From the All-Afrikan People's Revolutionary Party: Long Live Wabun-inini!!!!

[rebelAfrika]

LONG LIVE WABUN-ININI!!!!

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing our Brother Comrade WaBun-Inini of the American Indian Movement. WaBun-Inini was 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 was Co-founder and first Executive Director of the Denver AIM Chapter. His involvement at Wounded Knee in 1973 led to a Federal indictment. He was 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. Our Brother and Comrade was President of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports & Media and recipient of the City of Phoenix, Martin Luther King Human Rights Award 1993. Our Brother Comrade always supported the struggle of Afrikans to acheive Pan-Afrikanism, the total liberation and unification of Afrika under scientific socialism.

[rebelAfrika]

*PLEASE PRAY FOR THE FAMILY OF VERNON BELLECOURT*
*Send your comments to American Indian Movement's Myspace



Vernon Bellecourt
(WaBun-Inini)

SERVICES

MONDAY
October 15, 2007
5:00 PM
ALL NATIONS CHURCH
1515 East 23rd Street
Minneapolis, Minnesota

TUESDAY
October 16, 2007
Circle of Life School
White Earth, Minnesota

WEDNESDAY
Funeral
White Earth, Minnesota

For further information contact Clyde Bellecourt at 612-251-5836

Donations needed and accepted


AIM Leader Vernon Bellecourt Dies at 75
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Vernon Bellecourt, a longtime leader of the American Indian Movement who fought against the use of American Indian nicknames for sports teams, died Saturday his brother said. He was 75.

Bellecourt died at Abbott Northwestern Hospital of complications of pneumonia, according to Clyde Bellecourt, a founding member of the militant American Indian rights group.

Just before he was put on the respirator, Vernon Bellecourt joked that the CIA had finally gotten him, his brother said.

"He was willing to put his butt on the line to draw attention to racism in sports," his brother said.

Vernon Bellecourt — whose Objibwe name WaBun-Inini means Man of Dawn — was a member of Minnesota's White Earth band and was an international spokesman for the AIM Grand Governing Council based in Minneapolis.

Clyde Bellecourt helped found AIM as a militant group in 1968 and Vernon Bellecourt soon became involved, taking part in the 1973 occupation of the town of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. He was present only briefly during the 71-day standoff with federal agents, serving mostly as a spokesman and fundraiser, Clyde Bellecourt said.

He was active in the campaign to free AIM activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of killing two FBI agents during a shootout in 1975 on the Pine Ridge reservation.

He was also involved as a negotiator in AIM's 1972 occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington as part of the Trail of Broken Treaties caravan.

In recent years, Bellecourt had been active in the fight against American Indian nicknames for sports teams as president of the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media.

He was arrested in Cleveland during the 1997 World Series and again in 1998 during protests against the Cleveland Indians' mascot, Chief Wahoo. Charges were dropped the first time and he was never charged in the second case.

After Wounded Knee, Vernon Bellecourt became a leader of AIM's work abroad, meeting with presidents such as Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, his brother said. He said they plan to list them as honorary pallbearers.

Clyde Bellecourt said his brother had been in Venezuela about four weeks ago to meet with President Hugo Chavez to discuss Chavez' program for providing heating assistance to American Indian tribes. He fell ill around the time of his return, Clyde Bellecourt said.