Smokin' Ace

Dennis Banks speaks out

Posted: April 23, 2004 - 10:48am EST
by: Brenda Norrell / Southwest Staff Reporter / Indian Country Today

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Dennis Banks, national chairman of the American Indian Movement, said the FBI knew who shot Anna Mae Pictou Aquash at the time it happened 28 years ago. Banks linked Aquash’s death with her knowledge of the events surrounding the rape of a Lakota teenager, allegedly by William Janklow.

Speaking at the University of New Mexico, Banks said it is not known who fired the shot that killed Aquash, but it is known that the FBI’s informant network was responsible for spreading rumors that Aquash was an FBI informant.

Further, Banks said the real target of the prosecution is the AIM leadership. "They are going to point the finger at the American Indian Movement. If they want to point the finger at Dennis Banks, bring it on," Banks said.

Banks spoke of his new autobiography, "Ojibwa Warrior," birth of the American Indian Movement, racism at the University of New Mexico and murder of Aquash.

Banks said there are two people he glorifies in the book, Kamook Nichols and Aquash.

"In their hearts, at that time, they were what the movement was all about, to move on, move on with dignity and pride."

Banks questioned why it took so many years for Aquash’s murder to go on trial.

"Her death has been a mystery, but it was not a mystery to AIM or the FBI," he told Native students and professionals in the packed student union conference room.

Banks said part of the tragedy of her murder was answered during the federal trial of Arlo Looking Cloud in Rapid City, S.D., in February, but not all of it.

"The question of who pulled the trigger remains unanswered."

Banks said John Graham, charged in Vancouver, British Columbia, with first-degree murder in the case, was offered a deal by the FBI three weeks ago.

"If he gave up the AIM leadership, they would let him walk on the Anna Mae murder," Banks said, indicating Graham would be expected to give information or testify against AIM leaders.

Banks said he had long wanted to know who initiated and spread rumors that Aquash was an FBI informant. "I never believed that she was an informant."

Banks pointed out that FBI Special Agent David Price testified during the Looking Cloud trial that Aquash was not an FBI informant.

Banks also pointed out that Aquash told friends that Price told her she would not live out the year.

"David Price was the one who built the informant network against the American Indian Movement," Banks said. "It was the FBI informant network themselves that began to spread that rumor."

Referring to the mid-1970s, Banks said those were scary times and the rumor spread orchestrated by the FBI.

"Who set this in motion," Banks asked. "I will take this to my grave that it was the FBI that set this in motion."

Detailing the years before Aquash’s death, Banks said he prosecuted a white man in Rosebud, S.D., for the rape of an Indian girl. The white man, an attorney, was disbarred in Rosebud Sioux Tribal Court.

Then, the white people of South Dakota turned out in droves to elect that man, first as South Dakota Attorney General, then as South Dakota governor for 16 years and finally as U.S. Congressman. That same man later prosecuted Banks on riot charges. That man was William Janklow.

Without calling her by name, Banks was referring to Jancita Eagle Deer, who testified that Janklow raped her and threatened her with a gun in January of 1967, while she was a minor in his care. Eagle Deer was mysteriously struck by a car in a remote part of Nebraska and killed in April 1975. Within a year, Aquash was also dead.

Referring to Aquash’s knowledge of Janklow and the rape and death of Eagle Deer, Banks said, "Anna Mae was a part of that and she was killed violently."

Banks also spoke of the cold Anishinabe country of Minnesota, where he now harvests wild rice, in America’s largest wild rice field of Leech Lake. Maple syrup, blueberries and chokecherries, for syrups and jellies, are also harvested and sold in his food line.

"Now we make wild plum jelly, delicious," he said, adding, "If we had to live on natural foods, we’d probably starve to death."

Banks told of his tiny home that’s so cold that the fax machine freezes up, and of constructing birch bark canoes for races.

Banks was spring lecturer in the Native American Lecture Series, sponsored by UNM’s Native Studies Department.

Calling for a boycott of the university administration, Banks described a recent racist incident on campus, where a white student attempted to unplug the music of an American Indian band in an outdoor concert. Banks said the university president’s letter was not satisfactory.

"Send it back," Banks said. "An act of racism is an act of racism that needs to be dealt with."

Banks said AIM was founded because Native people were filling the jails, standing in bread lines and being beaten in jail elevators. In Minneapolis, police paddy wagons backed up to the back doors of bars and packed them with Native people.

Before the birth of AIM, Banks and a white friend, Bill Clark, were arrested for burglary. Banks was sentenced to prison, but not Clark. In prison, Banks looked around and saw the reason why.

While in prison, Banks was inspired by newspaper accounts of Vietnam War protests, with tens of thousands marching in the streets. Today, however, he said there is complacency and American Indians are lost to wars.

"Our sons and daughters volunteer, they go to the wars we are dragged into, they go willingly and we lose them.

"Bush has pushed us to the point of being warmongers. But mothers and fathers have the caskets coming home - there is no cheering."

On a book promotion tour through California, Arizona and New Mexico, Banks praised Indian gaming for providing revenues for development. But he pointed out that governors are now trying to "latch on to Indian money."

Referring to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Banks said an Austrian, elected governor of California, is now asking American Indians to "pay their fair share."

Describing the slaughter of American Indians, Banks said American Indians have paid their fair share. He said Indians are not responsible for the states’ imbalanced budgets.

If California wants to tax an industry, Banks said the state should begin with the motion picture industry. Since Schwarzenegger gets $15 to $20 million for a film, Banks said, "Let’s start taxing that."

Banks encouraged UNM students to push themselves toward creating their own jobs, rather than aspiring for corporate jobs.

Banks said he would never be too tired to stand up in the struggle.

"We are still who we are. We believe we are the landlords of this country."

Banks received a standing ovation.

"Ojibwa Warrior: Dennis Banks and the Rise of the American Indian Movement," by Dennis Banks with Richard Erdoes, is published by the University of Oklahoma Press.
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This article can be found at http://IndianCountry.com/?1082731800

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Everything is gonna be alright!

Be blessed - got love???

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www.myspace.com/akayo

Badmutha

Ask and ye shall receive. If AIM's leadership were to stop lying, I think I'd die of shock.

FYI this is why I don't give much credence to Indian Country Today. More glory to AIM, Aquash Shmaquash.

For reports on this issue from those who don't have their heads up the Bellcourts' A$$es, check out www.indiancountrynews.com

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Fish eyed fool!

billyjoejimbob

Maybe Peltier and the FBI should trade notes and many murders will be solved.

The feds are playing the game. "Leonard wont tell us who shot the agents, so we arent telling the NDNs who shot Annie Mae."

lbgood

:clapping: :clap: