Vernon Bellecourt interviewed by Lincoln Bergman

This is Lincoln Bergman, and I'm here with Vernon Belcourt, who is the national director of the American Indian Movement, or AIM. He's just come out to Berkeley, recently was in wounded knee itself, and then I believe went to the United Nations as a representative of the Independent of Gala Sioux Nation. Perhaps you could begin by giving people a general idea of what you think the most important issues that are raised by the wounded knee, by wounded knee. We've recognized in wounded knee as was the case at the Bureau of Indian Affairs Occupation during Election Week November 1st to the 7th that the primary purpose of the American Indian Movement has been as a catalytic organization that was going to focus not only national attention, but international attention on what has become a national interest to disgrace in this country, the conditions in which Indian people are forced to live. And we did that in Washington, D.C. and of course we're doing it again in wounded knee.

Now we recognize that in addition to the confrontation that's taking place between the sovereign Oglala people, at wounded knee, the American Indian Movement, and of course that other Indian people, other tribes represented there, is not only a confrontation against the Bureau of Radical Pressing of the United States Government, the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs Movement, most important we see it as a confrontation with the conscience of America and the conscience of the world. One of the aspects of what's going on has been the Declaration of Independence, that's something which a lot of the mass media has treated with either a scorn or just a slight reference and essentially talking about the details of negotiations or whatever, perhaps you could expand on the significance of that for people. Well, Indian people, and particularly young people today who have taken a very active role in the American Indian Movement, have recognized that for close to 482 years, Indian

people have tried to demonstrate, we've tried to oppose Westward expansion of the European culture in our land, which we recognize could survive and could go on by itself, but what they've tried to do is they've tried to assimilate and brainwash us and to bring our people into that mainstream and in doing so, our people have become poor. We recognize that our efforts toward this entry into so-called mainstream, the melting pot concept, which is not only failed our people, but has failed a lot of people in this country, that we have exhausted our diplomatic efforts. We have negotiated, we have pleaded, our people have been going to Washington for years and nothing changes, the conditions get worse. So what is happening in Mundini, when a declaration of sovereignty was made, it's a start. It's a start of a revolution amongst Indian people today, not only a revolution is taking place within our own existing tribal form of government on the reservations, but we recognize that we have to take a position of sovereignty in relationship to the treaties.

The sovereign treaty or a congressionally ratified treaties was made with Indian nations as sovereign people, and it's really immoral at this time to suggest that in negotiating those treaties that we should play it by their ground rules within their judicial system, within their courts. We have never gotten a fair shake there in any area. So we recognize that we have to deal with the treaties on the basis of a sovereign nation. The Ogilah people in particular have seen the corruption, the theft against their lands, the leasing policy of that particular government in Pine Ridge has totally failed their people. While the bureaucracy gets stronger, they can buy more guns and buy more police cars and other type of equipment and build bigger buildings on the Bureau of Iniferous Agency at Pine Ridge and throughout the country, and the people, the reservation people, Indian people, are still suffering with a 42-year life expectancy, or still suffering at three times a national average, infant mortality rate, and a five times a national average suicide rate. Chronic ill health and disease diseases yet prevail in reservations that have cured in the

white world. So when we can see these kinds of conditions, we recognize that the system has totally failed us, and now we should have the right to total self-determination, which our interpretation is total self-government. And this is a whole new attitude being created at Wundany and will continue to become a reality. And when you referred to revolution, could you say a little bit more about what you mean and also what, like, the some of the beginning fundamental goals of that would be? Well, I guess, you know, just saying is the term revolution, which has become stereotyped itself, you know, lends to people to believe that, you know, it's a violent revolution or it has to be some type of thing where we're going to assassinate whole, you know, groups of people. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about basically a philosophical revolution, which is really going to free our people. We see today amongst the new generation, we see people who are, in fact, willing to put meaning into those words of support and the words of sympathy. And so we talk about revolution.

