Police have released the three men who were arrested following the abandonment of a boat with three weapons last Wednesday at Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Leroy Brummel told Stabroek News yesterday that the men have been released on station bail. He said the men were merely arrested to aid in the police investigations, and they were not the same men who confronted the police in the Zeskendren, Mahaicony area during the operation that yielded the weapons. Brummel said investigations were continuing.
Meanwhile, a political row has erupted between the ruling PPP/C and the opposition PNCR after the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) disclosed in a statement on Friday that two of the weapons, a Beretta submachine gun and an M-72 rifle, belonged to the GDF and were issued to the Ministry of Mobilisation and National Development under the Forbes Burnham-led PNC administration in the 1970s.
Police had said in a statement on Wednesday night that around 2 pm the said day policemen responded to information that a boat with a number of men was seen in the Zeskendren, Mahaicony drainage canal area. Upon arrival there, the police saw three men aboard a boat. According to the police statement, the men opened fire and the policemen took evasive action and returned fire. The men then abandoned the boat and escaped into thick bush north of the canal, the police statement said.
The law enforcement officials then conducted a search of the wooden boat, which had a 75 hp Yamaha outboard engine and recovered one M-72 rifle with five magazines and 80 rounds 7.62 x 39 ammunition; one Beretta submachine gun with two magazines and 60 rounds 9 mm ammunition; a semi-automatic rifle with two magazines and 42 rounds 9 mm ammunition; one telescopic lens; two camouflage jackets; two cutlasses; one torchlight and two bottles of mosquito repellent.
Leader of the PNCR Robert Corbin said the authorities were trying to divert attention from torture allegations made against the military by now saying that two weapons recovered from criminals were issued to a government ministry in the 1970s. Corbin had promised to make a fuller statement on the issue yesterday, but this was not done. He told Stabroek News on Sunday that even if the weapons were issued to the Ministry of Mobilisation and National Development it was an entirely government arrangement since the ministry was part of the state. “The weapons were issued to a government ministry and not the party,” Corbin declared.
Sources in the military said a number of weapons might have been issued to the said ministry and not returned.
The GDF on Friday said in a statement that the guns were the property of the army. It said the M-72 rifle and the Beretta 9 mm submachine gun were issued to the Ministry of National Deve-lopment in 1976 and 1979 respectively and were not returned.
People’s Progressive Party General Secretary Donald Ramotar told the Guyana Chronicle on Saturday that the PNCR needed to “come clean to tell us how many weapons they have from the army and to return them.” Ramotar said he was not surprised by the army’s revelation, charging, “We had known” that at a time of the philosophy of party paramountcy over the state in the 1970s and 1980s, “a lot of these para-military type organisations were set up by the PNC.” Ramotar said an enquiry is needed “to try to find out where the weapons are and try to get them back. What is clear is that these weapons are in the hands of very dangerous criminals within our society.”
However, Corbin said it was hypocritical for the ruling party to be calling for an enquiry into arms recovered from criminals, which were issued decades ago to a government ministry while resisting holding enquiries into allegations of torture and violence against persons along the East Coast Demerara.
