"Dark Night" in the publication's title recalls the words of Seattle =
who, two=20
generations before the slaughter at Wounded Knee, forecast a future f=
or
his relatives which promised to be long and dark. The Morning Star s=
ymbol
of our Cheyenne Relatives has been incorporated into the title and na=
meplate
of the publication to indicate that the end of this long night is app=
roaching.
Those whose words appear in the publication, the Dark Night Relatives=
, are
engaged in ending the darkness.
Submitting field notes or comments: Those wishing to submit field no=
tes
or to comment on notes which have been published are encourged to do =
so.
Notes and comments should be sent to: Dark Night Press, PO Box 3629,=
=20
Chicago, IL 60690-3629. The receipt of materials cannot be acknowled=
ged
and submitted matierals cannot be returned (so please keep a copy!) =
Not
all materials so submitted can or will be published.
EXXON Returns to Wisconsin: The Threat of the Crandon/Mole Lake Mine
(adapted from an article by Zoltan Grossman & Al Gedick
and information provided by the Madison Treaty Rights Support Group)
In 1975, Texas-based Exxon Minerals Co. discovered one of the
world's largest zinc-copper sulphide deposits (with traces of lead,
silver and gold) on a 12-square-mile tract of land promised to the
Mole Lake Sokaogon Chippewa in 1855, adjacent to the Mole Lake
Indian Reservation near Crandon, Wisconsin. Situated at the
headwaters of the Wolf River in Forest County, the underground
shaft mine would produce ore for about 20-25 years. In 1986, after
a decade of strong local opposition, Exxon withdrew from the
project. Now Exxon is trying again to get into Wisconsin and in
February 1994 announced its intention to mine with a new partner =
=20
Canada-based Rio Algom under the auspices of the newly-formed
"Crandon Mining Co."
This new Exxon/Rio Algom partnership wants to begin mining on a
massive scale in one of the most geologically and ecologically
sensitive places in the hemisphere the Great Lakes bioregion.=20
Any mining in this geological formation will unleash heavy metals,
other poisons, and possibly uranium into the waters. Four Native
American reservations are under immediate threat; but other
residents of all the states and provinces around the Great Lakes
and the Mississippi River Watershed will be deeply affected as
well.
Effects on the Environment
The mine would disrupt far beyond its surface area of 866 acres
(about one-tenth of which is wetlands). Over its lifetime, the mine
would generate an estimated 60 million tons of acidic wastes the
weight of 12 Great Pyramids of Egypt. When metallic sulphide wastes
have contact with water or air, the result is sulfuric acids, and
high levels of poisonous heavy metals like mercury, lead, zinc,
arsenic, copper, and cadmium. (Though it is technically feasible to
extract uranium from the ore, Exxon refuses to indicate such an
interest.)
Half of the projected mine waste is rocky "coarse tailings," which
would be dumped to fill up the mine shafts. The other half of the
waste is powdery "fine tailings," which would be dumped into a
waste pond about 90 feet deep and covering 365 acres. To control
leakage, Exxon plans to line the pond with only eight inches of a
bentonite clay mix. The Environmental Protection Agency admits that
tailings ponds are "regulated...loosely," and that leaks from even
the best dumps "will inevitably occur." Exxon's own geologist
admitted that "contamination is bound to occur no matter how wisely
a mine is designed...." Even the state Department of Natural
Resources (DNR) whose leadership is known to be bought and paid
for by major polluters says that in nearby creeks sulphate
levels would rise fivefold and lead and arsenic levels threefold.
Though such wastes are poisonous for centuries, Exxon would have
responsibility for only 10-30 years after the mine closes, even if
the tailings pond floods or collapses. Lands around former metallic
sulphide mines are notoriously difficult to reclaim.
In addition, the half-mile-deep mine shafts would themselves drain
groundwater supplies in much the same way that a hypodermic needle
draws blood from a patient. The wastewater would be constantly
pumped out of the shafts, "drawing down" water levels in a
four-square-mile area. "Dewatering" could lower lakes by several
feet, and dry up wells and springs. The contaminated wastewater
would have to be treated before being dumped into streams, but no
treatment system has been proven foolproof. The contamination and
draw-down of water directly threatens the survival of both fish and
wild rice.
The wastewater could be dumped at an average rate of over 2000
gallons a minute into trout-rich steams that drain into the nearby
Wolf River. The Wolf is a state Outstanding Resource Water (ORW)
allowing no degrading of its pristine quality and its lower
half is protected as a National Wild and Scenic River. Exxon
strongly opposed the ORW status of the Wolf, which is the state's
largest whitewater trout stream supporting brown, brook, and
rainbow trout. The Menominee Nation strongly opposes the mine,
partly because the Wolf River flows through its reservation. Trout
Unlimited's Wolf River chapter says that "the mine as proposed
would be a serious threat to the Wolf River as a trout stream....".
Effects on Native Peoples
This proposed mine directly threatens the survival of the Mole Lake
Sokaogon band, the Forest County Potawatomi, the Stockbridge Munsee
(Mohican), and the Menominee Nations.=20
While the planned mine lies on territory ceded by the Chippewa
Nation to the U.S. in 1942, treaties guaranteed Chippewa access to
wild rice, fish and some wild game on these ceded lands. The Mole
Lake Reservation (formed in 1934) is among the prime harvesters of
wild rice in Wisconsin. Swamp Creek flows directly from the mine
site into the wild rice beds in Rice Lake, inside the reservation
boundaries.=20
In addition, the nearby Menominee, Potawatomi, and
Stockbridge-Munsee nations would be severely affected by the mine
pollution and the social upheaval brought by new outsiders. With
Mole Lake, they have formed the Nii Win Intertribal Council (Nii
Win is Ojibwa for "four"), which in turn is working in alliance
with environmental and fishing groups within a campaign called
"W.A.T.E.R." (Watershed Alliance Toward Environmental
Responsibility). From 1985 until the anti-Indian protests ended in
1992, the Wisconsin conflict over treaty spearfishing pitted
Chippewas against some white fishermen over natural resources Now
the mining conflict finds Native Americans and some non-Indian
fishing groups on the same side, opposing an outside threat to the
same resources. Nii Win's resolve to struggle against these threats
may help preserve nearby waterways for Indian and non-Indian alike.
The Mole Lake tribal council showed the strength of their belief
that their land is more precious than greed by ripping up a $20,000
Exxon check (which would have bought reservation mineral rights).
Tribal Judge Fred Ackley says, "If they go ahead with their mine,
our tribe is going to be devastated."=20
Effects on the Economy
The economic benefits of mining have been compared to drugs
giving a false high, followed by a terrible crash. This
"boom-and-bust" cycle has ruined local economies from Michigan's
Upper Peninsula to Appalachia. Mining companies promise jobs, but
give most of them to highly skilled outside workers. This large
influx of miners brings local service costs (such as new sewers and
schools), inflation in land and housing prices (especially
affecting older residents), and huge social costs if the mine
closes or the company decides to withdraw. USA Today reports that
six out of the top ten counties with the largest population loss
have gone through mining busts.
Wisconsin taxpayers who live nowhere near the mine would have to
foot the bill, too. The company does not have to pay for any
clean-up costs (which can total in the millions of dollars) once
its care responsibility is over. We are already paying for new
powerlines, highway widenings, and other projects associated with
the mine. When mining supporters say that a mine brings in new tax
revenues, they would like us to forget that Wisconsin's mining tax
(and environmental law) was written full of loopholes. The
regulatory teeth of this law were knocked out as the result of an
effort led by the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and State
Administration Secretary James Kaluser, himself a former Exxon
lobbyist. Why is Exxon happy? If the Mole Lake mine doesn't make a
profit, there would be no taxes to pay, so the fact that a current
glut on the market is driving down the price of zinc doesn't worry
them too much.=20
Can corporations like Exxon and Rio Algon be allowed to
mine in anybody's back yard?
Exxon, (once John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Co.)
is the world's largest oil giant, with a budget that dwarfs that of
most countries. It is also one of the world's biggest producers of
coal, uranium, copper and other minerals. Exxon Minerals has
invested heavily in copper mining in Chile (only five years after
a miliary junta took power), and uranium mining in many countries.
Its El Cerrej=A2n coal mine in a Guaijiro Indian region of Colombia
put it on the Survival International list of the Top Ten Corporate
Violators of Native Rights. (It also was accused of weakening the
country's mining tax and exaggerating job prospects for local
people. From 1986-90, 32 mine workers died on the job.
<F64029B>Crandon Mining Co. President Jerry Goodrich was vice
president of operations in El Cerrej=A2n.<F255D>) Wyoming officials
found Exxon "unusually uncooperative" in dealing with environmental
health problems, worker safety, and economic impacts around its
Highland uranium mine. Exxon had the worst mine safety record among
the 20 top U.S. underground mining firms in 1989.
The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill severely damaged the fishing
industry around Alaska's Prince William Sound, and killed ducks,
otters, mussels, and more. Commercial fishermen today say the
salmon haven't returned in adequate numbers. Exxon refuses to meet
with the fishermen or impacted Native villages, claiming that the
spill has been cleaned up. A federal NOAA official has challenged
Exxon data, and has said the clean-up may take another decade.
The Public Relations officer at Crandon, Wiley Bragg, was
Exxon's PR man during the Alaska spill.
Rio Algom is best known worldwide for it
disastrous Elliot Lake uranium mines in Ontario, which poisoned
fish and other aquatic life in the Serpent River. The Canadian
government fined it for spreading high-level radioactivity in
water-ways. A nearby Ojibwa (Chippewa) reservation curtailed its
fishing in the river, due to chronic diseases, fetal deaths, and
abnormal births. Rio Algom used to be owned by Rio Tinto Zinc
(RTZ), the British mining giant which has opened a controversial
Kennecott copper mine near Ladysmith. RTZ sold its shares in the
company (according to the Canadian industry voice The Northern
Miner) due to "potential liabilities" relating to cleaning up the
Elloit Lake disaster, and it could find no single buyer for Rio
Algom. Like Exxon, it is developing copper in Chile, and uranium in
Wyoming, and New Mexico.=20
Clearly, corporations like Exxon and Rio Algom whose sole raison
d'=88tre is to make money and whose corporate history is littered
with the spread of death, disease and toxic pollution cannot be
trusted to mine in anybody's backyard!=20
Institutionalized Racism in Postsecondary Educating
Confronting Traditional Native Americans
by Darren Kelly, LPSG/Columbus
5th Year architecture Student at The Ohio State University
(reprinted with permission from Dark Night Field Notes, Summer 1994)
It's no great revelation to anyone who has been even remotely
involved with Indian education: the post-secondary education
system, being a construct of Western society, serves the interests
of Western people at the expense of Native Americans.
It's not that Native People are specifically targeted for racism by
educators anymore; they don't have to be. The education system,
like the society that produced and maintains it, is engineered in
such a fashion that traditional Native Americans are subjugated by
its bureaucracy, its curricula, and its goals.
If post-secondary institutions are to make good on promises (not to
mention legal obligations) to provide for truly equal opportunity
to education regardless of race, then those institutions must serve
Native students. The problem is that colleges and universities in
the United States have absolutely no idea what the needs of Native
American students might be, and are therefore grossly unable to
assess and meet them.
Regardless of earnest statements of noblest intentions to serve
Native American students, most college and university
administrators still fail to even remotely understand the
constituency they profess to serve. Cultural hubris prevents those
administrators from ever appealing to traditional Natives for
counsel in identifying and meeting the needs of Native students. As
a result, non-traditional non-Natives continue dictating policy for
traditional Natives, and effective solutions to recruitment and
retention of Native students continue to elude administrators and
demoralize students.
Those administrators are not entirely culpable for the low numbers
of graduating Native students, but they are responsible. Being
products of the same system that currently terrorizes Native
students, staff and faculty are conditioned to be willing agents of
institutionalized racism that refuses to recognize the legitimacy
of contemporary Native America. As a result, traditional Native
Americans who desire to pursue a higher education, do so under the
assumptions of faculty and administrators that they will be only
more than happy to surrender their identity. In this fashion,
post-secondary institutions promote the genocidal agendas of
missions and turn-of-the-century boarding schools utilized by the
Federal Government to "kill the Indian, save the man."
Administrators recoil when confronted with such accusations, and
are quick to defend minority programming as evidence of commitment
to diverse student bodies. Almost invariably, these programs target
African Americans, and are sold to other constituency groups when
a complaint of neglect warrants response. This practice ignores one
fundament: traditional Native Americans are not white and do not
aspire to be.
Traditional People do not share in the vast majority of their
African American counterparts' aspirations to pursue the American
dream. The American dream has been realized at the expense of
Native Americans, and is another construct of a system which
requires their death as a prerequisite to their participation.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's vision of black and white,
Catholic and Protestant working together to build a stronger
America is exactly that: a wish for a stronger America. Indigenous
Nations have been invaded and destroyed in the name of a stronger
America, and Indian country (the remaining 2% of the continent)
suffers an ongoing military occupation by the government of the
United States. Every traditional Native student on campus lives
with the constant awareness that he or she does not enjoy the basic
human rights afforded to non-Native fellow students under the
Constitution of the United States. A stronger America means the
constant possibility of extinction.
Designers and administrators of policy in colleges and universities
are unable, or many times unwilling, to change their assumptions of
the aspirations of students to accommodate those held by
traditional Natives. These assumptions, that all students desire to
participate in the dominant culture for its advancement (and
consequently their own), serve as parameters to policy in
post-secondary institutions throughout the country.
Furthermore, it is not inaccurate to state that the vast majority
of faculty and staff at colleges and universities (including and
especially archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians) are
completely ignorant of the cultural realities of Native American
students. Young traditional Native People realize their role in the
context of their communities, and this serves as a primary
motivation to even enroll, and then endure the trauma of Western
ethnocentric curriculum. Spiritual leaders tell young Native People
that they are the end of seven generations of mourning following
the massacre at Wounded Knee. The Seventh Generation is charged
with the duty of mending the Sacred Hoop, and restoring the People.
For Native students of the Seventh Generation pursuing this end, a
degree is a necessity that means shouldering the burden of
educating educators while suffering racist practices, policy, and
curriculum at the hands of the institution from which he or she is
earning a degree. Traditional Natives place their spirituality at
risk by participating in the dominant culture's education system.
It is little wonder that two-thirds of Native Americans who enroll
in college never graduate.
When Native students protest such unfair treatment, it is not
uncommon for administrations to place Native students at odds with
more developed communities of far greater numbers in competition
for limited resources. At the Ohio State University, Native
Americans were given an office in what they were told was a
multicultural center, when in fact, African Americans were informed
the same building was exclusively for them. What resulted was a
confrontation in which the Native student organization's flag was
stolen, and organization members were threatened with violence. The
administration's response was a policy regulating Native American
cultural displays on campus, and a denial of responsibility for the
safety for Native people on campus. Native leadership on campus has
declared the building off limits to Native students in the interest
of safety.
The sad truth is that the majority of post-secondary institutions
in the United States will not expend the energy and resources to
rectify the problems confronting Native Americans for the sole
reason that it remains economically unfeasible. Colleges and
universities will maintain small, beleaguered communities of Native
Americans on campus (always the bare minimum to meet federal
mandates), but without the recruitment and retention efforts
allotted to other constituencies, Native students will merely
subsist.
Until it becomes an economic liability to deprive Native Americans
of their right to earn a college degree without surrendering who
they are, institutions of higher education will continue to
practice racist policy and espouse abusive curriculum in the name
of the academe. In the interim, Native students will have to seek
those few campuses that have undertaken the commitment to
understand Native issues and provide for the needs of Native
students.=20
Dark Night Press
PO Box 3629
Chicago, IL 60690-3629
Subscriptions - $10/year USA
$20/year International
$ 5/year Seniors
$ 0/year Prisoners
Book Review: =20
The American Indian in the White Man's Prisons:
A Story of Genocide
Little Rock Reed, Ed.
by Lance Kramer, Regional Director LPSG/Region IV
Little Rock Reed was the founder and director of the
Native American Prisoner's Rehabilitation Research
Project (NAPRRP) until March of 1993 when he was
forced underground as a result of his refusal to=20
obey a direct order of the Ohio Adult Parole=20
Authority to stop speaking in public about crimes
being committed againt Indian prisoners (and other
prisoners) by prison officials and parole boards.
Asked what makes him such a threat, John Trudell's character in the
film Thunderheart responds, "...We choose the right to be who we
are. We know the difference between the reality of freedom and the
illusion of freedom." The statement comes to mind frequently in the
pages of testimony compiled by Little Rock Reed in this examination
of state and federal prisons as contemporary instruments being
systematically employed to carry forward the work of the "White
Peace," the work of Sand Creek, and the Washita, the work of
pox-laden blankets, and hotchkiss guns.
Native American Indians won't be surprised with its contents. The
story is all too familiar. It's written in the faces of the elders;
it's etched in the hearts of all those who have experienced the
White Peace," whether in boarding schools or at the graves of the
ancestors. Others those for whom the book is intended content
with illusion and unwilling to confront the vestiges of the system
they have created and support through their silence, will simply
avoid both its pages and its message. The "White Peace," after all,
requires the avoidance of thought which challenges the assumptions
upon which it is based.
There are really only two ways to view prisons: form the inside and
=66rom the outside. For a variety of reasons, most eloquently
addressed by those who have contributed to this book, we are seldom
exposed to the former. Even less frequently do we have access in
writing to American Indian perspectives. In providing such access,
Little Rock Reed has made a valuable contribution to our
understanding of the dynamics of the "White Peace" as it manifests
itself in rigid institutionalized form.
