The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) says that it is assisting police with investigations into the Saturday find of a box containing 15 grenades and a small quantity of live ammunition near the Lamaha Canal on Sheriff Street but that an inventory of its armory so far shows none of its munitions is missing.
“We have checked our inventory and haven’t discovered any missing grenades. But we continue to work with the police on this investigation,” Chief of Staff of the GDF, Mark Phillips told Stabroek News yesterday.
Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum had informed this newspaper that detectives and ranks from the force’s ballistics section unearthed 11 fragmentation grenades, four concussion grenades, thirteen fuses, three 7.62 rounds for an AK-47, and seven 9mm rounds in the small green box, that was found near the Lamaha Canal.
Stabroek News was told that a city constable spotted the suspicious box around 2:30pm last Saturday and that it was covered in mud.
It is suspected that the box was dumped in the area recently. The Crime Chief said it is possible that the box was dumped in the canal and was scooped up by an excavator while it was being dug and deposited at the side of the canal with mud and other debris. He said that the explosives appeared to be in good condition.
Members of the police bomb squad, after spending a few hours at the scene conducting investigations, later removed the box. Fingerprint testing is to be done to trace its origin.
Phillips said that the army is also doing checks to ascertain if the grenades are similar to those from the army or where they originated from.
The colour coding has nothing to do with the GDF, it has to do with the items inside…they would put it in green mainly for camouflage. “We are checking our inventory.
So far we have accounted for all our holdings however we continue to work with the police as they do the investigation to ascertain the origin of these arms… to look for signs on the grenade to see if you can see codes batch numbers and try to place them somewhere. That is our purpose to ascertain the origin,” he stated.
The army head said that that the find should be a worry for any Guyanese since there are grenades seemingly at the disposal of non-military personnel.
He also wants the public edified that while the box that the arms were found in was green in colour it does not necessarily mean that it originated from the GDF as green is a global military colour.
“It doesn’t have to originate from GDF it can originate from some other source because internationally green is a colour that generally military-type ammunitions are in. Not because you see green is GDF, if you go to Lebanon, Syria you will see boxes of grenades with the colour green. (It is) an international thing,” he said.
Grenades, sources say, can be acquired just as easily as a gun or ammunition. The security agencies continue to grapple with the regular flow of contraband, including arms, across the country’s porous borders. Brazil is the producer of small arms and it is believed that the bulk of the weapons is coming from there.
