THE 3462 unregistered and illicit firearms missing after the 2000 coup are still floating around in our communities, Opposition MP Salote Radrodro told Parliament yesterday.
Ms Radrodro said this information was revealed during a regional workshop she attended last week which was on “gun violence and illicit small arms trafficking from a gender perspective.
“We were advised that Fiji has about 3462 unregistered and illicit firearms missing from the military armoury after the 2000 coup,” Ms Radrodro said.
“They are still floating around in our communities.
“And there are about 16,700 guns under the military and 2000 guns under the police force.
“With our population of about 900,000 people, that’s too many guns to be missing and too many guns to be owned by the military and police.
“The associate socioeconomics risks and problems faced by our people now are huge and we don’t want to reach a futuristic stage of armed conflict as experienced by some of our neighbouring countries.”
She said news that police were considering the use of taser guns would not bring about peace and non-violence.
“And we must always remember that spending more money on military defence rather than on programs of social uplift, is indeed pushing us faster towards approaching spiritual doom.”
President Jioji Konrote opened the 2019/2020 session of Parliament last Tuesday.
