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Originally Posted by Zeke
Respectfully, that they were "rivals" is AIM spin.
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I don't know what else you'd call them. They were trying to wrest control of the Tribal Council from Wilson.
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AIM were foreign outsiders and white folks -- I'd bet there were <20 Pine Ridge Lakota, then or now, amongst their members -- who got up-in-arms torqued when, for their own protection, the FBI suggested they should leave and cease making trouble. 
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There may not have been many Oglala in AIM but Russell Means is full blood Oglala, born on Pine Ridge. Peltier was part Lakota, part Anishinaabe. He grew up on the Turtle Mountain Reservation (Chippewa). Lakota were pretty well represented in AIM at Pine Ridge but you do have a point in that AIM wasn't a Lakota organization. It was more or less a "pan-tribal" group that sought to empower native peoples as a whole.
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Eventually, in support of the rightful government, more forceful Federal techniques had to be used.
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The BIA had it in for AIM. The year before Pine Ridge AIM had occupied the BIA headquarters in Washington. It was a real embarrassment. Pine Ridge gave them a chance for revenge.
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That's, still, the fault of AIM: who had it coming.
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AIM was a threat to the existence of Wilson's increasingly unpopular council and a thorn in the side of the BIA. AIM's real problem was that it made powerful enemies.
John