Saturday, March 07, 2009

The FBI is rewriting our history

The FBI is altering their version of what happened in the 1970’s with Native Americans. It is a better fit for the image they want to project. They lost credibility with the uncovering of their Cointelpro or Counter Intelligence program by 1960’s radicals, the Weathermen.

The FBI and other cops infiltrated civil rights groups of the 1960’s and 1970’s. They exacerbated feuds between rival Black groups by sending out false letters and statements to anger each other. They provided floor plans to offices and apartments so the police could assassinate key people.

They accused people of being communists or informants to create suspicion. Communism was their boogey man. Accusations of being a communist could ruin an innocent person’s life and career.

They “leaked” rumors that Martin Luther King had communist affiliations. They put wire taps on his phones hoping to find dirt on the minister.

Dr. King began including other ethnic groups in his peaceful demonstrations. His idea of peace also included stopping the war in Vietnam. That was when the FBI decided that he was the most dangerous American in the country. They stalked and harassed him until he was murdered.

The FBI did all of that to the American Indian Movement. They sent FBI operative Doug Durham, a white man, to infiltrate at the top. He dyed his hair black and dressed and strutted like the Aim warriors. He was a pilot, a photographer, a writer. He made himself indispensable to Dennis Banks, AIM’s top leader. He became Dennis’ personal body guard, then head of National Security for the American Indian Movement.
Anna Mae Pictou was a young Micmac from Canada. She had gotten involved with the American Indian Movement in Boston. She and her boyfriend Nogeeshik Aquash went to the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973.

Anna Mae was pretty and intelligent. She caught the eye of Dennis Banks. She too became vital as an organizer, fundraiser and representative of the American Indian Movement. She was friend to the leadership and the rank and file. She moved with ease between the cities and reservations.

There is a document referenced on Steve Hendrick’s site for his book “The Unquiet Grave. It states that the FBI is concerned about Anna Mae’s meteoric rise up the ranks of the American Indian Movement. There is a document on Peltiers site that states that the FBI was monitoring girls that looked like Anna Mae.

After the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee she was associated with the leadership circle of AIM. She was friends with Dennis Banks’ wife Kamook. It was rumored that Anna Mae was having an affair with Banks.

Anna Mae suspected Doug Durham of being an informant or FBI plant. She tried to warn the leadership but was ignored. Durham was imbedded as part of AIM’s good old boys network.

The FBI engineered suspicion that Anna Mae herself was working with the FBI. They arrested her along with her friends and released her before everyone else. They made it look like she was collaborating.

While at an AIM convention someone informed Kamook that her husband Dennis Banks and Anna Mae were having an affair. The next day Anna Mae was allegedly questioned about being an informant by Banks’ bodyguard Leonard Peltier.
Anna Mae convinced her questioners that she was loyal to AIM not an FBI traitor.

She was arrested later at a Sundance on the Rosebud Reservation. She told friends that after being interrogated by FBI agent David Price he told her that if she didn’t cooperate with the FBI that she would be dead within the year. The FBI says that she was killed a few months later on December 12 1975.

It is here that the FBI story of Anna Mae begins to fall apart. According to the FBI she was kidnapped from a friends’ apartment in Denver. She purportedly was taken to South Dakota to again be questioned about being an informant.

Anna Mae was allegedly taken from Rapid City South Dakota to the Pine Ridge home of Dick Marshall. According to the FBI he provided the murder weapon to the two men accused of her murder. Charges of being an accessory to murder have been brought against Marshall.

Marshall’s attorney filed for dismissal because Richard Two Elk testified and stated in his interview with the Native American Journalists Association that Arlo handed the weapon to John Graham. There are two story lines at this point.

Although the FBI maintains that Graham, Looking Cloud and Nelson killed Anna Mae, Marshall’s wife testified that they tried to leave Anna Mae with them. Why would they do that if their intent was murder? Why would Marshall provide a murder weapon before the order for that murder came down?

Anna Mae is then taken to a house on the Rosebud reservation where they allegedly receive orders from American Indian Movement leaders to kill her. They return to Pine Ridge.

Anna Mae is taken to the top of a ravine and shot. She is then pushed over the bank. The FBI story also says that she was shot in the head and left at the edge of that ravine. Desperate and mortally wounded she crawls for help and falls off the ravine. She lays wounded for days before she freezes to death. Both stories can’t be true but they have been told and retold by the FBI and their supporters.

Richard Two Elk promotes a story that says that as Leonard Peltier was interrogating Anna Mae about being an informant he put a gun in her mouth. During Two Elks interview with the Native American Journalists Association Paul Demain asks him about a story about Anna Mae. It is rumored that she threatened to go to the FBI and tell them who shot Agents Coler and Williams if they don’t help Leonard. Now why would she endanger her life by making that threat? Would she place her life on the line for a man who put a gun in her mouth?

On May 12, 2009 John Graham and Richard Marshall go to court to face the American Just Us system. They are being charged with Aiding and Abetting in the murder of Anna Mae Aquash. Arlo Looking Cloud was convicted of Aiding and Abetting in the murder of Anna Mae Aquash.

There is no one who has been either charged or convicted of the murder of Anna Mae Aquash.