Police remove Mohawk blockade near Deseronto
Last Updated: Monday, April 28, 2008 | 6:33 PM ET
CBC News
Police dismantled a roadblock Monday that aboriginal protesters had set up two days earlier on a back road north of Deseronto, Ont.
However, road crews must still fill and repair a large trench that the protesters dug in the road, so the intersection of Slash and Deseronto Roads will likely not be reopened until Tuesday, Ontario Provincial Police Sgt. Kristine Rae said Monday.
Police used backhoes to remove the logs and tires used by protesters to block the intersection at the border of Deseronto and the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory.
Members of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, who control the territory, set up the roadblock Saturday, a day after several Mohawk protesters were taken into custody in relation to an earlier blockade.
As of early afternoon, some officers had left the area, but Rae said the OPP planned to maintain a presence throughout the day.
After the OPP dismantled the largest blockade on Monday, at least two smaller roadblocks remained on the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory a little further from Deseronto.
Many of the protesters retreated to a quarry that they had been occupying for more than a year, and expressed fears that the police would try to remove them from that site. However, OPP said they had no intention of doing so.
A group of protesters from the territory were arrested Friday in relation to a day-long blockade set up on April 21, after Nibourg Developments, based in Kingston, Ont., announced it would begin clearing brush on property it owns in the community southwest of Napanee.
The property is part of the Culbertson Tract, about 400 hectares of land on Lake Ontario's Bay of Quinte, east of Belleville and west of Kingston, that the Mohawks say they never properly surrendered. It is part of an ongoing land dispute.
Also arrested Friday was Shawn Brant, 44, who faces several charges including assault with a weapon that police say is unrelated to the recent protests. Brant, who was an organizer of the high-profile blockade of a Montreal-Toronto CN Rail corridor last June, was denied bail on Monday.
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