Indian Activist Killed: Body Found on Pine Ridge

From ‘Liberation News Service’, March 13, 1976, New York City. An edited version was published two weeks following in ‘The Black Panther: Intercommunal News Service’, March 27, 1976, Oakland, California, under the headline ‘Indian Women Activist Found Dead on Pine Ridge: Foul Play by F.B.I. Suspected‘. The text in square brackets has been added here now for further clarity or corrections

OGLALA, S.D. [South Dakota] (LNS) –The body of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a Canadian Indian [of the Mi’kmaq people and Sipekne’katik First Nation] active in the American Indian Movement in Los Angeles, St. Paul, and Pine Ridge, was round February 24 near Wanblee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The FBI did not announce the identity of the body until March 6.

Despite the local medical examiner’s [W. O. Brown’s] assertion that the death was caused by exposure, Dr. Gary Pearson [Peterson], a pathologist from St. Paul, conducted a second autopsy in which he found a bullet in the cheek bone fired at close range from the back of the head.

Aquash participated in the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee and the struggle that has ensued since then on the reservation against repression by local and federal authorities. Over 30 Indians activists have been killed on Pine Ridge since the Wounded Knee occupation three years ago.

Aquash, 31 [30] years old and the mother of two daughters, had been considered a fugitive by the FBI since she failed to appear for a trial in Pierre, South Dakota on a firearms violation in November. Those charges stem from a September 6, 1975 raid by over 100 armed FBI agents on the Rosebud Reservation, neighboring Pine Ridge.

According to Bureau of Indian Affairs police, she was identified by her fingerprints after both hands were removed by court order and sent to Washington, DC. The police did not explain why it took so long to discover from the fingerprints the identity of someone they were seeking from this area. Local authorities buried her before they released her identity.

Medical authorities said Aquash had been dead for one to two weeks when she was found February 24 by a rancher in a deserted area of Wanblee district. Many believe she was killed elsewhere and taken to that area, as her friends had no knowledge of her being in the area recently, and she never stayed in Wanblee when on the reservation as she did not know many people there.

On March 9 the traditional Indian leaders of the district of Oglala, where Aquash had previously stayed on the reservation, released a statement about her death, asserting:

“We do not believe Anna Mae died from exposure. We are certain that foul play is involved. The way in which the BIA police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have handled this investigation makes it appear more of a coverup than an investigation of still another Indian killed on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

“If she was identified by fingerprints, why did it take so long? Why was she buried before she was positively identified? Or did the police and federal and tribal authorities know who she was all along?

“Doctor Brown, the pathologist who conducted Anna Mae’s first autopsy, also provided the BIA and FBI with the information they wanted about the deaths of Buddy Lamont, killed by the federal forces at Wounded Knee in April, 1973, and Pedro Bissonette, killed by the BIA police in October, 1973. Therefore we question Dr. Brown’s independence and credibility. We want to know the truth about Anna Mae’s death and the possibility of the government’s involvement in it.”

“Anna Mae worked hard serving her Indian people and assisted us in our efforts to shed the shackles of government paternalism. She was with us in the past and we are concerned because we feel her involvement as our ally probably caused her death.”

Anna Mae Aquash’s family has come from Canada to Pine Ridge and will rebury her there. A group has formed in Oglala to continue the investigation into the circumstances of her death.

Native Americans Call for Removal of FBI from Pine Ridge Reservation: Cite Harassment and Violence – Candy Hamilton (1978)

From ‘Liberation News Service’, March 10, 1978, New York City

(The following report is compiled from dispatches by Candy Hamilton, LNS correspondent on the Pine Ridge Reservation)

PINE RIDGE, South Dakota (LNS) — The government has been cracking down on progressive Native Americans in recent years, especially since the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation. And the main arm of government repression on this reservation has been the FBI.

But the people on the reservation have fought back. They have exposed FBI complicity in covering up the murder of American Indian Movement activist Anna Mae Aquash on the reservation in 1976 and they have organized to support four activists falsely accused of killing two FBI agents on the reservation in 1975. Now they are attempting to prevent FBI agents from entering the reservation altogether.

Tribal Court hearings are now under way in response to a petition calling for removal of the FBI from the reservation. The petition was filed in early February by Wasu-Duta (Red Hail) a reservation resident recently returned from Geneva, Switzerland, where he was a delegate to the U.N.-sponsored conference for native peoples of North and South America.