Establishing a sound historical context, the book focuses on
efforts to deny Indian spirituality and culture within the prison
system and forcefully documents the continuing formal role
Christianity plays in insuring the preservation of the "White
Peace." The testimony of both men and women, as well as the
correspondence of chaplains and prisons officials, is effectively
employed by Reed to detail how the historic "unholy alliance"
between government and the Christian church finds expression in
contemporary efforts to suppress and destroy Indian spirituality.
Those who have contributed to the volume present a remarkable
picture of a Christian prison system.
Those familiar with the circumstances of Leonard Peltier will find
Standing Deer Wilson's contribution to the book revealing. He
recalls both his role in the attempted assassination of Leonard and
provides insights into the remarkable strength and spirituality of
America's most well-known political prisoner. Those who have no
continuing concern for Leonard's safety will be disturbed by the
volume.
While understandably critical, the book's passages also contain
numerous suggestions on positive and indeed simple adjustments
which might be effected in the prison system not only to
accommodate Indian rights - cultural and spiritual - but also to
assist those men and women who are in the system. Those within
American society who wish front line exposure to the challenges of
a "multi-cultural" society would do well to study both its
criticisms and its suggestions carefully. No multi-cultural society
can be constructed on the premise of cultural "superiority."
The various contributors to the book also touch upon the use of
parole as a continuing mechanism of control and suppression. Little
Rock's own story demonstrates the extent to which the parole
structure can be manipulated to prevent and discredit both
criticism of the system and a consideration of legitimate and
thoughtful recommendations for change.
Reed has interviewed hundreds of individuals who have spoken freely
of their experiences. Their testimony and his own are perhaps our
best formal index to the circumstances of American Indians in the
White Man's prisons. While a certain sadness and resignation is
apparent in their words, the strength, the vitality, the
commitment, and the assurance of men and women who understand the
difference between the illusion of freedom and the reality of
freedom is apparent throughout. One is left with a sense of
satisfaction after reading its passages, satisfaction in knowing
that despite all, the "White Peace" is incapable of destroying the
spirit of the People!
I suspect many who read the book will, as I did, return to the
Prologue by Arthur Solomon many times as the various accounts are
being read. Entitled, "If there is No Justice there will be No
Peace," it should be required in every classroom in the United
States and Canada. Solomon expresses the spirit evidence throughout
the book in one passage: "We have survived the onslaught of
Christianity and civilization.... When the earth is made clean
again we will be here to take care of it...."=20
Like Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political
prisoner, and his struggle is ours. Railroaded into Pennsylvania's
Huntingdon state prison because of his political views, Jamal
received the death sentence. From death row he writes columns for
newspapers across the country. His commentaries can be heard on
KPFA (San Francisco), WBAI (New York), and KPFW (Washington, DC).
His powerful voice indicting the racism and injustices of this
country profoundly impacts those who hear it. Recently, National
Public Radio announced it would air a series of commentaries by
Jamal, then changed its mind two days hence after intense pressure
=66rom the Fraternal Order of Police. As the National Coalition to
Abolish the Death Penalty said,=20
"The death penalty is like a mushroom. It needs
darkness to grow. In order to hold public support for executions,
the people must be largely uninformed and misinformed.... The real
problem the Philadelphia police officers and others have with Mumia
Abu-Jamal's commentary on National Public Radio is that anyone
listening as he speaks will realize that he is human. He is
intelligent, articulate and alive. If that secret gets out, it will
become just a little bit harder to kill him."=20
Protest NPR's censorship by calling Bruce Drake,
Managing Editor (202) 414-2305, or fax (202) 414-3045. For more
information on Jamal's case, contact the Committee to Save Mumia
Abu-Jamal, 163 Amsterdam Avenue, No. 115, New York, NY 10023-5001.
17 May 1994
"I have a right to nothing, which another has a right to take away...=
"=20
Thomas Jefferson
America's third president, as a slaveowner, knew a
great deal about "rights taken away," and the nation that he helped
found knows a great deal about it, too.
Americans are taught, and the world is told, of the
First Amendment of the Constitution, which supposedly "guarantees"
fundamental rights to free exercise of religion, freedom of speech,
freedom of the press and freedom of association.
So do state history books, and law books numbering
into the millions.
In truth, such rights are illusory.
The recent controversy involving the writer is an
excellent case in point.
Hired by the prestigious All Things Considered program
aired on NPR network to produce brief commentaries, the writer, who
reported for ATC prior to his imprisonment, remarked to one
supporter that he felt like he was returning home.
