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PAC: Weapons still hidden out in the community: Police

09 Nov 2008 11:39 PM
By Max Blenkin, Defence Correspondent

HONIARA, Nov 9 AAP - The Solomons Islands' descent into chaos up to 2003 was fuelled by military weapons in the hands of militants - and five years ona significant, but unknown, number remain hidden in the community for possible future use.

That's despite a significant effort by the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI) which staged a gun amnesty, seizing and destroying more than 3,600 weapons.

Militant groups equipped themselves from police armouries during the unrestbetween 1998 and 2003, helping themselves to modern military weapons including assault rifles and machine guns.

Just how many remain unaccounted for is unknown but it's thought to be several hundred.

The Australian Defence Force's own handbook for the Solomon Islands lists aselection of missing weapons including MAG-58 machine guns and M-79 grenade launchers.

It is strongly suspected, however, that the militants retain many weapons with these remaining cached in Malaita and Honiara, it said.

The militants themselves vanished when, in July 2003, RAMSI arrived in the Solomons. None were willing to take on Australian troops in a stand-up fight.

But in December 2004, a bandit armed with a military rifle shot dead Australian Protective Service Officer Adam Dunning.

Solomon Islands Police acting commissioner Peter Marshall acknowledged weapons remained in the community, but there were few signs of them.

"I have been in the Solomons nearly two years and it is quite exceptional to have firearms used against civilians of members of the military or police," he told reporters.

"It is not known exactly how many weapons are out there. There certainly are (some). We would be overly optimistic to suggest we were able to retrieveand destroy all of them."

Mr Marshall said police treated any firearms case very seriously.

"We would actively seek it out if we had any intelligence to that effect. But by and large the Solomons is comparatively free of firearms.

"It is quite refreshing in this environment, from a policing point of view,the absence of firearms. We certainly can't dismiss the fact that there issome serious weaponry out there. We haven't come across it."

AAP mbcdh =0A