Picket action in Vancouver for John Graham, indigenous prisoner of war

Coast Salish Territory, Vancouver, Canada

On June 26, 2008, the one year anniversary of indigenous warrior John Graham’s imprisonment in Vancouver and the 33 year anniversary of the Incident at Oglala, about 20 people, Native and non-Native, picketed and gave out leaflets in solidarity outside of the Ocean Plaza office tower in downtown Vancouver where, at least until recently, the Cash Minerals uranium mining company had its operations office. Banners were held up reading, “Free John Graham, Indigenous Prisoner of War”, “No Cash for Cash Minerals, Free John Graham” and “Uranium Kills, Stop Mining Native Land”. After picketing outside the office tower, the solidarity group moved up the block to smudge and say prayers for John Graham, Leonard Peltier, the people and the land, outside the United States consulate. The group also informed each other of Leonard Peltier’s urgent need for a diabetes test kit.

John Graham is a warrior of the Tutchone Nation whose territory is located in the Yukon (northwestern Canada). Cash Minerals is interested in uranium exploration right next to Graham’s home community in the Yukon. The company is also already exploring for uranium in the border area between the territory of the Northern Tutchone and Gwich’in peoples in the Yukon. Cash Minerals has had a registered office in Toronto and an operations office in Vancouver for years. There are indications they may have moved their operations office from Vancouver to Toronto. Either way, one person among their Board of Directors, Basil Botha, apparently still lives in Vancouver, while one of their advisers, Suraj Ahuja, now lives in North Vancouver (according to Cash Minerals’ website).

John Graham fought against uranium mining on Native land in Saskatchewan and British Columbia in the 1980s. In the 70s, Graham helped with security for the American Indian Movement (AIM) at the Pine Ridge reservation on the Lakota people’s territory in South Dakota.

Now Graham is charged by the FBI with killing his friend, comrade and fellow AIM warrior, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash of the Mi’kmaq people. When Aquash’s body was found at Pine Ridge in 1976 the FBI tried to cover-up her true identity and her cause of death, burying her as a Jane Doe and claiming she died of exposure. Her family and friends demanded a second autopsy that showed she had in fact been shot. At the time, an FBI-backed death squad who called themselves the GOONs had killed some 60 AIM members and traditional Lakotas on the reserve. During this time the Lakota’s sacred Black Hills were sold off to the US government for resource exploitation, with a major interest in uranium. Much water, animals and land in Lakota territory is now contaminated with uranium waste.

John Graham is currently in prison awaiting trial in South Dakota after being extradited from Vancouver in December of 2007. He was arrested in Vancouver in December of 2003 and spent 40 days in prison until he was released under house arrest to face his extradition hearings. He was taken back to prison on June 26, 2007, right before the Supreme Court of British Columbia rejected his extradition appeal.

On June 26, 1975, the FBI and their GOON squad attacked an AIM camp at Oglala, Pine Ridge, South Dakota, leading to the deaths of AIM warrior Joe Stuntz Killsright and two FBI agents. Peltier was then fraudulently extradited from Vancouver back to the United States and framed for killing the agents. One of the cops involved in the attack on the AIM camp on June 26, 1975, was Robert Ecoffey. This same cop testified against Peltier at his trial and this same cop in the 1990s became one of the lead so-called “investigators” of Aquash’s murder, seeking to frame-up John Graham and further cover-up the role of police and FBI agents in her death.

John Graham said in the 1980s:

“As a people, our philosophy is respect for all living things. We cannot agree that our resources are being ripped off from us at home. We’re stuck with the waste, we’re contaminated with the waste, and here our resources are going to kill other people in other countries. We cannot agree with that. Our own people and our way of life just does not agree with that.

Today, the uranium mining in Northern Saskatchewan, when our resources, when 99% of all this uranium is leaving the country to come to European countries or go to the United States to build up their nuclear arms. That is in total conflict with our way of life because the Indian way of life is respect and to coexist with everything that is natural.”

