from entering Wounded Knee, it must have been out of regard for your safety, not to keep you from helping the hostages or hostage-takers.
It began when AIM failed at getting "half-breed" Wilson ousted as tribal president. AIM decided a good way to protest their failure at ousting him and at the same time draw attention to the broken treaties of the U.S. government and the plight of Native Americans (I think it would be called killing three birds with one stone) would be to hold a town hostage, and then place the blame for anything bad that might happen on the feds (or on NAs who weren't members of AIM).
I can imagine teabaggers doing something similar to the Wounded Knee takeover, and getting a similar result.
To make a long story short: I walked with AIM on their bicentennial march to Mt. Rushmore. I was with them when they "took over" Hot Springs in the Black Hills. I stared down the barrels of law enforcement rifles right along with my AIM friends.
I was also with Park employees and helped to clean up the Black Hills campsites after the AIM occupation of the Black Hills. I wondered why AIM, who claimed to consider Paha Sapa holy, would leave behind destruction and garbage and would defecate everywhere. Later I wondered why the AIM members I let live in my rental house in Hot Springs for free, despite my neighbors' objections at having AIM members near by, trashed the house when they left, ripping out the electrical wiring and the plumbing, and tearing out the sinks, and even the toilet.
There were "good" AIM members and "bad" ones. It was sometimes hard to tell them apart, even among my friends.
I get tired of the rhetoric that the FBI bullied AIM. If anyone was bullying AIM or the Indian People in general, it was AIM leaders.
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