On March 20, 2012  in South Dakota, just about 36 years to the week that Annie Mae Aquash (1945-1975/6) was buried out on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, her accused and convicted killer, John Graham a Southern Tutchone from the Yukon Territory, had his appeal heard by the South Dakota Supreme Court. His lawyer, John Murphy, worked hard and his oral arguments heard. A collection of claims in his appeal stretch like a railroad line from the badlands to Donner’s Pass. He wants the court to withdraw attacks on Leonard Peltier which were entered into testimony at Graham’s 2010 trial. He wants “hearsay” declared, wrongful “no parole” mandate removed, and claims Canada never extradited Graham to be tried by the racist State of South Dakota.

Truth, Like a Weapon: convicted AIM member Awaits Supreme Court verdict

by antoinette nora claypoole

 March 19, 2012 San Francisco, Ca. Once, on tour with John Trudell when our children still ran around back stage playing tag and braiding one another’s hair, we were here in San Francisco. A drum, with old AIM songs. Opened the “show” in a small fourth floor venue, community center type gig. Right before John came out, our kids, sitting on the floor near the front, suddenly jumped up and ran out into the halls, laughing and playing, looking for cookies, not interested in the show. As they headed out the door a huge crash, shattered glass, broken windows everywhere. A very large boulder had landed, right where our kids had been sitting. It had been hurled at us, from outside. And an adjacent city rooftop. Our kids were protected. There would have been injuries. But some little spirit beings were working overtime that night, protecting our babies. That was in the 1990’s. Nearly 20 years after two FBI agents were killed at Pine Ridge, and many many more Lakota were brutally killed at the hands of a federally funded "goon squad". Mostly because there was uranium on that Indian Land. One famous Canadian Indian woman, Anna Mae Aquash. Was also murdered brutally back then. A friend of John Trudell's. In San Francisco, that boulder was a reminder of how the American Indian Movement was a threat to a Federal Government which continues to attack the Movement.

On March 20, 2012 in  South Dakota, just about 36 years to the week that Annie Mae was buried out on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, her accused and convicted killer, John Graham a Southern Tutchone from the Yukon Territory, had is his appeal heard by the South Dakota Supreme Court. His lawyer, John Murphy, worked hard and his oral arguments heard. A collection of claims in his appeal stretch like a railroad line from the badlands to Donner’s Pass.  Murphy  wants the court to withdraw attacks on Leonard Peltier which were entered into testimony at Graham’s 2010 trial. He wants “hearsay” declared, wrongful “no parole” mandate removed, and claims Canada never extradited Graham to be tried by the racist State of South Dakota. In fact, Graham was to be tried by the Federal Government, all those charges were dropped (by a win in an appeals Court), Yet. Like a runaway bandit heist the prosecution was able to keep Graham here, in the states.

So now.  He appealed the entire mess. And I couldn’t sleep after his "new" day in court, without sharing with you who and what, I feel nailed Graham’s fate. It was/is a man named Arlo Looking CLoud, a young kid at the time of Annie Mae’s murder. And an Indian the Federal Government has been trying to coerce, to name “names” of old AIM (including my old friend/lover, John Trudell), for years. Looking Cloud finally surrendered. Became a turncoat. Today, the Judges listened and read summaries of Looking CLoud’s claims about Graham. It will be 3-5 months before any decision is handed down by the Court.   About the myriad of appeals Murphy presented in court, today. (Murphy/Graham's thorough concerns --the "official" appeal-- can be read at www.grahamdefense.org).  They include a huge challenge to the Graham's Prosecution, and their use of evidence wwn FBI informant, Kamook Banks Ecoffey aka Darlene Nichols: her vindictive and untrustworthy testimony against falsely convicted, Leonard Peltier.

I wrote the following essay while I was finishing up my new book, Ghost Rider Roads Inside the AMerican Indian Movement 1971-present. When I realized just how far Looking Cloud had been forced to go. It is probably important to understand the source of Graham's battle, today. Here is the essay:

In December 2010, Arlo Looking Cloud testified against John Graham, a man he had known in AIM, when they were both young “footsoldiers”. In 1975. Speculation as to whether or not Looking Cloud would take the stand, and tell stories against his old friend. Always leaned in favor of Looking Cloud being the Federal star. “Witness”. His statements about what happened to Annie Mae Aquash have changed erratically over the years. Like the wind on those badlands where she was found, in the dead. Of Winter. Yet testify against his old friend, he did. Looking Cloud spoke in chilling detail about John Graham.[i] And his alleged role in killing Annie Mae. But why? What did Looking Cloud have to “gain”? Looking Cloud was already serving a life sentence for the same crime. Was he feeling coerced, unsafe in jail, or just hoping his attorneys could achieve some leniency on his sentence? Or was it, all three. A writer’s imagination does more for the myth than the truth creates from a lie. So facts are facts. I

n the summer of 2011, just a few months after Graham was sentenced to life without parole, Arlo Looking Cloud had his sentence reduced, which made he himself eligible for parole. There is speculation in Indian Country as to why this happened. Whether or not Looking Cloud co-operated with Federal prosecution and received a sentence reduction for that reason, is an intrigue. As it indicates that the Federal Government continues it’s campaign against AIM. In the name of Justice. But making deals with compromised Indians, with no evidence in the case, is not exactly clear, Justice. In Dec. 2011,

