Classic Cointelpro
Monica
(The story of Anna Mae Aquash
and
Arlo Looking Cloud)
I don’t have words to name the anguish I have carried for Anna Mae,
Arlo and John. Thirty years ago hope was a luminous butterfly breaking
out of her cocoon in my heart. The days of the old movement, the
1970’s brought out the best in us, and the worst.
We flew to the sun and stole light at the occupation of Wounded Knee
1973 as our rag tag band of Indians yanked our history and destiny
from the hands of the United States government. Wounded Knee had been
synonymous with the death of our way of life. Close your eyes and you
can see Big Foot and his people, frozen where they fell, shot by
American soldiers.
Open your eyes and there we are, long haired, armed, drawing a line in
the snow with our lives. Armed Indian men from across the United
States and Canada returned the US Government’s fire. Indian women
cooked cleaned and did all the work to keep the camp going. The heart
and backbone has always been Woman.
Most of us walked in and out of Wounded Knee through the government
forces that surrounded us. We swore an oath to stand for our People.
We staked ourselves out for those who were felled by alcohol and
drugs. We raised our voices for those who were silenced by corrupt
Tribal Councils supported by the federal government.
Pine Ridge chairman Dick Wilson was every corrupt Tribal politician
that dragged us into the sludge and left us trapped. The Lakota at
Pine Ridge have born the burden of the history of all Indian People.
In this the most affluent country that the world has seen, Pine Ridge
is the poorest county in the country.
It is impossible for outsiders to understand why we choose to live on
our reservations. We could make a better living in the big cities. We
would be free from oppression of corrupt Tribal chairmen. It is the
land herself that holds us.
It doesn’t matter who has legal title to our land. It is ours. We are
responsible for it. We carry it in our hearts. Maybe that’s why Indian
hearts are so big.
We feel guilt when we leave it. The borders press against our ribs
until we return home. Our land is us and we are our land in a way that
the white man will never understand. Reservations were created by
Treaties to be our prisons. We were supposed to die there, out of
sight, out of mind.
For many years our reservations suffocated us. We grew stagnant.
Alcohol and drugs numbed our bodies and minds and spirits. We forgot.
We forgot what happened to us and who we are.
Those who should have belonged to the warrior societies turned on each
other and forgot to protect The People. The oppressors stole power
from our men. In those unspeakable times the men turned and stole
power from those in their care, the babies, the old ones, the women.
Violence and sexual abuse became authority in our sick defeated state.
Those who should have been our Clan Mothers and Lady Chiefs had their
sacredness destroyed. Many forgot it is they that choose the future of
our people. They were unable to hold their heads or the men’s above
water. Our hearts and backbones collapsed under the burden of poverty
and little hope.
It was into this darkness that the Movement reached its hand. It
wasn’t Dennis and Russell or Vernon and Clyde. It was the idea of
freedom. It was the worm turning into a butterfly. It was the
Sasquatch cry in the midnight woods. It was the part of us that never
died or surrendered.
The call from the Lakota to come back to Wounded Knee also came from
deep within our hearts, the collective soul of our people. It’s time
to wake up. The long sleep is over. Your People need you. Hit the
ground running.
We came from the four directions. We brought our broken Treaties and
our broken hearts to be healed. The gun fire at Wounded Knee in the
1800’s signaled the end of our freedom. The gun fire at Wounded Knee
1973 signaled our awakening.
We made special clothes and Ghost Danced in the open. This time the
guns didn’t cut us down. The Creator hadn’t forgotten us. He was just
waiting for us to find our way back home.
We also packed in with us the dysfunctional learned behaviors that
were destroying us. The cream and the dregs floated to the top.
Men believed the Hollywood version of the Indian warrior. Women were
treated badly. They thought we were there to serve them not The
People.
There were stars that shown. I don’t mean the media stars. There were
those born of earth whose goodness burned from their hearts. Pedro
Bissonette and Anna Mae Aquash were such lights. They symbolized the
best in us.
Pedro would walk out of Wounded Knee at first light and spend the day
negotiating with the government. He fasted in solidarity with us. We
were starving at that point. We ate one meal a day. The old lady cooks
saved a plate for him when he walked back in at night. He was quiet
and humble, a Traditional leader. He was assassinated after the
occupation was over.
Anna Mae was a warrior woman. She helped make quilts, packed a gun on
patrol and could talk Treaties and strategy. She was assassinated amid
jealousy and rumors. She died alone and abandoned. She represented the
best of Woman and the worst that could happen to us.