NPR, stung by an FOP [Fraternal Order of Police] hate
campaign, mumbled something about "misgivings," and without
informing the writer, canceled the airing of the commentaries.
The FOP, branding the writer as a "monster" and
heaping abuse on the network, forced them to renege.
It is perhaps ironic that the FOP campaign began on
May 13th, several days before the scheduled air date, for it marked
nine years, to the day, after the Mother's Day MOVE massacre of at
least eleven MOVE babies, women and men in West Philadelphia by the
aerial bombing of MOVE's home in 1985.
Phila. police shot and killed fleeing MOVE women and
children, forced others back into a burning building, and stood by
while several blocks of West Philadelphia homes were consumed by
flames.
Who are the real monsters?
The same FOP that incinerated, decapitated and
dismembered people with judicial impunity, they call me, "monster"!
Are they then angels?
What rights of "free speech" exist when it can be
denied because the state objects to the speaker?
The same system that denied me the alleged "right" of
self-representation, that intentionally denied me of my "right" to
an impartial jury of my peers, that steered me to "trial" before a
judge who was a life member of the FOP and known as a "prosecutor's
dream"; that denied me the right to examine and/or cross-examine
witnesses, and that went back over a decade to introduce evidence
of my Black Panther Party membership and statements (said to be
"protected" under the First Amendment's "guarantee" of <|>"free"
association and "free" speech) and used these to argue for a death
sentence - these are the self-same forces that successfully
censored me from the genteel listeners of NPR's All Things (That
the Police Will Allow) Considered.
They have demonstrated how the media is mastered by
police power, and how the First Amendment, once again, is but a
dead letter.
They have made my point - and, I hope, yours.
Opinions From The Field
On Unity
Lisa Stalnaker Hellwig
LPSG/Lake in the Hills
The latest catchword with Native American activists is the word
"unity." With every article I post on the Internet concerning the
AIM Tribunal and the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, I receive
at least two or three responses back accusing me of fostering
disunity and disruption.
According to my Random House Dictionary, "unity" means "to form
into a single unit or a harmonious whole." Personally, I'm all for
it. But I resent being bludgeoned over the head with the word
"unity," especially when it is used as an attempt to silence those
of us who support Leonard and the Autonomous Chapters of AIM.
For instance, after I posted the Shelley Davis article on the
incident at the San Francisco Press Club during the press
conference after the March Tribunal (News From Indian County, Mid
April 1994), people responded by accusing me of promoting
disruption; however, none of these people felt that the California
N-AIM office was being disruptive by publishing lies about an LPDC
National Spokesperson.
When I posted Leonard's statement of January 30 on the Walk for
Justice, I again received responses accusing me of promoting
disunity within the Native American community. None of these people
believe, however, that by ignoring Leonard's entire support group
structure while planning this Walk, Dennis was promoting disunity.
The Bellecourts believe that by convening a Tribunal to examine
various charges against them, the Autonomous Chapters of AIM are
being divisive. Others, like Carole Standing Elk, have fallen in
behind the Bellecourts, crying that this action is causing damage
to Native American activists. They don't realize that their
behavior libeling other activists, giving drugs and alcohol to
children, subverting the original goals of AIM, and assaulting
Autonomous AIM members are far more divisive than the Tribunal.
Unity is more than a catchword. It involves putting aside personal
differences and working together on a common goal. We don't all
have to love each other or even like each other but we do have
to be able to rise above personalities and work together. Unity is
also a two-way street: We of the Leonard Peltier Support Group
network can be committed to unity, but that does not mean that we
allow our spokespeople and our members to be attacked. That's not
unity, that's being a doormat. Unity should not be confused with
never standing up for one's beliefs, or never correcting false
statements.
Unity should also never be used as a bludgeon to keep people in
line. It is incumbent upon support group members to make their
voices heard within and outside the LPSG network, as is happening
in this newsletter. We refuse to stand idly by while our own people
are being attacked, for to do so is to weaken us as an
organization. I believe that the Autonomous Chapters of AIM are
acting in true unity: they cannot stand by and allow irresponsible
people to destroy the reputation of AIM and to contaminate the
reputation of all Native Americans, for to do so is to allow racist
stereotypes to flourish.
I will be happy to stand in unity with Dennis Banks when he begins
to work with Leonard in good faith. I'll even stand in unity with
the Bellecourts when they stop using N-AIM as a means of extortion
and terror. Until then, there can be no unity with them.
It's not up to us, it's up to them.