AK-47 rifle found in city raid
-- Five held
Guyana Chronicle
March 15, 2007
THE Joint Services, acting on information received, yesterday raided a house on Church Street, Georgetown and found an AK-47 rifle.
The Joint Services said five persons were held in the operation which is continuing and promised more details as the investigation unfolds.
The operation began around 14:00h at a two-storey building at Lot 190 B Church Street, North Cummingsburg.
The AK-47 rifle with part of its butt sawn off was found in the upper flat of the building, the Joint Services said.
Soldiers and police sealed off part of Church Street during the operation which stretched into nightfall.
It was not immediately clear if the AK-47 rifle found yesterday was from the 30 stolen from a storage bond at the Guyana Defence Force Camp Ayanganna headquarters in Georgetown more than a year ago.
GDF Chief of Staff, Brigadier Edward Collins, last week said the recovery of the missing AK-47 weapons “must remain on our operational radar” and urged the Army’s intelligence to “accelerate its rebuilding process to develop new operatives, having suffered from a nasty blow to their clandestine efforts and a serious dent to their intelligence collection plan”.
Acknowledging that these things take time, Collins said the Army will continue to use whatever means available to recover the weapons.
“That’s an order and recovering those weapons, being the end must justify the means (and) you have my word that I am not one to be questioning means once the weapons are recovered”, he told the annual Army Officers Conference.
“Just as how we remained undaunted in 2006 by the theft of our weapons (missing AK-47s) and strove manfully to recover them while at the same time ensuring internal stability, so it is that we will continue this year to prosecute operations to ensure that high profile security activities such as the Cricket World Cup 2007 take place in a climate that is free from fear”, he said.
Last year, he recalled, was “marked by very high operational tempo occasioned by the theft of the weapons”, referring to the shocking disappearance of the 30 high-powered AK-47 assault rifles from the GDF storage bond, and the continuing efforts to recover all the weapons.
Noting that Operation Ferret was launched to recover the weapons, with its subsidiary Opposition Centipede, Collins said these operations are by “any comparison the longest operation ever conducted by the Joint Services” but worth every ounce of operational energy and effort.
Some of the AK-47 rifles have been found but the bulk remain missing.