I asked Looking Cloud’s attorney Barry Bachrach, contributor to my book project (Ghost Rider Roads), to verify Looking Cloud’s current status.

I specifically asked: “Is his sentence reduced, because he is “co operating”?

Bachrach explained, necessarily vague in protection of his client: “Arlo Looking Cloud’s sentence was reduced by an amended judgment, dated August 4, 2011, pursuant to criminal rules of procedure 35(b).”

Did Looking Cloud co-operate with the Government for a sentence reduction? And is there more Looking Cloud is expected to do, for this benevolent gesture of freedom? What we do know is. He clearly did testify for the Prosecution against John Graham. And we also know that there continues to be a call for lynchings. Of “old AIM”. Names are bandied around like frisbees between demonstrations, “back in the day”. There are vague speculations as to whether Looking Cloud is even now, Dec. 2011, prepared to “name names” of who in AIM (who some believe were operatives) may have “ordered” Annie Mae’s execution. A demand that some—Annie Mae’s family e.g. Denise Maloney in particular—will not surrender. Understandably. Few believe the two men convicted of the murder, acted of their own volition. Someone did insist the execution of Anna Mae happen. But who ordered it and who took the order, and shot her?

We don’t seem any closer to knowing the answer, today, than we were when her body was found and buried as “Jane Doe”. Buried by federal agents who knew her. And had, by some counts, reported seeing her alive, weeks before. In January 1976. Was it an FBI “federal operative” who had infiltrated AIM, as John Trudell  and old AIM leader Vernon Bellecourt, have often suggested[ii] . Was it that Annie Mae had fingered an AIM operative and they “had” to kill her, to protect their own identity? What the Prosecution really wants is names. Of someone else.

And it could be Looking Cloud who might share that information.

But no one counts on that naming ceremony to implicate the FBI, in any way. To complicate things further, in Graham’s trial the prosecution provided witnesses who muddy the scenario. Looking Cloud said Graham “kidnapped” Annie Mae, took her to S.D. in late November, 1975 and returned to Denver not long after. Another long time “friend of Annie Mae”, prosecution witness Candy Hamilton, testified to seeing Annie Mae alive, on Dec. 15, 1975. That not only dispels the old “timeline” developed and presented for years. Killing dates of Dec. 11th or 12th laid out in the 2004 Looking Cloud trial. But this variant timeline also forces the question of how Graham could have killed Annie Mae while she was kidnapped--in his custody (the crime for which he was convicted)-- if she was still seen alive in South Dakota after he returned to Denver, Co.?

This is what conflicted witnesses leave us.[iii] As truth becomes more, elusive. If not concealled, like a weapon. Buried deep in the ruins. Of time. In the end. Looking Cloud’s words to Prosecutors become as painfully perplexing as the fact that the "reign of terror"--a campaign against the American Indian Movement which began in the 1970's on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation--persists. Albeit more covertly. To this day. And yes. It appears to the onlooker that Arlo Looking Cloud may be “co operating” with Prosecutors. Or maybe his sentence was reduced due to the hard work of his attorney (s), who believed that their client was wrongfully implicated in a crime which remains one of the most unresolved and complex, brutal and covertly racist, in American/Indian History.

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I can feel, in these streets of a city which holds memories of love in vibrations, the truth of all these lies. Reading poetry, drumming and singing. So long ago. We were attacked, our children threatened at a small little hall. Two decades and counting. The campaign to put old AIM in jail, continues. And the true warriors are never afraid. I remember. We kept that boulder that went through the window. As a reminder that resistance is, survival.

ENDNOTES

[i] Complete trial transcripts reveal Looking Cloud’s willingness to accuse Graham. They are available from www.grahamdefense.org, Graham Defense Committee in Vancouver, B.C. Canada

[ii]YOUTUBE clip/interview with John Trudell, Sept. 2009.

[iii] see Graham trial transcripts, www.grahamdefense.org. VISIT www.whoisleonardpeltier.info for "official" information about Peltier...

 History of the Trial/Case of Leonard Peltier  www.whoisleonardpeltier.info