Bluster's Last Stand: Russell Means Tries to Boss the Lakotas

"[Russell] Means has reinvented himself more times than a snake sheds its skin. And when cornered, he's still known to strike."---Joe Trimbach

FOX NEWS reports (12-20-07):

WASHINGTON — The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States.

"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,'' long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means said.
A delegation of Lakota leaders has delivered a message to the State Department, and said they were unilaterally withdrawing from treaties they signed with the federal government of the U.S., some of them more than 150 years old.

The group also visited the Bolivian, Chilean, South African and Venezuelan embassies, and would continue on their diplomatic mission and take it overseas in the coming weeks and months.

Lakota country includes parts of the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming.

The new country would issue its own passports and driving licences, and living there would be tax-free - provided residents renounce their U.S. citizenship, Mr Means said. [full text]

For another view of this so-called "Indian rights activist" see my previous post. I would call Russell Means a dangerous terrorist who uses his own people as human shields and cares only about protecting himself. This snake will destroy anyone to save his own skin.

The crazy old terrorist who destroyed Wounded Knee and called it "liberation" characterized elected Indian leaders as "collaborators." The Argus Leader (12-20-07) reports:

"I want to emphasize, we do not represent the collaborators, the Vichy Indians and those tribal governments set up by the United States of America to ensure our poverty, to ensure the theft of our land and resources," Means said, comparing elected tribal governments to Nazi collaborators in France during World War II.

Rodney Bordeaux, chairman of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, said his community has no desire to join the breakaway nation. Means and his group, which call themselves the Lakota Freedom Delegation, have never officially pitched their views to the Rosebud community, Bordeaux said.

"Our position on that is we need to uphold the treaties, and we're constantly reminding Congress of that message," Bordeaux said. "We're pushing to maintain and to keep the treaties there because they're the basis of our relationship with the federal government." [full text]

After the article in The Argus Leader, a lady commented:

"Don Quixote needs to face reality. My son, who is 16, was upset when I told him that he must dress nicer for people to have respect for him. He said that it was wrong that others would judge him by how he looks instead of who he is. I know that it is not always pleasurable to hear the truth but one needs to hear it. People judge you by how you dress, the company you keep and how you act. Russell is not 16. We shouldn't have to tell him when he looks unclean in public, hangs out with thugs and dictators and makes hollow threats he brings dishonor to the Lakota people."

Perhaps Russell Means' latest stunt is just another pathetic attempt attempt to distract people from the implications of the coming trial of John Graham for the murder of Anna Mae Aquash.

According to News From Indian Country:

"The Aquash case may have implications for leadership members of the American Indian Movement alleged to have been involved in several murders of those they believed were informers going back to the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973. Those murders include that of Black civil rights worker and Martin Luther King disciple Perry Ray Robinson Jr ., according to AIM members now cooperating with federal authorities."

In his just-released book American Indian Mafia, the retired FBI official Joseph H. Trimbach writes of Means:

"Means has had an uphill task convincing the people of Indian Country that he knew nothing of the plot to kill Anna Mae [Aquash] or of the ensuing coverup. Time and again he has pleaded ignorance to the crime, despite admitting the murder victim was taken to his brother's house, where Clyde Bellecourt allegedly received Vernon's order to execute the prisoner. In fact, Bill Means' house was purportedly Anna Mae's last stop before she was driven to the cliff near Wanblee, South Dakota. Further compounding Russell's problem is that he and his brothers were reportedly on the reservation when Anna Mae was buried, yet boycotted her funeral...

Another problem facing Means is justifying a 24-year wait before emerging as an Anna Mae advocate. To some observers it is simply an indication that he'd seen the writing on the U.S Attorney's wall. Like many aging AIMsters who do not want to spend their last years incarcerated, Means may be trying to hop a ride on the justice bandwagon" [American Indian Mafia, p. 30].