We're talking about a philosophical revolution brought about by confrontation, by political confrontation. And we, to Russell Means, termed it confrontation politics. We recognize that, unfortunately, we live within a system, we live within a society in our country here, exists a society that, unfortunately, you know, only respond, you know, to some kind of strong confrontation. And we recognize that. And we can see the success we've had already in that, the budget and the Bureau of Indian Affairs for fiscal year 1974 as men, I understand increased by 15%. So we can see that our efforts are already materializing that we are bringing about a new awareness. And the revolution, as I indicated before, is taking place not only in the reservations against, you know, there are a lot of responsible tribal leaders in this country. And I'm not, you know, trying to throw them all into the same category. But we see in some of the reservations, the people are being abused, they're getting poor, the conditions of poverty are getting worse. And we realize that we have to have some type of revolution to bring about these changes so that we can exist and survive as a society.

Mm-hmm. Is that, what does that mean in terms of, say, the structure? I know in Wounded Knee, for example, with Galasu, there's a clear demand to get rid of Dick Wilson. And perhaps you could talk about it in that sense and in the sense of the new structures that are just beginning to be set up in Wounded Knee, and also maybe explain to people who aren't familiar with him exactly what you see as what's wrong with Dick Wilson and that kind of leadership. Well, I can, you know, I can only relay the information that I've gotten who know a lot of people and some of the issues that they've raised. There's been two attempts by responsible Indian people in the Agalala Pine Ridge Reservation to remove their existing tribal chairman. They recognize that he's become a puppet of Washington and, in fact, is never really an advocate of Indian people. And they can see the leasing process taking place yet where hold sections of land are being leased illegally and transfer of lands are taking place illegally by their leasing department. They have charged them with nepotism, which involves hiring of all his relatives, et cetera.

This is another bona fide complaint that the Agalala people have. They've just indicated to us very strongly that they no longer want that kind of puppet government and they're wanting to cast it off. In doing so, the Agalala people and the American Indian Movement people are organization met with the traditional chiefs on the Pine Ridge Reservation. It's always been our feeling that being the American Indian Movement is a traditional organization going back to our traditional way of life, our traditional ties, values, and standards, et cetera, religion, that the tribal form of government, the form of government, exist today, set up by Washington some years back. Their whole question of their policy for the past 40 years is being threatened. And of course, this is why they're opposing any type of a stand by the people up there. So we had meetings with the traditional chiefs, the seven chiefs, and the wishes of the Agalala people to restore the government back to the chiefs who were in fact serving and advocates of their people.

And so this is what's happening as far as the issue on the Pine Ridge Reservation is concerned. Could you tell me a little bit about what happened at the United Nations? First maybe I should say that delegation went there to seek recognition of foreign governments for the independent right nation. We have recognized in the past several delegations from the Indian nations that went to Europe and they've had a real strong feeling that the various governments, neutral governments and abroad was interested in the plight of Indian people. And we went to the United Nations because we recognized a grave situation that exists at Wounded Knee then and still exist where we have the military, the marshals and FBI agents from the federal government. Once again, assembled on the Agalala Reservation, very much the same way they were assembled there 82 years ago at the Wounded Knee Massacre. There once again, there is a question of their legality of being there. But nonetheless they are there and it does pose a threat.

And to try to avert another massacre here in this land which could quite possibly happen, we got other countries involved, we got other countries concerned and of course our trip to the United Nations, we met with Assistant Secretary General under Kurt Waldheim. Mr. Waldheim would have met with us but he was in Paris at the Paris Peace Talks, understand. But this other man indicated very clearly that even though there was a lot of sympathy that in the Security Council itself they would have to have a member nation introduce a resolution. At this time we have Indian people in New York are representatives in New York City are in fact working with some of these countries on the Security Council to still get a resolution introduced to draw international attention to the situation. At the same time right now it's my understanding that five people from the newly formed Agalala sovereign nation are also on their way to New York and there will be efforts to seat them as a sovereign nation. And once we can start airing our grievances in front of the world, perhaps in change we'll come about. There was no response to any government that immediately would say yes, we would say we

are still making those contacts at this time. Would you care to say like which governments you were most interested in contacting? Well we had some interest by Sweden, Denmark and other countries like that, some black nations have indicated, I can't even name them now, several countries have showed some concern. But the book Barry Mahart at Wounded Knee which I am no way trying to plug but it did focus international attention on Wounded Knee and then when the Wounded Knee incident took place here the whole world and I would imagine knew what happened at Wounded Knee before and of course with the whole world focused on Wounded Knee I think this is what averted a possible massacre. The struggle in South Dakota has some recent background to it that I don't know if I certainly didn't receive as much publicity as this one has received having to do with the struggling customer and so on, perhaps you could fill people in on that. We have recognized that in several of these non-Indian communities that border or are contiguous to reservations, the whole economy depends on the monies that Indian people spend in those