Our Freedom (Free John Graham and Leonard Peltier):
http://ourfreedom.wordpress.com

Graham Defense
http://www.grahamdefense.org

Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/

Leonard Peltier Statement for 2008 Oglala Commemoration:
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/LP/20080626.htm

Leonard Peltier Update June 26th, 2008 - Medical Alert:
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20080626122257157

June 19, 2008: The pre-trial hearing in Rapid City was set to start at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, October 6, 2008, followed by selection of the jury and continuation of the trial until it is completed with a break between the end of the day Friday, 10 October and 9 a.m. Tuesday, October 14th. If a third week is necessary, the trial will continue at 9 a.m. Tuesday, October 21st.

- From grahamdefense.org

“The ‘Ministry of Public Safety’ is where people report for probation, the monitoring and restriction of life outside of prison walls. This same office was graffitied and it’s locks glued on the night that indigenous warrior John Graham was deported to South Dakota, in December 2007. He remains in prison awaiting trail, framed-up for the 1970’s murder of his friend and comrade Anna Mae Aquash.”

- Solidarity Without Borders! Vancouver Action ( June 16, 2008 )

“Le ‘Ministère de la Protection Publique’ est le lieu où les personnes se rendent auprès du juge des libertés, là où se décident les mesures restrictives de liberté hors des murs de la prison. Ce même bureau avait déjà été taggé et ses serures engluées la nuit lors de laquelle le guerrier indigène John Graham a été déporté vers le Dakota du Sud en décembre 2007. Il est toujours en détention préventive, accusé du meurtre des années 70 contre son amie et camarade Anna Mae Aquash.”

- Vancouver (Canada) : action de solidarité avec Isa et tous les autres

Graffiti on Ministry of Public Safety office in Vancouver, December 2007

On June 18, 2008, American and Canadian corporate media services published online reports that prosecution and defense lawyers are asking for John Graham’s trial to be delayed from September to October of 2008.

The corporate media continues to wrongly claim that “witnesses” at Arlo Looking Cloud’s 2004 trial said that he, John Graham and another American Indian Movement member drove Anna Mae Aquash to the location where her body was later found and that John Graham shot her. It should be made clear that no person testified at Looking Cloud’s trial to witnessing Graham kill Aquash. There was also no physical evidence presented that linked either Looking Cloud or Graham to the murder. The only testimony given was regarding what persons claimed Looking Cloud had told them or was regarding supposed sightings of him and Graham together with Aquash at various homes. One person who testified, former AIM member Darlene Ecoffey (then Nichols), admitted during the trial to being a paid police informant and later married one of the main police investigators of the case, self-proclaimed FBI academy graduate Robert Ecoffey (who also took part in the “Incident at Oglala” FBI-led assault on an AIM camp on June 26, 1975, at Pine Ridge).

Arlo Looking Cloud’s trial, February 2004 (grahamdefense.org)

Communication about action in Santa Cruz mentions John Graham and Leonard Peltier:

“Leonard Peltier, indigenous warrior framed for the 1975 killing of two FBI Agents who invaded in Oglala territory, serving two life sentences in prison. Despite widespread demand for his freedom, the United States persists in keeping this prisoner of war behind bars. His lawyers have again appealed his case in the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.”

“John Graham, indigenous land defender from the Yukon facing “South Dakota Justice for Indians” (aka lynch mob) this September for the 1975 murder of fellow warrior Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, which the FBI originally tried to cover up. Anna Mae’s death occured in the context of over 76 Government-sanctioned murders on Pine Ridge Reservation in the span of three years (1973 to 1976), as well as the FBI’s intensive COINTEL (counter-intelligence) Program designed to destroy native resistance. The prosecution of John Graham now is a continuation of the colonialist governments of Canada and the US attempting to turn native people against one another and accept colonial rule.”

