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The opening of a nondescript office in Oka, the federal governmnet has
so angered Kanesatake Mohawk, Grand Chief Jerry Peltier, warning it could
spark a crisis that will make the summer of 1990 " LOOK LIKE A TEA PARTY"
Public works Canada calls the office in a two-storey brick office
buliding on Oka's main street, an information center. It is required according
to a ministry spokesman, to keep the non-native population of Oka up to date
on land acuisitions and negotiation between the government and the Mohawk.
But the Mohawks call it a real estate office, and they accuse the
government of using it to make quiet deals with landowners, scuttling the
offical neogtiation process agreed upon after the 78-day armed stand-off at
Oka two summers ago.
Certain progress was being made at the negotiation table,
but this is a deliberate attempt to un-dermine that process, said Peltier. All
this is doing is creating tension between our two communities,
About 80 Mohawks and a dozen non-native supporters protested outside
the office yesterday carrying signs that said "no real estate office here ",
and Mohawk land is not for SALE.
They say they will continue to protest until the office is closed.
The federal government purchased 106 acres of land for the Mohawks
during the standoff, and agreed to purchase an uspecified amount in addition
to that for them as part of a land reunification project.
A negotaition process was also set up at that time which would allow
the government, the town of Oka and the Mohawks to agree on what lands would
be included in the project to create a unified territory for the Mohawks of
Kanesatake.
In December, the local memeber of Parliament, Lise Bourgault, proposed
that a land delevelopment corporation be set up in Oka and buy land from the
non-natives and piece together a unified territory for the Mohawk.
That proposal was dropped but an information center, with an evaluator
and real estate agent employed by Public works Canada, was established in its
place.
Bourgault's aide Jules Champagne said the center was needed to end the
isolation non-natives in Oka have been feeling since the crisis.
The ( MOHAWKS ) have been participating in the negotaitions and have
had a direct line of communication with the Minister of Indian Affairs. But
the others have not, Champagne said.
A spokesman for the Public Works Canada said the information center
will deal only with properties that have alreay been agreed on in the
negotiations.
But Peltier said plans were in the works to set up a committee to give
information and facilitate the transactions, and then the government
unilaterlly set up the center.
Although the government says lands the center will deal with all
eventually end up as Mohawk property, Peltier said the process ecludes
natives.
We want tp make sure that somebody in our community is involved is
these transaction.
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