"Indians Claim Genocide Bid"

Hereditary chiefs of the Six Nations Indians will move one step closer to a United Nations hearing when they meet with Mohawks of the Caughnawaga reserve and members of the Oka reserve near Montreal this weekend.

It is expected a date will be set to air their complaints to the UN. A delegation of five is leaving here Saturday.

The Six Nations Confederacy charges that Canada was guilty of genocide when the Canadian government sent police to depose it and set up an elective council in 1924. Genocide is a term used in the UN to describe the act of a country which attempts to destroy a cultural or minority group.

The chiefs claim the move was illegal and was made shortly after they demanded the government account for tribal funds and state the amount of money received for land taken from Indians without their consent.

Other grievances of the Six Nations chiefs include land they say was taken from them for the building of the St. Lawrence Seaway and land expropriated for the widening of a highway now under construction through the local reservation connecting Highway 6 west of Caledonia with the Cockshutt Road south of Brantford.

They also have a long-standing claim to $180,000 which chiefs say was taken by the government from tribal funds about 100 years ago as a loan to help finance a program to improve navigation on the Grand River.