Mohawks face off provincial police

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Mohawks at Kahanastake set up a four-hour blockade around their reserve after grand chief Jerry Pelletier held a news conference to protest harassment by provincial police.

More than 50 Mohawks - many wielding sticks and clubs - faced a group of at least 25 provincial police officers on a road near the Oka golf course, the site of the 78-day standoff in 1990, news reports says.

Other Mohawks set up car barricades at the entrance to the pine forest, which stood at the centre of the Oka crisis. No violence was reported at the scene and the barricades came down peacefully after Assembly of First Nation's grand chief Ovide Mercredi appealed to Quebec to call off the police, Pelletier said.

The standoff erupted at 11:15 p.m., three hours after Pelletier's news conference.

"We got a phone call as we were leaving the meeting that 10 or 15 police cars were here," Pelletier said.

Provincial police said a squad car was on patron through the pine forest when it was confronted by a group of masked individuals in army fatigues.

"As the officer got to this precise spot, there were about 20 guys with four or five cars behind them," said Daniel Morin, a spokesman for Surete du Quebec police force.

Stephen Bonspille, a 26-year-old Mohawk, called the showdown an overflow of tension between Natives and the police.

"They do a lot of flexing their muscles around here," he said following the incident. "There's a lost more harassment than there used to be."