Yesterday on Channel 7, for 20 straight hours of broadcasting, it was
all about the election. But we interrupted our “The Big Test” election
coverage, to tell you about the grenade hurled at the home of the Comptroller
of Customs Gregory Gibson. It is the most disturbing attack on a public official
in memory; it happened at night, at his home in the quiet residential area of
Belama Phase four. Police still aren’t saying much about it, no one has
been arrested, and from what our sources tell us, there are no known suspects
or any confirmed motive.
Or course, it has to be mentioned, that under Gibson, an unprecedented
crackdown on smuggling has been made, most notably of pseudo-ephedrine pills,
which are a key basic ingredient in the international drug trade of the drug
known as crystal meth which is used in the United States and trans-shipped through
Mexico. But then, there’s also been a crackdown on illegal cigarettes,
so who’s to say...?
And while the possible motive points in so many disturbing directions,
the source of the grenade points to only one – the British Army Training
Support Unit, BATSUB. It has been confirmed as a British type grenade –
the same used in previous attacks. So what does BATSUB have to say? I went to
Ladyville looking for answers.
Jacqueline Godwin,
What was your reaction, ‘oh no not again,’?
Lt. