President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday announced a wide-ranging probe to determine how many weapons were issued to government departments under the late Forbes Burnham-led administration by the security forces and have not been returned.
And he revealed that based upon records provided by the Guyana Defence Force, between 1976 and 1979, the military issued 236 weapons including General Purpose Machines Guns and other guns of various calibre to the Ministry of National Development. Jagdeo could not say how many of those weapons have been returned and he assured that the investigation which he will commission would hopefully unearth this. He gave no time frame as to when the inquiry will commence, neither did he say what form it would take.
Jagdeo’s announcement came following the recovery of two weapons – a M-72 rifle and a beretta 9mm submachine gun that were issued to the Ministry of National Development under the People’s National Congress government from criminals last week Wednesday during a gun battle at Mahaicony. Jagdeo said the investigation would go back as far as the 1950s to present, noting that it now worries his administration that guns that were issued to the government back then have now landed in the criminals’ hands. “The question to be asked is how these weapons ended up in criminals’ hands,” Jagdeo commented at his press conference yesterday afternoon. He said that his administration has decided early that it wanted a full investigation, noting that the matter was a serious one. PNCR Leader Robert Corbin who was a member of the Burnham cabinet in the 1970s maintains that the authorities were trying to divert attention from torture allegations made against the army by now bringing into the public domain something which occurred decades ago. Corbin said he did not have a problem with the President wanting to investigate the whereabouts of the weapons that were issued to the government then, but noted that the authorities should not implicate his party in the distribution of guns to criminals.
Jagdeo told the press conference “I don’t see this as a diversion of the torture claims
