"Natives Face Another Hot Summer"

OHSWEKEN - Georges Erasmus has a map of Canada marked with little red flags.

There are some over logging areas in northern British Columbia. More over Mohawk communities in Quebec. Another batch is around James Bay.

The national chief of the Assembly of First Nations says each of these areas has the potential to explode into conflict this summer, because of disputes between native people and provincial and federal governments.

Mr. Erasmus was speaking Monday to about 300 people gathered for the annual Chiefs of Ontario four-day conference at the Six Nations reserve.

In British Columbia, native people and environmentalists are pitted against the provincial government, which wants to log old-growth forests.

The Mohawk communities of Kanesatake, near Oka, and Kahnawake, near Montreal, "are both very tense," said Mr. Erasmus.

He said the Quebec provincial police continue to stop motorists on the reserves for the most minor reasons, and the land claim at Oka has yet to be resolved.

The third possibility for conflict involves native communities that would be affected by the second phase of a hydroelectric project around James Bay.

The Quebec government wants to start putting roads in for the project, and that may cause trouble, said Mr. Erasmus, because "the young people have made some pretty clear statements that they are not going to let their territory be flooded."