fence she knew what was going to happen. At the beginning of the same trial, the rancher who found her body, Roger Amiotte, said there was no fence there at the time. How could Anna Mae have known what was going to happen to her based on being taken up to a fence that did not exist? Perhaps Ecoffey made up the story and is simply continuing with his campaign against AIM. The BIA police force on Pine Ridge was instrumental in the self-proclaimed Goon Squad that carried our numerous assassinations and assaults against AIM members and traditional Lakotas at Pine Ridge in the 1970s. The BIA police were also instrumental in initially covering up the cause of Anna Mae’s death as “exposure” and having her buried as an unidentified “Jane Doe”, as chronicled in her biography, “The Life and Death of Anna Mae Aquash” by Johanna Brand.

After Looking Cloud’s trial, Ecoffey married Darlene Nichols (formerly known as Kamook Banks), a former AIM member who testified against Arlo Looking Cloud and admitted to being paid $42,000 by the US government for her “expenses”, and to wearing a wire to record conversations. Her testimony at Arlo’s trial mostly targeted Leonard Peltier, as she claimed he admitted to killing the FBI agents.

Pressure For Investigation of FBI June 18, 2007

Excerpts from article “Canadian woman killed in U.S., Bid to have Indian’s death probed fail” from the Globe and Mail, May 14, 1976″:

Efforts to have the Canadian Government request an investigation into the handling of the case of a murdered Canadian Indian in the United States have so far been unsuccessful, Gloria George, president of the Native Council of Canada, said yesterday.

The Native Council and five other Canadian organizations have been pressing the External Affairs Department to ask Washington for a probe into the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s handling of an autopsy and investigation into the death of Anna Mae Aquash, a Micmac from Antigonish, N.S.

Miss Aquash, belived to be 25 was found dead Feb. 24 by a rancher on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the scene of the 1973 Indian occupation of Wounded Knee and the subsequent slaying of two FBI agents last June.

During an autopsy under the supervision of the FBI, Miss Aquash’s hands were severed and sent away for fingerprints and cause of death was listed as exposure although an autopsy conducted at the insistence of friends turned up a bullet in her head.

Miss Aquash was a close friend of Dennis Banks, a leader of the American Indian Movement, who is being sought by U.S. authorities in the slaying of the two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge reservation.

Mrs. George said pressure for an investigation came because some people at Wounded Knee think she [Aquash] may have been killed by FBI agents or Bureau of Indian Affairs police because of her involvement with AIM members.

[…] Duke Redbird, vice president of the Native Council said that Canadian groups are upset at the “discrepancy in reported causes of death, the mutilation of her body and the disrespect shown her family, who were not informed of her death for nine days.” [...]

Leonard Peltier Letter on John Graham and Anna Mae June 7, 2007

Text of Leonard Peltier Letter

[Letter from US prisoner Leonard Peltier to former UBC professor and Canadian Amnesty International worker Dr. Jennifer Wade, written April 18, 2007; postmarked in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, May 4, 2007; received May 10, 2007 in Vancouver, transcribed with notes and spelling corrections by Rex Weyler, journalist, The Institute for Citizen Journalism, Vancouver, BC, Canada]

Leonard Peltier
#89637-132
US Penitentiary
Box # 1000
Lewisburg, PA, 17837

[To:]
Dr. Jennifer Wade
[address withheld]
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Dear Jennifer!

Please allow me to begin by apologizing for not responding to your letters, it was not [that] there is anything personal etc, al, it’s just that I have so much on my plate at times I don’t know if I’m coming or going, and to even have the time to answer my friends becomes a hassle!

“Do I support Bob [Robideau] in his efforts to get John [Graham] railroaded into prison? Hell No! I’d be a goddamn hypocrite if I did. Because I know just about as much as Bob knows about Anna Mae’s murder and that is not a goddamn thing. I know Bob is full of shit and that if the truth be known he did not even know her. He my have spoken a casual Hello or something like that, otherwise he did not know her.

What is his alternative(s)? Well, in his mind, which as far as I’m concerned is very small!, this keeps his name in front of the public and he has an issue to keep his name in Indian issues. You will notice Bob does not go and make these statements on Pine Ridge or anywhere in Indian Country. He would get his ass beat down bad! A dry snitch is just as bad as a snitch! And that is what he is doing, dry snitching, saying shit he has no proof of. Hey, if he had real proof, he would have sold it along time ago, because this is his real motive, $ $.