The facts of her murder are cloaked in intrigue and stink of an FBI
conspiracy. The description of the body found at Wanblee didn’t fit
Anna Mae. She was ten years younger and four inches taller than Anna
Mae. The coroner said she had been dead about ten days.
ARLO’S TRIAL
The testimony at Arlo’s trial is filled with confusion. The odyssey
that took Anna Mae from Denver to Rapid City began with a call to
Angie Begay Janis. She testified that Thelma Rios called her with
instructions to bring Anna Mae to Rapid City. Angie then went to Troy
Lynn Yellow Wood’s house to deliver the message.
According to Janis’ own testimony she was at the meeting at Yellow
Woods house to decide if Anna Mae was an informer. If that meeting
actually did happen, was her fate decided there? Incidents appear in
this story like magic to support the government’s contentions.
Sometimes these incidents make absolutely no sense.
This was a most unfortunate time for Arlo to show up at this house. He
was looking for a friend to go have a beer with him. He says Theda
Clark asked him to drive them to Rapid City. A request from an older
woman would have equated a command.
Angie stated that Arlo was at the meeting. That is doubtful. A meeting
of that magnitude would not have included the rank and file. It would
have consisted of those considered to be leaders.
Janis stated that Anna Mae was brought from the basement tied to a
board. Arlo’s attorney Tim Rensch reminded Janis that she had not
mentioned Anna Mae’s hands being tied or being tied to a board in her
grand jury testimony. He asked if she had spoken with BIA cop Robert
Eccoffey about this.
Simply driving Anna Mae to Rapid City would not be a federal offense.
Troy Lynn Yellow Wood testified that Anna Mae did not want to go, but
went of her own volition. A charge of kidnapping was needed so the
myth of Anna Mae being carried out of the house tied to a board was
fashioned.
Yellow Wood stated that she tried to stop them from taking Anna Mae
from her house but was ordered by her aunt Theda Clark to mind her own
business. Theda was apparently a domineering mean older woman. Few
would dare cross her.
When Arlo, John and Theda left with Anna Mae, Yellow Wood called the
police. Angie Janis took the phone from her and hung it up. Janis told
Yellow Wood to stay out of this.
Although Janis testified under oath that Anna Mae’s hands had been
tied and then she was tied to a board that did not alarm Angie enough
to call the police herself. She still stated that she didn’t think
Anna Mae was in any danger.
If Angie Janis did not tell this story when she testified before the
grand jury, then when and why did she invent it? It would seem that
this was created to be the lynch pin for the charge of kidnapping.
Janis could not remember the color of the rope or the board. Rensch
also asked Amiotte, the rancher that found the Wanblee body, if there
was a rope near the body. Amiotte didn’t see a rope. We have another
mystery in this story. Where did the rope and board go?
Next we move to the famous alleged interrogation at the Wounded Knee
Legal Defense/Offense Committee office. Candy Hamilton testified that
she was waiting at WKLDOC for a ride to Sioux Falls to testify at
Russell Means trial. Anna Mae was in a room with a group of people.
Anna Mae came out of the room to get a cup of coffee. She talked a
while with Candy. There were phones and doors in the office. Anna Mae
didn’t try to call for help. Neither did she try to run.
Hamilton states that she told Anna Mae that Oglalla could be a really
safe place for her to stay. Candy was offering asylum. She had heard
rumors of Aquash being an informer. Candy wanted to let Anna Mae know
that she would be protected in Oglalla if she wanted it. She didn’t.
The two women spoke for another minute then Anna Mae returned to the
room. Aquash had many opportunities to escape if she was being held
prisoner.
Hamilton couldn’t remember if it was before or after they heard that
Anna Mae had been killed when she spoke to Madonna Gilbert about the
incident. She asked Gilbert what became of Anna Mae after they talked
with her. Gilbert said, “Oh, we just told her to get out of there.”
The myths that have grown up around this story are volatile. They are
fueled by Jordan Dill on his websites and Paul Demain in his
newspaper.
Dill and Demain sound like bellowing wrestlers in their proclamations.
They have ranted about a ten tooth beating during the alleged
interrogation of Aquash. Actually, according to “The life and Death of
Anna Mae Aquash by Johanna Brand,” Anna Mae wore partials, which she
had lost.
Dill and Demain quote Minnie Two Shoes quoting Iris Thunder Cloud as
saying that Anna Mae told her that Leonard Peltier put a gun in her
mouth as he questioned her at an AIM conference. There is no eye
witness to affirm that this incident actually happened.