- Justice Has Its Windows Smashed, Santa Cruz, California ( June 13, 2008 )

NO ONE IS ILLEGAL RADIO: April 2008

ANGELA STERRITT: Angela is a grassroots organizer, artist and writer who belongs to the Gitxsan Nation of the Gitanmaax band in occupied “British Columbia”. She works with the Indigenous People’s Free Skool, the International Indigenous Youth Network and Native 2010 Resistance. In this extended interview, Angela addresses the legacy of native elder Harriet Nahanee, the colonial origins of the Olympics, direct actions against natives who are collaborating with the organization of the 2010 Olympics, the appropriation of art and culture, the use of art and culture as resistance, the support campaign for John Graham, and the current activities of Native 2010 Resistance.

NO ONE IS ILLEGAL RADIO: April 2008
http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=27798*

For background and more info: http://harrietspirit.blogspot.com/

The Deception of the Federal Government: AIM and the Anna Mae Aquash Case

CRAZY HORSE ADVOCATE
WINTER 2004-2005
(Lakota Student Alliance)

…Why would AIM order a second autopsy for Anna Mae’s body, if they had ordered her death as the government claims? Perhaps AIM was trying to expose an FBI cover-up of a crime it had committed.

It is now the year 2004 and the American Indian Movement is still being investigated by the federal government. This same government has split the leadership in several factions. COINTELPRO is still being used on Indigenous peoples of this country.

AIM was tried for Anna Mae’s murder and Arlo Looking Cloud was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. An appeal is being made on the grounds that Looking Cloud was given alcohol and drugs and was under the influence at the time of the video taped confession.

In the age when DNA testing and forensic science can play key roles in solving Anna Mae’s murder, the federal government and its false judicial tactics insists upon convicting Indians as a result of hearsay and a complete lack of evidence which placed Looking Cloud and Graham as the murderers….

OUR SACRED HISTORY & WHITE MAN LIES

A film by Native Youth Movement member, Billie Pierre (Nlaka’Pamux/Saulteaux)

Between 1973 and 1976, more than 76 traditional Lakotas and members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) were killed on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. These deaths were part of the F.B.I.’s “Reign of Terror”, designed to destroy traditional people’s resistance to corporate projects such as uranium mining.

Our Sacred History & White Man Lies is a new documentary film offering a unique look at the government’s brutal repression of indigenous resistance to land theft. From Pine Ridge to the corrupt present-day investigation into the 1970’s murder of AIM leader Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, the film reveals the history and background of many of the pawns and players that are setting up former AIM members for her murder.

This free FILM SCREENING and info night will include literature on John’s case and related resistance movements, and will be introduced by a friend and supporter of John Graham.

Wednesday, June 4th [2008]
7:30pm at the RCNV - 515 Broadway, Santa Cruz

NOT ANOTHER LEONARD PELTIER!

Leonard Peltier, AIM member and land defender, was extradited from Canada in 1976, on false evidence implicating him in the killing of two F.B.I. agents who led an armed assault on Pine Ridge Reservation the year before. Peltier is still serving two life sentences as a Native Prisoner of War.

John Graham was arrested in Canada in December 2003 and charged with the 1975 murder of his friend and comrade in AIM, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. When Anna Mae was found murdered on Pine Ridge, authorities attempted to conceal her identity and cause of death. Now, 30 years late, the US government has once again fabricated a case based on flimsy testimony, framing former AIM members for her murder. In 2007, John Graham was extradited to South Dakota, and is in prison awaiting trial for September 2008. If convicted, he faces life in prison without parole.

for more information:
http://ourfreedom.wordpress.com/
http://www.grahamdefense.org/

Free John Graham! Free Leonard Peltier!

Santa Cruz Indymedia
Screening: Our Sacred History & White Man Lies on June 4th

Click on the photo above to go to the photo group at Flickr

]]> http://ourfreedom.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/free-john-graham-photo-group/feed/ ourfreedom http://ourfreedom.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/john-graham-mural-in-victoria-bc/ http://ourfreedom.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/john-graham-mural-in-victoria-bc/#comments Wed, 07 May 2008 19:06:11 +0000 ourfreedom http://ourfreedom.wordpress.com/?p=189

(Click on the graphic to enlarge)

John Graham mural in Coast Salish Territory, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 2008