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Wounded Knee: Free The Defendants, Implement The Treaties

By VVAW

"The United States agrees that the following district of country, to wit, (everything west of the Missouri River, north of the Northern Platte River and east of the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming), shall be... set apart fro the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians herein named..." That is part of the 17-article Treaty of 1868, signed at Fort Laramie, Dakota Territory, on April 29, 1868, by the leaders of the Brule band of the Sioux Nation and Lieutenant-General William T. Sherman and seven other U.S. Government representatives. This Treaty, which guarantees the sovereign use of this land, including Wounded Knee, to the Sioux and Arapaho Indians, was ratified by the U.S. Senate on February 16, 1869. Since its founding, the U.S. Government has signed 371 such treaties with Indian peoples, and the end result has been that their water, minerals and land have all been stolen and presided over by white administrators.

To dramatize their oppression, on February 27, 1973, with the requested help of the American Indian Movement (AIM), some 300 people began the 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee Village on the Pine Ridge Reservation. By the end of the siege on May 8th, two Indians, Buddy Lamont and Frank Clearwater, had been killed. The "peace" agreement reached on May 5th has been followed by beatings, harrassment and murder. Clarence Cross was murdered on his way home one night; Pedro Bissonette, who was a key defense witness in the Wounded Knee trials, was murdered by BIA police on October 17, 1973. Over 400 people have been arrested.

Three hundred and seventeen cases resulting from the occupation are now pending in Federal, State and Tribal Courts; the first major trial began on January 8, 1974, in St. Paul, Minnesota. AIM leaders Russell Means and Dennis Banks began their trial before Chief Judge Fred J. Nichol from South Dakota, who moved the trial out of the state after determining that a fair trial in South Dakota would be impossible.

Dennis Banks, 41, is a Chippewa born on the Leach Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota. He is married and has 13 children. In 1968 he co-founded the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis, and is currently its Executive Director. Speaking about his race he said, "So much is our misery, hunger and poverty that we must declare ourselves has having been engaged in the longest undeclared war in U.S. history. If the Government would react to problems that plague American Indian reservations with the same zest and enthusiasm as they sent troopers, then we would realize an end to some of the problems."

Russell Means, 34, is an Oglala Sioux from Porcupine, South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He is the father of four children. Currently he resides on the Pine Ridge Reservation where he is campaigning for tribal chairman against Dick Wilson and the corrupt BIA government. Of the trial Means said, "We are going to attempt for the first time in history through the federal judiciary system, in front of a jury, to prove that we, the American Indian, do have treaty rights."

Four other AIM leaders have a tentative trial date of March 1st in St. Paul. They are Clyde Bellecourt, Carter Camp, Leonard Crow Dog and Stan Holder. (The seventh defendant, Pedro Bissonette, was murdered in October.) From the beginning, the defendants have wanted to be tried together, but the Government has opposed all efforts to obtain joint trials. Judge Nichol ruled that only the Banks and Means cases will be tried together, and has held open the question of consolidation of future trials.

All six AIM leaders are charged with the following; Burglary, larceny, assault on a Federal officer, impeding federal officers in the course of a civil disorder, possession of unauthorized firearms, theft of a motor vehicle and conspiracy to commit each of the other acts. The overriding constitutional questions in these trials will be those involving treaty rights. Within that context, the defendants have challenged the Major Crimes Act which makes a federal crime out of all acts which violate state laws that are committed on a reservation. They have also challenged the constitutionality of the Civil Disobedience Act of 1968 and the Firearms Control Act.

The United States Government since its founding has negotiated and ratified treaties with American Indians. As provided for in our Constitution, treaties can only be entered into with other nations. So American Indian Nations like the Sioux, then, must clearly represent a separate nation within the boundaries of the United States. And it is here, in Indian territory, that the United States first began exploiting and destroying other peoples' land. The military or economic domination and exploitation of another nation is called imperialism. And the American Indians were the first to experience the growing monster of U.S. imperialism.

Political trials are nothing new to the people of this country. Just as in the VVAW/WSO Gainesville Conspiracy Trial, the Government is now trying to destroy yet another progressive struggle in the United States. But the trial of the Wounded Knee defendants is different in that it represents the oldest and most thorough policy of exploitation of an independent nation the U.S. has ever engaged in. It is time that this policy is ENDED.

FREE
THE WOUNDED KNEE DEFENDANTS

IMPLEMENT THE TREATIES