During Robert Eccoffey’s testimony he states that Arlo told him that
when they crossed the fence, she (Anna Mae) knew what was going to
happen. Roger Amiotte had testified that the fence had not been there
in 1976, the year he found the body.
Why did Arlo have a detailed memory of crossing a fence that would be
built years later? Why did he recall that by crossing that yet-to-be
fence Anna Mae knew she was about to be killed?
Eccoffey thinks he sees rope burns on the corpse’s wrists in the crime
scene photos. It is here that the kidnapping story is born. There is
no mention of rope burns by either medical examiner in both autopsy
reports.
Dr. Gary Peterson who performed the second autopsy said that Anna
Mae’s severed hands were returned to him. He examined them and
rejoined them with the body.
Dr. Peterson also said he examined the genitalia and it appeared
normal. He did not mention evidence of trauma or rape.
Many lies and exaggerations have been told by FBI and their spin
doctors in this story to manipulate our emotions. One of the worst is
the rape of Anna Mae.
Both Arlo and John have been accused of raping Anna Mae by the FBI
spinmeisters. Dill and Demain have ranted that six to eight AIM men
raped Anna Mae Aquash either while she was interrogated or being held
captive. That is a sick male fantasy.
Dr. Gary Peterson did not say there was evidence that Anna Mae had
been raped and beaten. How many friends have cried over the years at
the thought of their sister being bound and gang raped by her
brothers? The thought of her being beaten so badly that ten teeth are
knocked out is heartbreaking. Those lies are unconscionable.
This case is classic FBI cointelpro. Anna Mae Aquash was targeted by
the FBI for elimination. They think they are wriggling out of their
responsibility for her assassination by this sham trial of Arlo
Looking Cloud.
The FBI has used Indian journalists to plant their lies and shine the
light away from their culpability. They claim to have lost all
evidence connected with the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. They continue
to release new accusations of a nonexistent beating and rape.
There was no evidence presented at Arlo’s trial linking him to the
murder of Anna Mae Aquash. By their own testimony some of those who
turned state implicated themselves. They appear guiltier than Arlo.
Angie Janis admits being a part of the Denver AIM meeting that decided
that Anna Mae Aquash was an informant. She physically stops Troy Lynn
Yellow Wood from calling the police to save Anna Mae.
John Trudell claims to have received a distress signal from Aquash in
the form of a ring. A letter supposedly from Anna Mae was recently
released on the internet. The letter states the ring was given to AIM
attorney Beverly Axelrod to mail. That letter was supposedly written
while Anna Mae was in a Vancouver Washington jail after the Brando
motor home bust on November 14 of 1975.
There was plenty of time for Trudell to intervene on Anna Mae’s behalf
if she had been killed on December 12 1975 as the FBI asserted in
Arlo’s trial. There would have been more time if she had been killed
in the middle of February as stated by the FBI’s first press release
of her death.
Kamook Nichols Banks Ecoffey stated in her CBC interview with Anna
Marie Tremonti that she learned one day that Anna Mae was having an
affair with her husband Dennis Banks. The next day Anna Mae was
interrogated about being an informant.
Dennis Banks stated to Tremonti that if he had a choice of who he
would spend the rest of his life with, he would have chosen Anna Mae.
Kamook testified that Dennis Banks and Leonard Peltier forced Anna Mae
to make bombs. They wanted to frame Aquash with her own fingerprints
on the bombs. It would seem that fingerprints would be destroyed when
the bomb detonated.
There seems to be descriptions of at least two different bodies in the
crime scene reports and the two separate autopsies. Anyone who points
this out is ridiculed by the FBI apologists. Yet the strongly
differing descriptions are in their own reports in their own words.
No evidence of any kind was presented during the trial to prove that
Anna Mae Aquash was kidnapped, held prisoner, beaten and raped. There
is no evidence linking Arlo to a kidnapping, rape, or murder. All
testimony was hearsay. Most of it was about the American Indian
Movement, not Arlo.
Arlo’s new attorney Terry Gilbert filed an appeal on the grounds of
ineffective assistance of counsel; plain error of the court in
admitting into evidence non-probative information that was highly
prejudicial and not relevant to the case, admission of hearsay
evidence and failure to give appropriate jury instructions and
insufficiency of the evidence.
The eighth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Arlo’s appeal. They ruled
that Rensch did not provide ineffective assistance by failing to move
to suppress the taped police interview because Arlo was intoxicated.
The police did not test the level of alcohol and drugs in Arlo’s
system. There was no evidence that he was incapacitated.
