Money and gun, evidences on case of gun suplier (Jubi)
Jayapura, 3/7 (Jubi) – Although the smuggled firearms in Papua allegedly come from the southern Philippines, the suspected smugglers appear to have no relation with an international firearm smuggling network, the Papua Police said.
“There is no connection with an international cartel, moreover it only involves a limited number of firearms. The number is not significant. However, there’s a new trend, which is the opening of a new patch to the South Philippines while previously they had a connection with PNG. Therefore we have to cut off their line,” Papua Police Chief Tito Karnavian said in a press conference on Thursday (3/7).
He said the southern Philippines has became a source of smuggled firearms in Southeast Asia and some of them weapons fell in the hands of Islamic radical groups in Indonesia. It also has the guns home industry.
“I’ve been in the South Philippines and studied the conflict out there. There were resistance groups against the government, some are separatist, and some are not. But the purpose of both groups was for the greater autonomy, not for independence. There were also a communist group and Islam radical group,” he said.
Tito further said the resource of fund was coming from many persons but not important figure, except a case in Puncak Regency. He added that of four cases in the last two months, it could be concluded the armed groups in Papua got the firearm supplies from the seizing arms and the suppliers from PNG, Philippines and other conflict areas.
“If there’s a rumor said there’s a military and police conspiracy to sell the weapons, it’s not true,” he said. (Jubi/Arjuna/rom)