communities, it's ironic that those same communities are the ones that are practicing over to racism against Indian people, Indian people are salted, they are arrested, they are charged with drunkenness when they are not drunk so they can impose fines on them to get their money. Even as they set their as parasites, living off the economy from the Indian people that they abuse them, we can see up there as we seen in the Raymond Yellow Thunder murder of Northwest and Nebraska, a complete double standard of justice as we have in this country affecting Indian people. We know that the prisons are crammed as many as a third of the prisons of this country are populated by Indian men and women and when we see that we only represent 850,000 people, we have to definitely question the judicial system. So we found a case in Buffalo Gap where a man with him a Wesley Badheart bull, a young Indian man, Ogilala, was accosted on the street and a fight broke out and he defended himself and there was a threat made that that will get him and the next day in fact they

got him and he ran a knife into him and killed him. The murderer who was not Indian was immediately arrested and at the discretion of the county attorney who turned out to be another racist, imposed or at his discretion charged the man with second degree manslaughter where all evidence pointed to at least a first to be murder charge. He was immediately placed on bail on $5,000 and another county, a man named Harold with horn junior Indian man, alleged to have been in a proximity of area where a woman, a white woman was murdered and on a testimony of somebody who was intoxicated at the time he either heard or overheard somebody saying that Harold with horn junior was involved in that. This man was arrested, he was held for 18 to 20 days without bond, completely contrary to the constitution, the Bill of Rights, a prohibiting excessive bonds and held without a bond and charged with first degree murder. So this is just a kind of prime examples of the double standard of justice at that time

our national field director Dennis Banks called a national Indian rights day at Custer South Dakota and asked at all concerned Indian people and chapters of our organization assemble in Custer South Dakota. Once again it was the Ogilah people that responded to almost every one of the men that was arrested. I think those 47 arrested, 46 were Ogilah's dealing with that issue where the murder of their brother. So they went to Custer South Dakota to stand firm, confront the establishment in that area and tell them that no more were we going to tolerate this kinds of injustice. Again, we were confronted, we went to unarmed, again we were assaulted by the police and of course the whole world seen that fight on TV, we took the clubs away and we had to defend ourselves. So Custer South Dakota will no doubt become a memorial in this country, the Indian resistance, the new Indian struggle, the sovereign people's revolution actually started once again ironically enough that Custer South Dakota.

So we've had the occasion to deal with Custer twice in these last two centuries. Before we go on to talk about some more about when the Indian American Indian movement in general, maybe people would be interested in knowing something about you, your life. Well I'm Ojibwe, a white man called us Chippewas but we're from the Ojibwe Nation, I'm from White Earth, Minnesota, lived on a reservation until I was 15 and also because of the assimilation process and the education system you know that was preparing us all to enter into the great mainstream of white America, I also left a reservation and traveled throughout the country for some years. I've been in business, I've done many things but about five, six years ago an Indian movement formed, I again went back to that organization knowing that I could serve all Indian people through that organization and of course in doing so really contribute something to mankind and bring about a change for everyone. So that's basically my involvement, since August of last year I was made national director

if titles mean anything, solely responsible at this time for rallying political support, I'm on a fundraising tour, I'm speaking at various colleges, in an effort to raise money for the wounded knee defense fund which several people in this area are working on at the present time. So that's really my role, I'm important on work on the outside that has to be done to gain support for our brothers at wounded knee. What kind of things are you asking people to do to support? Well we're hoping that everybody will mobilize and support the wounded knee defense fund, United Bank of Denver, 17th and Broadway Street Denver, Colorado. How did the formation of AM come about? The organization was formed in mid-1968 in a ghetto community of Minneapolis, Minnesota. It has to go back to the policy of the United States government, the Bureau of Indian Affairs policy for many years up until four months ago was to call relocation, there was an effort to train people in some type of trade or education in some kind of area, to bring them

into the city, to bring them into the mainstream and to generally the program was ill-device and ill-planned and in fact is never really was successful because even in that the program was built, the program was designed to fail. They would just never provide enough assistance, they would just provide enough sense to get them in the city and drop them off and compounding the problems for Indian people. Because as inefficient or inadequate as those services under the laws are provided by the government, they're completely severed for Indian people when they went into the urban areas and trying to make that transition from a reservation environment into a city environment for a lot of our people has had created some social problems and so the organization then started in Minneapolis when they looked around and seen that in spite of all the work that the various missionary churches was doing through their missions, despite all the programs that was designed by the federal government for Indian people and spite of all the efforts by liberal do-gooders to do something for Indian people, they never at one time said let's do it with you, they were all trying to do it for us, they've totally failed.

