ALL THE WORLD IS A STAGE 4
Excerpts from pages 349 and 350 of Steve Hendricks
The Unquiet Grave:
In 2004,I and other reporters asked Dennis Banks if a man who had been summoned to his presence at Wounded Knee had been shot and killed, but Banks refused to answer. Stan Holder,the security chief who helped interrogate Crazy Al Cooper and whose security team had probably come for Robinson, also spurned interviews. Leonard Crow Dog did not reply to messages, nor did Lorlei DeCora or Madonna Gilbert ( now Madonna Thunder Hawk) from the Wounded Knee clinic. Of the several people allegedly involved in Robinson’s last minutes,only Carter Camp was loquacious.
Camp had been elected chairman of AIM immediately after Wounded Knee, but within weeks of ascension, he ended an argument with Clyde Bellecourt by putting a bullet in Bellecourt’s stomach and thereafter was persona no grata in AIM. Much later he was allowed to return to the fold. Camp first spoke publicly about Robinson in 1999, during a week of meetings and rallies in Washington,D.C., in support of Leonard Peltier’s petition for clemency. One of Robinson’s daughters, Tamara Kamara, attended the events and at one made a tearful plea for information about her father. When she was done, Camp walked up to her and said, “I broke bread with your father.”He confirmed that Robinson had been inside Wounded Knee- a fact most AIMers were still denying-but said he had seen Robinson walk out of the village. If Robinson was dead he told her,it must have been the goons or the feds that got him. Tamara called her mother in Detroit and told her about the conversation, and Cheryl took the next plane to Washington. She approached Camp the next day with a photograph of Ray.
“I said, Carter,look at this picture and see if you remember my husband.” And I positioned myself so I could see the look on his face when I showed him that eight-by-ten. So I uncovered it,and he looked at it, and he looked at it,and he looked at it. I swear to God,it was excruciating how long he looked. I didn’t say a word, didn’t interrupt-just let him commune. He finally turns to me with a pained look on his face, and he says, “No, I don’t remember him.” And he had just told my daughter at this very emotional thing yesterday that he had broke bread with Ray and it was “a hole in my heart” and all that. Ain’t that a kick?
I’d say it was more than a kick-an outright lie- and further proof of Camp’s like the rest AIM’s lack of credibility.
The goons or feds thing sounds suspiciously like Crow Dog’s words in the blog Crow Dog and The Grave Diggers where he is going on about his concern and the need to get an actor to buy the land where Ray and others are buried, remove the bodies, give the land to them, then “find” a way to blame it on the feds.
Every time I read those words I am stunned at the absolute ignorance of Crow Dog and ask myself did he, does he, believe an actor, or anyone with their measure of success would be willing to involve themselves in such a plot-to risk everything? Stupid doesn’t even begin to cover it.
This is yet more evidence, more reason to have pursued the case of Ray’s murder-yet it wasn’t.
Ultimately I believe it would have served the nations best if the AIM leadership would have been held accountable and tossed in jail-we could have moved on from all this, from their corruption and influence.
Whatever “good” people may attempt to argue they did, they will find it exceedingly difficult to argue they weren’t driven by personal greed and a thirst for power doing whatever it took to achieve those goals.
Or that the associated cost has been too high.
AIM and the Peltierites have made a career of selectively citing certain passages in Hendricks’ book, those they believe paint the appropriate picture they would have people believe , my purpose in these “stage” blogs has been to illustrate that Hendricks in many instances nails all sides, to let people know there is more to it than they’ve been willing to address, and suggest people read the book themselves.
They’ve done the same with Mathiessen’s ITSOCH, willing to promote what they consider beneficial and ignore citations of Peltier quotes from interviews with him that stand in direct contradiction to others as he has stumbled through the decades revising them.
In my personal opinion ITSOCH took a very biased approach,more of cultivate propaganda piece -yet wittingly or unwittingly it shows multiple holes in the Peltier story and events at Jumping Bull.
What I find somewhat amusing is that Clyde Bellecourt once attempted to berate Paul DeMain and other indigenous journalists for not doing investigative journalism when it came to AIM and Peltier -well, he and a few others did in lieu of accepting the routine AIM handouts and now AIM is mad as hell about it and never miss an opportunity to launch a personal attack-the lesson being the time honored axiom of be careful what you wish for.
So, AIM and Peltier are increasing looking bedraggled and being exposed for what and who they are, the coffers aren’t as full as they once were and they are continuously looking for new ways to generate revenue, even to the point of depravity in the selling of ceremonies.
Heroes, warriors, and a “spiritually” based organization? I think not-more a fraternal order of thugs and thieves attended by the ever present pie patrol.
Finally I would ask readers to consider one simple question: If all things Peltier are as Peltier and AIM claim why is it he refuses to release his parole board hearing transcripts when all that is required is his approval to do so?
If someone has a viable answer I’d be interested in hearing it.
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