Mulroney to Send in Army in Quebec-Indian Standoff : Canada: He also appoints judge to mediate bitter land dispute.

Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney said Wednesday that he will send in the army to help end a monthlong standoff between Quebec police and armed Mohawk Indians barricaded at two reservations in the province.

Mulroney said he hopes, however, that the conflict will be settled peacefully, and he appointed Quebec Superior Court Justice Alan Gold to mediate the bitter land dispute between the Mohawks and the Quebec government.

But he did not rule out the use of force. “The army is not going in as a peacekeeping force,” Mulroney said at a news conference in Ottawa.

“They’re going in to ensure that the laws of Canada are respected and to contribute to an ambience whereby Chief Justice Gold can do his work.”

Mulroney said the government had completed its previously announced negotiations to purchase the disputed territory at Oka and would turn it over to the Indians once the blockades had been removed.

The Mohawks, who spent most of the day Wednesday fortifying their barricades, expressed pleasure that a federal mediator had been appointed. Spokeswoman Ellen Gabriel said the Mohawks hoped Gold’s mediation would lead to negotiations on a wide range of issues troubling the Indians.

The conflict erupted last month when Quebec police stormed a Mohawk barricade at the lakeside resort of Oka, 20 miles west of Montreal, to enforce a court ruling that declared the blockade illegal. One police officer was killed in the fighting.

The Mohawks had erected the barricade at Oka to stop the town council from extending a golf course onto their ancestral land.

The trouble spread as Mohawks at another reservation south of Montreal occupied the Mercier Bridge linking the island of Montreal to the city’s southern suburbs and threatened to blow it up if police attempted another raid at Oka.

Efforts to break the impasse broke down Sunday when Quebec government officials rejected the Mohawks’ latest demands that native Indian advisers be allowed to go behind the barricades and that international observers supplant Canadian authorities in overseeing the removal of the blockades.

Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa told the Mohawks on Sunday that they had until Wednesday to lay down their arms and resume negotiations or the province would take “appropriate steps.”

After a daylong meeting with his Cabinet in Quebec City, Bourassa announced Wednesday afternoon that he had asked the federal government to send in the army.

“People are totally exasperated by the duration of this situation and we understand their exasperation,” he said at a news conference.

In the past two days, hundreds of people have fled their homes in and around the two reservations, fearing that police or soldiers might attempt to storm the barricades.