Bob got hooked up with B[arry] Bachrach while he was still living in Spain. He actually became Bob’s lawyer more than mine. I told them repeatedly I did not want any involvement in what they were trying to do with John G. [Graham]. Finally last month I accepted Barry’s resignation, and I’m waiting for Bob to do the same. Remember Jennifer, I am damned if I do and damned if I don’t, and believe me that is one Hell of a burden to have to endure. So I have to wait for his [Robideau’s] resignation. [small angry face drawn on original]

The government does not want the whole truth to come out about Indian peoples’ struggles. Clear up to the current day & time, they have always denied their genocidal attacks and continue to do so today. And any Indian who works with them supports their claims [that] the genocide never happened.

Look, I don’t know if John is guilty or innocent. What I do know is this: He will not receive a fair trial if he is returned, so we will not know any more than we know now what happened to her [Anna Mae Aquash]. I don’t know how I can help. I cannot even help myself. It looks more & more every day that I will die in prison. Personally, I know the government was involved some how? This is how COINTEL works.

Well my friend, I need to end this. Please contact the director Toni of the L.P.D.C. [Leonard Peltier Defense Committee; phone # withheld, available on request]. We need to keep in touch. Take care.

In the spirit of Crazy Horse,

[signed] Leonard

P.S. Yes, I heard Harriet died.

[Harriet Nahanee, Salish elder; small sad-face drawn on original.]

Native Youth Movement Statement on the Arrest of John Graham

Native Youth Movement – Statement on the Arrest of John Graham

February 7, 2004

On Monday, December 1, 2003, John Graham was arrested in Vancouver, Canada. He is charged by the FBI with the 1975 murder of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a Mi’kmaq from Nova Scotia whose frozen body was found on the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota.

Presently free on bail, John Graham faces extradition to the US.

At this time, the Native Youth Movement (NYM) Vancouver feels it necessary to state its position in regards to this case.

Anna Mae has been an inspiration and example to our movement for many years. She symbolized the warrior spirit and our people’s determination to resist. This is also the legacy of the American Indian Movement, to which she belonged.

It was because of this spirit that AIM was targeted by the FBI’s Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTEL-PRO) in the early 1970′s, and why so many AIM members in South Dakota were killed during this period, including Anna Mae Aquash.

If, as alleged, her killing was ordered by AIM’s leadership (under the pretext she was an informant), those ultimately responsible for her death are US government officials, including the FBI – for it was under their orders that a deadly counter-insurgency campaign was waged against AIM, which included portraying genuine movement members as informants.

This strategy was used to create paranoia and division, to turn members against one another (just as the FBI had done against the Black Panther Party). Anna Mae was herself the target of an FBI “bad jacket”. FBI agents had threatened to kill her in the year prior to her death. When her body was found, despite being on an FBI wanted list, agents had her hands cut off for fingerprint analysis. During the first autopsy, the government coroner determined the cause of death to be exposure, somehow missing the bullet hole in the back of her head.

Leonard Peltier, we recall, was extradited from Vancouver in [1976] under false evidence provided to Canadian courts by the FBI. He was subsequently tried and convicted for the 1975 shoot-out at Oglala, South Dakota, in which two FBI agents were killed. During this same incident, the FBI shot and killed AIM member Joseph Stuntz Killsright.

A basic principle of any resistance movement is non-collaboration with our enemy. As Peltier recently stated in regards to the arrest of John Graham:

“When we talk of sovereignty, we must be willing to solve our own problems and not go running to the oppressor for relief . . . We have been and still are at odds with the most dangerous, well-funded, strongest military and political organization in the history of the world [the US government].”

We must therefore oppose the attempt to extradite John Graham to South Dakota by US authorities, and denounce the efforts by certain individuals in our own community to facilitate this process.

In particular, we must clarify that Kelly White, a local (Vancouver) Native radio show host who has conducted an ongoing campaign against John Graham, has never been a leader, member, or advisor to the NYM. Furthermore, NYM Vancouver does not consider information provided by Ms. White to be credible.

In conclusion, no member of NYM was involved in the conflicts of the 1970s. We weren’t there. We cannot say with certainty that John Graham did – or did not – kill Anna Mae. We have neither the information nor witnesses at our disposal to make such a decision.

What can be said is that Anna Mae Aquash, along with many others, died as a direct result of her commitment to the struggle for her people. She is an example of all we aspire to be as a resistance movement. She was a warrior, a veteran of the 71-day siege at Wounded Knee in 1973, a community worker who helped set up schools and camps. She promoted traditional culture and spirituality. She gave her life for us, knowing all along the consequences. That is why she is called a Brave-Hearted Woman.

