American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council

[XXPANTHAXX]

MINISTRY FOR INFORMATION
P.O. Box 13521
Minneapolis MN 55414
612/ 721-3914 . fax 612/ 721-7826
Email: aimggc@worldnet.att.net
Web Address: www.aimovement.org


Ward Churchill was scheduled to speak at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York on February 3, 2005. His appearance was canceled by the college after he caused a public furor over his loathsome remarks about the 9-11 tragedy in New York. AIM's Grand Governing Council has been dealing with Churchill's hateful attitude and rip-off of Indian people for years.




The American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council representing the National and International leadership of the American Indian Movement once again is vehemently and emphatically repudiating and condemning the outrageous statements made by academic literary and Indian fraud, Ward Churchill in relationship to the 9-11 tragedy in New York City that claimed thousands of innocent people’s lives.

Churchill’s statement that these people deserved what happened to them, and calling them little Eichmanns, comparing them to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, who implemented Adolf Hitler’s plan to exterminate European Jews and others, should be condemned by all.

The sorry part of this is Ward Churchill has fraudulently represented himself as an Indian, and a member of the American Indian Movement, a situation that has lifted him into the position of a lecturer on Indian activism. He has used the American Indian Movement’s chapter in Denver to attack the leadership of the official American Indian Movement with his misinformation and propaganda campaigns.

Ward Churchill has been masquerading as an Indian for years behind his dark glasses and beaded headband. He waves around an honorary membership card that at one time was issued to anyone by the Keetoowah Tribe of Oklahoma. Former President Bill Clinton and many others received these cards, but these cards do not qualify the holder a member of any tribe. He has deceitfully and treacherously fooled innocent and naïve Indian community members in Denver, Colorado, as well as many other people worldwide. Churchill does not represent, nor does he speak on behalf of the American Indian Movement.

New York’s Hamilton College Kirklands Project should be aware that in their search for truth and justice, the idea that they have hired a fraud to speak on Indian activism is in itself a betrayal of their goals.

Dennis J. Banks, Ojibwa Nation
Chairman of the Board
American Indian Movement
Phone: 218-654-5885


Nee Gon Nway Wee Dung, aka, Clyde H. Bellecourt, Ojibwa Nation
National Executive Director
American Indian Movement
Cell: 612-251-5836
Office: 612-724-3129


Press Contact:
WaBun-Inini, aka, Vernon Bellecourt, Ojibwa Nation
Executive Committee Member
Director Council on Foreign Relations
American Indian Movement
Office: 612-721-3914
Cell: 612-889-0796


See the following:

Us vs AIM

Us vs AIM Backgound

Indian Country Today: Editors' Report

The Public's Response

Churchill Cartoon

For more information regarding Churchill’s fraudulent enrollment:

United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians of Oklahoma
Enrollment officer: 918-431-0385 or 918-456-8698

[rebelAfrika]

WaBun-Inini aka Vernon Bellecourt of the American Indian Movement (AIM) is planning on traveling through California February 28th – March 5th 2005 and will be available to speak at various campuses. His biography is below. If anybody is interested please PM me.


Vernon Bellecourt
(WaBun-Inini)
Anishinabe - Ojibwe Nation
{Minnesota}

Vernon is a principal spokesman for the American Indian Movement and a leader in actions ranging from the 1972 occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington to the 1992 Redskin Superbowl demonstrations. He is Co-founder and first Executive Director of the Denver AIM Chapter. His involvement at Wounded Knee in 1973 led to a Federal indictment. He is a special representative of the International Indian Treaty Council and helped organize the first Treaty Conference in 1974. He was jailed for throwing his blood on the Guatemalan Embassy to protest the killing of 100,000 Indians. He was elected to a 4-year term in his White Earth tribal government and developed a model program for the spiritual education of Indian prisoners. Vernon is President of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports & Media and recipient of the City of Phoenix, Martin Luther King Human Rights Award 1993.
·1 Spiritual, Cultural, Philosophical, Ideological, Social, Economic, & Political Realities
·2 The American Indian Movement: 1492 to the Present
·3 The International Indian Treaty Council: 1974 to the Present
·4 Indian Tribal Law, and International Treaty Law
·5 Constitutional Rights, FBI/CIA Surveillance & Covert Action
·6 Mascots & Stereotypes

