"Manitoba Chiefs Reach Key Self-Government Deal"

WININPEG (CP) - Grand Chief Phil Fontaine was relieved.

After six months, three meetings and 13 rewrites, Manitoba's Indian chiefs had finally ratified a ground-breaking preliminary agreement on self-government.

It wasn't easy to reach.

The Manitoba Assembly of Chiefs come from many nations - Ojibwa, Cree, Sioux, Chipewyan and Dene.

They represent urban aboriginals from Winnipeg, northern caribou hunters, prairie farmers, freshwater fishermen and many, many unemployed.

Some bands have already established their own tribal justice systems, their own social service agencies, their own schools.

Others are almost completely dependent on the federal government to deliver those things. They're not certain they want to take on the burden themselves.

In an early September meeting at a bingo hall on a reserve near Portage la Prairie, Man., Fontaine persuaded a majority of the chiefs to ratify a blueprint for achieving self-government.

The agreement, initially drafted in March by officials with the assembly and the Indian Affairs Department, must now be approved by Ottawa.

Central to the agreement is a process for dismantling Indian Affairs in Manitoba.

In urging the chiefs to approve the document, Fontaine reminded them that "the enemy is not within our organization, but outside.

"The fight is not between chiefs, the fight is with government."

But further battles seem inevitable.