FBI Role on Pine Ridge

Since the 1972 impeachment proceedings against then-tribal chairman Dick Wilson and the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee, the FBI has maintained a daily force of agents on the reservation. Their numbers have ranged from five or 10 to the hundreds who arrived within hours after the deaths of two FBI agents in the Ogala community in 1975. The FBI office in Rapid City (the nearest South Dakota city to the reservation) is the largest FBI office outside that of Washington D.C. and regional headquarters.

The FBI had responsibility for investigating the charges against participants, at Wounded Knee. Although federal grand juries indicted almost 200 people, less than a dozen were ever convicted. During this period, reservation actlvists became increasingly critical of the FBl’s conduct. Although the reservation was swamped with FBI men, the daily presence of often a dozen or more agents didn’t seem to stem the beatings, assaults and murder. In fact, the violence escalated sharply, incidents often went uninvestigated and more often unsolved.

As tribal chairman Wilson took more and more power, his supporters, who called themselves “goon squad,” made more and more attacks on his opponents. Yet, reservation residents say, when the FBI came to investigate, it seemed the victims just had one more source of harassment and intimidation. — the FBI.

Such behavior prior to the 1975 deaths of the agents resulted in increasing tensions and hostilities. After the deaths of the agents, the behavior of other FBI agents who descended on the reservation, especially In Oglala, actually led many of the older people, traditionals, and AIM supporters to fear for their lives, according to a report by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.

During the two years since, there has been little change. In the early spring of 1976, Bill Muldrow, deputy director of the Mountain States Regional Office of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, investigated FBI activity concerning the Investigations of the separate murders of AIM activists Byron DeSersa and Anna Mae Aquash on the Pine Ridge Reservation. According to Muldrow’s report, the FBI acted unprofessionally, did not seem Interested in a thorough investigation, and in the case of the Aquash murder had left Itself open to charges of cover-up .

After almost five years of massive FBI presence, most reservation residents have become accustomed to seeing agents daily, driving through the cluster housing units, parking in people’s driveways, knocking on doors apparently just to see who will answer and attempting to question people about their friends.

Court Effort

In response to Wasu-Duta’ s petition, Oglala Sioux Tribal Judge Mario Gonzalez ordered the FBI into court to show cause why it should not be enjoined from coming onto the reservation.The FBI failed to appear. Instead, an assistant district attorney sent a letter to Gonzalez from Washington insisting that the Tribal Court has no jurisdiction over the FBI since they are not Indians. Furthermore, he claimed that the FBI has jurisdiction over certain crimes committed on the reservation and has the right to investigate them on the reservation.

Despite the FBI’s failure to appear, Judge Gonzalez allowed further statements and documents alleging FBI misconduct into the record. He also heard five witnesses who told of personal experiences of harassment and intimidation by FBI agents. One group of older women and young children told of being forcibly held by agents while one said: “I hope we can start killing them soon.”

In other incidents, agents fired M-16’s and AR-15’s on private lands without provocation or warning to the residents there. Another witness described threats made against Anna Mae Aquash that she would not live out the year unless she cooperated with FBI operations. (She was killed shortly thereafter).

Upon hearing the testimony Judge Gonzalez indicated that the FBI had some “serious housecleaning” to do. Yet he Insisted on proceeding cautiously, especially in determining how the Oglala Sioux Tribal Court could claim jurisdiction in the matter. He asked Wasu-Duta, the Pine Ridge resident who originally petitioned the court for the enjoining order, to present a brief within 30 days citing court cases, tribal codes, and provisions of the 1868 Treaty between the U.S. and the Sioux, which might give the court jurisdiction. Gonzalez added that if these documents failed to provide the necessary jurisdiction, the petitioners should go to the Tribal Council and ask for a special order from the court to act in matters of FBI misconduct.

Native Americans victimized by the FBI fear that if the court action is not acted upon quickly, their effort may be halted after a new Tribal Chairman takes office in April. Based on late February primary results, the next Tribal Chairman may well be Dick Wilson, whose corrupt rule was one target of the Wounded Knee occupation. Wilson was tribal chairman when many of the worst FBI abuses occurred.