So the American Indian movement recognized that we had to form to draw attention to these conditions, to start working on police community relations in the community where Indian people were assaulted as a way of life by the police in Minneapolis and throughout this country. We started creating programs directed toward the youth, we came advocates for legal services, alcoholic programs, drug addiction programs, etc. So the American Indian movement immediately took a very strong role in the urban areas, but recognizing that an organization that was formed would have to be advocates for all Indian people and because of the philosophy of the movement and the growth and the success that had immediately, several of our brothers and various reservations start opening up organizations and today we have of the 75 or so chapters, we have six more just forming in the state of Oklahoma when I was down here last week, several forming here in California, we'll probably have about 80 chapters representing both reservation and urban Indian people. So the movement itself has been able to break down the tribalism and we all stand even we have representation from every tribe in our organization several and we stand together

as red people first, as red men, as sovereign people first and then we stand together as tribe secondly. So we've been able to bring our people together, we've been able to fuse together a strong coalition from the young people today who are once again identifying with a traditional religion. You see the American Indian movement is first of all the religious rebirth, it's a spiritual movement and then of course comes a new Indian pride, new Indian dignity and it's been described as an organization that the people have went back to the old religions of their tribes away from a confused notions of a society which have made us slaves of our guided lives. We strongly believe that the movement has been able to unite our young people, it's been able to unite them together with our traditionalists and our elders and our more respected leaders and with a conservative element in between the bureaucrats and the people who for some strange reason see us as a threat to their existence and although we have never attacked Indian people, we have always found out that they are not our enemy, we have defined the system, we know what the problems are and we're quite capable of dealing with them as we are dealing with them today.

Could you say something more about the religions, some of the principles? It's a very important factor because one first of all has to recognize the adverse effects that were created by the missionary concept of coming to our lands here and seeing and not being able to recognize truth when they've seen it or recognize freedom and peace when they've seen it. They immediately tried to destroy our way. They come apart and they said that we had to give up our superstitions, we had to give up our pagan habits and this even went into forced as we all know the King Ferdinand of Spain issued an edict of some governor of South America saying you bring no savages in from the forest and clothe them and civilize them and make them Christians. Well in that concept I understand on one day there was over 500 heads cut off because they didn't want to become part of that so-called civilized society. So the American Indian movement and recognizing its formation that we had to go back to Indian values are Indian traditional ways. We have linked up with the Sioux medicine men, the holy men, the spiritual leaders who have been there all these years and hanging on to that way as we kindle the whole spirit

amongst our people. We have been able to set down with our Sioux brothers, the Jibweh with the Sioux and the very so-called tribes of Indians who historically supposedly were enemies of one another. We have been able to completely overrule that particular problem by joining together spiritually. So the American Indian movement then is a spiritual movement first and then it's a political organization secondly and it's been a very good for us to see the outcome of this new awareness, the new pride that's been introduced into our young people. Every day our young people are getting off alcohol or getting off narcotics because of this new awareness. I guess you could say it's probably serving the same use with the whites, they have the movement back towards Christianity and spirituality and we know that as far as Indian people are concerned to go back to our ways are the ways that we want to do it. You describe the formation of AIM and the first several years.

In the last couple of years the American Indian movement, not the organization but in general, I think in some ways most graphically illustrated first by Alcatraz though lots was going on before that and lots went on after that all over the country and Nike bases at many other places. But since that time clearly it's emerged as a tremendously powerful political force. So that for example the occupation, the Bureau of Indian Affairs could take place in Washington DC in the capital of the United States at the time of the national elections of course which put the government clearly on the defensive and then this has proceeded to attract nationally international attention and support. I'm sort of interested in what you think are like the social forces, the people, the ways this came about to suddenly emerge as a powerful political social force within this country.

