by Shamindra Ferdinando
Interior Ministry's 15-day amnesty to politicians, political party activists, security forces deserters and persons connected with organised crimes to surrender guns and grenades in their possession to police, came to an end midnight Tuesday without having the desired results, ministerial sources said.

The amnesty has failed to prompt those having unauthorised weapons to surrender them, the sources said adding that a major police operation aimed at recovering these weapons would get underway today. Those found with unauthorised weapons would be "severely dealt with according to the law," the sources said.

Interior Minister John Amaratunga has directed police top brass to mount countrywide operations to recover weapons in unauthorised hands. The minister was on record as saying that there were over 10,000 weapons in unauthorised hands.

Troops would be deployed in support of police in case of an emergency, the sources said while expressing confidence that they would be able to recover a sizeable amount of unauthorised weapons. However, the operation would not target Tamil groups that have been issued with weapons by successive governments since 1990 when the Premadasa administration negotiated a deal under which they would assist police and security forces in their operations against the LTTE.

Both the PA and the JVP appreciated the government’s decision. However, they expressed the belief that the government would take advantage of the hunt to harass its political opponents especially in view of the forthcoming local government elections. The UNP denied these allegations.

Immediately after the December 5 parliamentary elections, police mounted raids on homes of several PA politicians including two ex-cabinet ministers. "More raids are likely," opposition sources said. According to available information, at least 6000 weapons were released to political parties in late 1987 soon after the JVP mounted indiscriminate attacks on their political opponents. These guns were released following discussions between the then J. R. Jayewardene administration and senior leaders of the SLFP and other left parties. The two main beneficiaries were the UNP and the SLFP. The released weapons included 1700 .38 revolvers, 1700 12 bore repeater shot guns and 2400 12 bore shot guns.

Apart from these weapons, at least 2000 others who were considered ‘key JVP targets’ were provided with automatics including Chinese manufactured T-56 assault rifles.

Some of these recipients are not even in active politics today, the sources said.

Some of these weapons were recovered by the police following a directive given by President Chandrika Kumaratunga on August 22, 1994. Interestingly, the PA too offered an amnesty and several key UNP politicians took advantage of the amnesty to surrender their weapons.

However, some sources said that a small quantity of weapons had been issued to politicians even before the JVP took advantage of signing of the Indo-Lanka accord in July 1987 to launch its second insurgency.

Apart from arms issued to political parties and a large number of others in response to the then JVP threat, hundreds of weapons have been smuggled out of security forces bases particularly in the north-east. Most of them have been acquired by various underworld groups. These groups include security forces deserters, police said. Authorities believe that most of them were smuggled out of security forces bases took place during the PA administration.

Under the MoU reached between the PA and the JVP on September 5, 2001, the then government agreed to initiate immediate steps to take into custody all illegal firearms that were in the possession of individuals and underworld gangs.

The sources said that the JVP too seized many guns particularly T-56s during raids on isolated security posts and homes of politicians. Some of these were recovered by police and security forces in subsequent raids but the majority had not been found.