Army, Indians Clearing Blockade; Officials and Mohawks Talking

Mohawks and Canadian soldiers worked Friday to clear blockades from a major Montreal bridge, but troops maintained their siege around a small but defiant band of Indians at a nearby resort.

Talks between Quebec officials and Mohawks to end a long standoff at Oka, a lakeside resort where the conflict erupted in July, collapsed Thursday night, prompting the province to revive an earlier order to have the army clear the barricades there.

But hopes for an end to the seven-week Mohawk crisis were revived when federal Indian Affairs Minister Tom Siddon said Friday that officials from his department were talking to Indians from Oka.

“As of late last evening, my officials were entering into discussions with the people of Kanesatake (the Mohawk settlement at Oka) with a view to setting the stage for the land negotiations once the barricades are removed,” Siddon said.

There were no signs Friday that the army was preparing to forcibly clear the barricades at Oka. But a handful of soldiers in armored personnel carriers maintained their vigil on the stronghold, which is manned by exhausted Mohawks.

The conflict broke out July 11 when Quebec policemen stormed a blockade erected by Indians at Oka to stop the town from extending a golf course on land the Indians regard as sacred. A police officer was killed during the assault.

In sympathy, other armed Mohawks from the Kahnawake reservation closed the Mercier Bridge linking the island of Montreal to its southern suburbs.

In an unexpected breakthrough in the standoff Wednesday, the Kahnawake Mohawks agreed to help soldiers dismantle the barricades on their land to avert a showdown.

The fragile agreement nearly came apart Thursday afternoon, when Mohawks accused police of blocking food shipments into the reservation, but the Indians and soldiers resumed taking down the barricades Friday morning.

In the intermittent negotiations of the last seven weeks, the Indians have presented a wide array of demands, ranging from sovereignty and unresolved land claims to requests to operate unlicensed bingo parlors.