We have always recognized our credibility as a sovereignty here. We have always recognized that several nations, several tribes have never given up the feeling of sovereignty. The United States government I don't think has ever given up the feeling that we are sovereign people and have been subjected to tyranny and actually conquered people here in our own land. And because of the strong feeling of sovereignty we always recognized that Indian people perhaps had the fuse to bring about social change in this country because if you really evaluate and look at the conditions in which we're having to live today we can clear cut indictment against this government and the system and the unconcerned society for allowing these conditions to continue. So we always recognize that we had valid cause to also stand up very much the same way this country stood up in 1776 and wrote a document called the Declaration of Independence because we only have to read that document or we ask everybody if they don't understand what we're doing at Mundini to read that document and it's defined in there very clearly that one for long periods of time that form of government is becomes a tyranny to

its people it becomes submits its people to the indignities and continues to suppress them that you have a if not a legal responsibility a moral responsibility to either change that form of government or attempt to destroy it and all we're seeing at Mundini today is that we are trying to change that form of government we're trying to bring about change social change and what's happened today in this land you know the civil rights movement has of just men but dead just about died and about the time that the Vietnam war are the longest undeclared war in history it's termed came to an end people focused in on the real longest undeclared war in history and that's the war that's been going on against us for 482 years in our way of life our lands they can't say they're not guilty of it today at because it's a death rate we have a 42 year life expectancy and I've quoted the other statistics before the conditions are worse so we recognize as of the whole civil rights movement across this country has recognized that the American Indian people are going to take the lead as far as about bringing about social change we have had several national organizations who have

indicated to us clearly that they could see that in our efforts we have rekindled the flame again in this land of bringing about justice for a change to bring about truth where there hasn't been any and so we believe that we're going to be a primary force on the on the picture the history of this country we are prophecies that told us one time our prophecies told us that one day a man would come from the north and he'd have skin the color of death and he would be here for a short while he would leave and then again he would come back and he'd be here for a long time and our people would suffer but in the fifth generation after the second coming of the white man second coming of the Viking and the fifth generation that small fires would crop up throughout our nations and Fort Lawton was there Alcatraz was there the Nike missile takeovers the confrontations at Fort Lewis Washington the struggle of the fishing rights up in Washington these are those small flames as been described in the prophecies and it said that when the conditions were the same as they were when the white man first come to our second time he come to our land when there was discord when there was people that children were fighting their

parents when the trees would start dying from the top a talk of pollution even though we didn't know what it was then this was long time ago it talked about a black cloud would settle on the earth and there would be a rioting and it would be we'd look at that as a black movement was very described before these people even knew a lot the black man and it said that small fires would become one gigantic flame and at that time the red people would stand once again as a power stand once again as a proud race so we can see the answers to our prophecies are coming true now this is the time that you're talking about and we have to stand as sovereign people we have to stand and give give direction to the society in our country who have been lost for the most part so we know that we can take that role we know that we can provide truth we know we can provide spirituality we know we can provide freedom not only for the red man but for all people in this land and that's the role that the American Indian movement is going to continue to play do you have like a specific plans for the future that i'd like to talk about other than the continuing struggle at wounded me i'm sure that uh the the government uh also recognizes the fact

that we have this fuse in our hand right now and i think they want to extinguish it i think the the future and people if they if they really knew you know they think that we're a very sophisticated you know well organized organization you know i've had remarks by certain law officials about house things in hannoy apparently to indicate that we perhaps have some communist ties and again you know not being able to recognize the truth that as sovereign people we have the right to stand up and fight um the movement itself is going to continue we have indicated very clearly we're going to continue working within the system we're going to try to as much as we can work within the system we're going to try to introduce legislation we're going to go to Washington with a mass of lobby effort over the next two three years but it's also been indicated uh at the same time we're going to continue in our efforts to confront the conscience of america and to see that that the things are changed uh we're going to continue we're going to shortly take a strong moratorium on pollution you know we recognize that the Indian people here are the first ecologist in this part of the universe our holy existence was one the whole religion was just life

living in unity with all state with all living things a respect for the sacred mother earth and all the things that grow on her so this was this is our way of life and we're going to continue confronting establishment uh we're going to continue working within the system but uh we recognize that in 1976 when this country is going to celebrate its 200th birthday party this nation's going to celebrate this birthday party in our backyard by then they should have they they better have had it had involved this the the the host on that thing or we're going to be very much concerned whether or not they're going to have have a happy birthday or not so we we uh we're going to continue working on issues we're going to continue being involved in controversial issues and uh in spite of all the criticism we're getting today our organization and our movement is getting stronger because it's a movement of people who are wanting change i guess before we close we should bring it back to some specific questions about the situation of wounded knee uh first uh perhaps your reaction and uh to uh these indictments that have come out by the grand jury uh that people haven't