Whatever the result of any trials conducted in the court rooms of our oppressor – the same ones’ ultimately responsible for Anna Mae’s death – we will continue to advance in our movement towards victory, inspired by her memory and her spirit.

Native Youth Movement
Vancouver Chapter

We Are Wolves Not Sheep

 

Native Youth Movement at Supreme Court, Vancouver, March 1, 2004

NYM Vancouver Announces Boycott of John Trudell

NYM Vancouver ANNOUNCES OFFICIAL BOYCOTT OF JOHN TRUDELL

March 2, 2005
Unceded Coast Salish Territory
nymchapter604(at)hotmail.com

On February 21, 2005, a BC supreme court ordered John Graham to be extradited to S. Dakota to stand trial for the 1975 murder of Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash. The formal order for extradition will be given March 2, after which Mr. Graham will have 30 days to appeal. The defense plans to launch a constitutional challenge against the Extradition Act itself.

In making her decision, judge Elizabeth Bennett noted the numerous errors in the US case, but stated that under the Extradition Act her primary task is limited to establishing the identity of the prisoner. Under amendments made in 1999, a Canadian judge cannot evaluate the evidence submitted by US authorities.

We must remember that in [1976], Leonard Peltier was extradited by a Vancouver court, based on falsified evidence submitted by US authorities. At that time, the FBI was engaged in a deadly counter-insurgency campaigned to destroy the American Indian Movement (AIM).

How sad it is then, that during the February 21/05 court date, judge Bennett stated that a determining factor in her decision was the hearsay testimony of former AIM spokesperson, John Trudell, and in particular his identification of Mr. Graham from photographs provided by US officials.

NYM Vancouver remains firmly opposed to the extradition of John Graham. We also condemn the February 2004 kangaroo court in S. Dakota, which convicted Arlo Looking Cloud of aiding & abetting.

Having met both accused men, their friends & family, and having reviewed the evidence & information at our disposal, we state clearly our belief that the case against Mr. Graham & Arlo Looking Cloud is based on lies & disinformation provided by the FBI, police, informants, & collaborators.

Among these are former AIM members, including John Trudell, Kamook Banks, Russell Means, Bob Robideau, & Kelly White, all of whom have, in one way or another, participated in the smear & disinformation campaign against Mr. Graham & Mr. Looking Cloud.

At this time, NYM Vancouver calls on all those who support our people’s struggle to boycott the works & activities of John Trudell in particular, and to denounce all those who have collaborated with the government & police in this matter.

We re-assert that those responsible for the death of Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash, and at least 66 other Indigenous people in S.Dakota during 1973-76, are the US federal government and its various agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and the paramilitary forces which they funded & equipped (the ‘GOONs’)

In the 1970s, the goal of the FBI’s Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTEL-PRO) was to discredit, divide, neutralize and destroy organized resistance movements using any means necessary, including widespread surveillance, use of informants & infiltrators, break-ins, assaults, frame-ups, imprisonment and assassination.

Today, the goals of the FBI & police are to destroy what little remains of AIM & anything positive associated with it, and by extension all Indigenous resistance. They want to revise history, to turn themselves from the thugs & assassins that they are to the ‘heroes’ who solved the murder of Anna Mae.

We must remember: there would have been no Wounded Knee in 1973, nor the 1975 Oglala shoot-out, if not for the fact that the US government & energy corporations were actively working to gain control of the Lakota’s sacred Black Hills and parts of Pine Ridge reservation land for uranium, coal, oil and gas.

We view this case as part of the ongoing war against Indigenous peoples — waged by government and corporations — to continue the exploitation & oppression of our people and territories.

John Graham is a warrior who stood in defense of his people. He is not an assassin, nor is he a thug. We call on all people to stand now and defend John Graham before yet another warrior is taken & caged by the US government.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,
NYM Vancouver

Native Warriors Claim Responsibility for Taking Olympic Flag

COMMUNIQUE

Native Warriors Claim Responsibility for Taking Olympic Flag

March 7th, 2007
Coast Salish Territory [Vancouver, Canada]

In the early morning hours of Tuesday, March 6th, 2007, we removed the Olympic Flag from its flag-pole at Vancouver City Hall. We pried open the access panel on the pole with a crowbar, using a bolt-cutter, cut the metal cable/halyard inside, causing the flag to fall to the ground.

We claim this action in honor of Harriet Nahanee, our elder-warrior, who was given a death sentence by the BC courts for her courageous stand in defending Mother Earth.

We stand in solidarity with all those fighting against the destruction caused by the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

No Olympics on Stolen Native Land!

Native Warrior Society