The most damning testimony was that of Darlene “Kamook” Nichols Banks
Eccoffey. They deduced from Kamook’s testimony that several AIM
members (including Kamook) took Anna Mae away for weeks to “watch
her.” Kamook said that Aquash was constantly watched, was not allowed
to go anywhere alone, and was not permitted to go home despite her
requests to do so. According to Ken Stern’s book “Loud Hawk” Anna Mae
had the power to deny Russ Redner’s request for a weapon on that
caravan.
The trial of Arlo Looking Cloud is frightening for several reasons.
The American Indian Movement appeared to be on trial not Arlo. The
Movement was found guilty of a propensity for violence. That was
primarily based on Kamook’s testimony. There was no physical evidence
presented against Arlo himself.
Angie Janis testified that Anna Mae was carried from Yellow Wood’s
house tied to a board. Yet she did not see Anna Mae’s hands tied.
Yellow Wood testified that Anna Mae walked out and left of her own
accord, though unwillingly. The court accepted Angie Janis’ version,
the kidnapping story. The court deduced that since Aquash was tied to
a board, Arlo knew she was going to be killed.
Kamook Nichols Banks Ecoffey claims that Anna Mae was her best friend
and she was a prisoner on the Brando motor home caravan. Kamook did
not try to help her escape. She was part of that cell. Did she aid and
abet in the kidnap and imprisonment of her best friend? She did not
use her influence as the wife of AIM’s cofounder and top leader to
stop the rumors or to protect Anna Mae.
If a kidnapping did occur in Denver then Angie Janis aided and abetted
by stopping Troy Lynn Yellow Wood from calling for help. Angie Janis
received the phone call and carried the message to Denver AIM that
Anna Mae was to be returned to South Dakota. She admits to sitting in
on a meeting that decided that Anna Mae was an informant.
The American Indian Movement dies in a snake pit from its own venomous
bites. Members point fingers at each other and hurl accusations.
John Trudell testified that he was told of Anna Mae’s murder by Dennis
Banks. Trudell says this was before the FBI announced that the Wanblee
body was Aquash.
Dennis Banks stated in his memoir “Ojibwa Warrior” that Trudell told
him that the Wanblee body was Anna Mae. This was also before the FBI
announced the name.
The trial transcripts read like a bad script for a really bad movie.
The federal government may have convicted Arlo Looking Cloud of aiding
and abetting a murder. Without concrete evidence against Arlo, the
federal government did not acquit themselves of the murder of Anna Mae
Aquash.
Dave
Excellent summary and analysis.
Sizzle Flambé
| Monica Charles ... becomes "a person of interest"
| and the focus of some investigators because of
| information and statements she posts on the internet
| that appear to be an intentional attempt to create
| confusion in the Aquash and Peltier cases, a commonly
| used tactic by AIM leaders or supporters over the
| years to mislead journalists and the public.
-- News From Indian Country
<http://tinyurl.com/annie-mae-timeline-iv-2>
| [Monica] Charles emerges as one of the few and
| loudest supporters of John Graham in recent years,
| posting discredited and false information online
| and drawing the attention of defense attorneys
| and federal authorities.
-- News From Indian Country
<http://tinyurl.com/annie-mae-timeline-iii-3>
| Disinformation is deliberately misleading information
| announced publicly or leaked [..] for the purpose of
| influencing opinions or perceptions.
|
| Unlike misinformation, which is also a form of wrong
| information, disinformation is produced by people
| who intend to deceive their audience.
|
| A group might plant disinformation in reports, in
| press releases, in public statements or in practically
| any other routine, occasional or unusual communique.
| Disinformation can also be leaked, or covertly
| released to a source who can be trusted to repeat
| the false information.
|
| A common disinformation tactic is to mix truth,
| half-truths, and lies. Disinformants sometimes seek
| to gain the confidence of their audience through
| emotional appeals or by using semi-neutral language
| interlaced with threads of disinformation.
--<http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Disinformation>
Dave
Mixer of truth indeed, "Sizzle".
zayton
What is the truth about your claims to be an Indian?
Dave
>
> - Show quoted text -
What is the truth of your true identity?
zayton
Joseph Lloyd Skelton
Your turn.
s�r`ch�sm
> "Dave" <seals...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> "zayton" <zay...@newwavecomm.net> wrote:
>>
>> What is the truth about your claims to be an Indian?
>>
>
> Joseph Lloyd Skelton
> Your turn.
Maybe dave will actually answer the repeated question, instead of dodging it
yet again. Odds are against it but hey, it's possible.