been identified yet they said uh there won't be identified until the arrest warrants are served and they'll serve in regardless of the discussions that are going on or not seem to me as a kind of indication that at least one section of the government wanted to move directly immediately whatever but but uh i wonder if i could have your reaction to those uh to those well as far as the the indictments are concerned i don't even know what that involves i understand it's burglarial arts and property yeah burglarial arts uh my name has been mentioned uh as being one of them indicted uh i would imagine the other 30 or so are in wounded knee right now and of course we won't know who they are until they come out and send it to arrest we have indicated very clearly that the new ogolala sovereign nation at wounded knee is going to stay we have also indicated that we are also taking the position as ambassadars from the ogolala nation and we should be allowed to cross this land which is our sacred land it's our land that we are paths have went across for thousands of years we should be allowed to walk our land here and with the same diplomatic

community extended to other diplomats from foreign nations so there'll be a whole test test to whether the the indictments himself are uh are illegal there'll be a test test to that particular grand jury whether there's Indian people on that grand jury we'll we'll use that as a test to test a whole judicial system in that area so we're not really concerned about whether or not we're indicted or not we know that the violence that we have had to live with we know that the destruction against our lands and our way of life far exceed any crime that could have been committed at wounded knee so uh we're going to continue uh in our efforts uh to you know we certainly don't want to be arrested we certainly don't want to go to jail but uh we'll welcome that opportunity to go into court and test them in front of them there also which your evaluation know of the uh the political forces and and uh and so on at wounded knee itself it's gone back and forth from discussions and uh and uh uh blockades and uh and uh your your evaluation of the strengths weaknesses that your uh what you might say about outcomes or alternatives and so on

well it's a it's a very grave situation at the present time because since the federal troops uh deployed their their troops on uh around wounded knee again they've completely isolated that uh wounded knee uh they have indicated uh that they're not going to allow food and supplies to come in and uh this is in fact a case uh they're running low on food a lot of our people are down with pneumonia and are very sick and uh and the government uh is doing exactly what we said they've been doing all these years uh they're indicating to the world again the type of inhumanity and even articles of war that would provide medical treatment for for people as being deprived uh we can see that as a crucial issue they're attempting once again as they did hundred years ago to starve us out and freeze us out and of course they're attempting the same type of warfare that they used in Vietnam to destroy and try to starve the people out it hasn't worked you know you can starve us but they're never going to kill the hope they're not going to kill the pride and the the new spirit that is at wounded knee um we would expect that there are some people in government

that want to take a hard line I think they that is still their policy uh I believe that the only reason they haven't is because the whole world is now has an eye focused on wounded knee the whole world is looking into the same to themselves now the government this president of this United States has an opportunity to become a great humanitarian just like Lincoln supposedly uh supposedly gave freedom you know uh to the black man maybe we have a man that can give freedom to the sovereign people now we don't expect that to happen however but uh it's still a hope it's still a hope that they'll recognize that they have two alternatives they can either submit to our reasonable demands and that only means freedom and truth not only for ourselves but for all mankind because at wounded knee we have their locked arm and arm we have young whites we have blacks we have yellow brothers and we have red men a lot of warriors are standing there we have committed ourselves and until negotiations prove different and we either submit to or compromise to other terms uh our people are going to stand firm at wounded knee and the government has an alternative either to sit down

as humanitarians and negotiate with us and submit to our reasonable demands or they can come in and fight us and we're prepared to fight and we're prepared to die to the man at wounded knee because as an incumbent and women as 40% of them are women and they are going to be there too and we are we recognize that wounded knee has become a memorial for freedom not only for indian people but it's become a memorial for all people and a better way of life and if that can be crushed and if the society allows that to be crushed they are perhaps crushing an opportunity to really have peace in the world because we have recognized in our spiritual leaders and our old people tell us that the reason this government has never been able to find peace in the world is they've never made peace with the sovereign people here until they make peace with the red man and our part of the universe they'll never find peace anywhere in the universe