[soulrise925]

www.coloradoaim.org/blog

Colorado AIM Press Release
1 FEBRUARY 2005

Denver, CO

THE AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT (AIM) OF COLORADO CONFIRMS ITS SUPPORT OF WARD CHURCHILL AS A MEMBER OF OUR LEADERSHIP COUNCIL

COLORADO AIM CONDEMNS RACIST ATTACKS AGAINST CHURCHILL

CONTACT:
Dr. Tink Tinker (303) 229-7756 – Elder’s Council representative
Colorado AIM – 303-871-0463

The Elder’s Council and the Leadership Council of the American Indian Movement (AIM) of Colorado confirm our support for Ward Churchill as a member of our chapter, and as a member of the Leadership Council of Colorado AIM. Colorado AIM further condemns the transparent, racist attacks against Churchill by those who seek to silence alternative voices. While Churchill’s particular statements about events of September 11, 2001 were his personal views, his broader critical analysis of U.S. domestic and foreign policy is consistent with Colorado AIM’s perspective.

Colorado AIM is one of the largest and most active AIM chapters in the United States. Our strength, power and authority springs from our spirituality, from the example of our ancestors, and from the members of our community who embrace our principles.

We neither recognize, nor do we accept, the dictates of any person or persons who pretend to speak for us. Any person or entity that purports to speak on behalf of Colorado AIM other than our Elder’s Council or the Leadership Council, is being dishonest. Each AIM chapter is independent and autonomous, and our authority emerges from the voice of the people in our community, and we support Ward Churchill.

Ward Churchill has been an important member and leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM) of Colorado since at least 1984. His analysis of U.S. law and policy has been an essential tool in educating both indigenous and non-indigenous people on the history and the current circumstances of native peoples in the Americas. Ward has been tireless in his defense of indigenous peoples’ aspirations for freedom and justice around the world, and we applaud him for his numerous contributions.

Colorado AIM is painfully familiar with racist attacks against our movement, and against individuals in our movement, of which this is simply the most recent. We do not have to agree with every statement, or with every position that members of our chapter take in order to rally to their support when they are subject to an unprincipled, anti-Indian lynch mobs.

Churchill is not under attack because of a couple of statements that he made about the events of September 11, 2001. He is under attack because he has exposed the pain and the suffering caused by U.S. domestic and foreign policy. He does so without apology, and from the perspective of an indigenous scholar. He is under attack by racists who would prefer to silence indigenous voices altogether, and who would erase the history of indigenous peoples from the memory of the Western Hemisphere.

Our view of Ward Churchill is not through the lens of a few sentences taken out of context for calculated purposes. Our view is of an indigenous man who has devoted decades of his life to the defense of indigenous peoples’ self-determination and freedom.

The fact is not lost on us that the attacks on Churchill began immediately after the acquittal of him and others in the Columbus Day trials in Denver. Colorado AIM is proud of the actions of Churchill and the other Columbus Day resisters. We will continue our efforts to remove the slave-trading, Indian killer Columbus as a national hero, and we will continue with our numerous other initiatives to promote indigenous peoples’ freedom.

We are especially mindful of Governor Bill Owens’ hypocritical statements condemning Churchill. By making such statements, Owens takes his place along side other racist governors such as John Evans, one of the main instigators of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864. Just this past fall, Owens had the audacity to refer to the Cheyenne and Arapaho people as “blackmailers� and “extortionists� for their economic development plan in Colorado. Now, he is attacking one of the few tenured American Indian professors in the state, using such McCarthyist claims that Churchill is “un-American� and a “terrorist defender.� Owens should immediately apologize to Churchill, and should keep his uniformed and ignorant statements to himself.

We also call on the Board of Regents for the University of Colorado to respect their own rules on academic freedom, and to affirm Ward Churchill’s right to speak openly and freely as a scholar and a freethinker, and to continue his duties as one of the few indigenous academics in the University of Colorado system.