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- WORLD, Page 47World NotesCANADAMohawk Standoff
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- Every night up to 3,000 angry residents of Chateauguay,
- Quebec, gathered outside the barricade that Mohawk Indians
- raised across the approach to the Mercier Bridge, a major
- artery into Montreal. Rowdies grappled with police and burned
- effigies of Mohawks hanging from a lamppost. Since a policeman
- was killed two weeks ago during an assault on another Mohawk
- blockage at Oka, 19 miles to the west, that town and Chateauguay
- have become scenes of an edgy standoff over the volatile issue
- of Indian land rights. The Indians have been protesting plans
- to expand a golf course into a forest that they say contains
- a sacred burial ground.
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- The problem grew last week as Native leaders across Canada
- declared their solidarity with the Mohawks. The chiefs said
- they would take their case to the U.N. and called on the world
- to impose economic sanctions against Canada to protest its
- treatment of Native peoples. The government of Prime Minister
- Brian Mulroney balked at negotiating under pressure, but said
- it would try to buy the land to transfer to the Natives -- once
- the barricades came down.
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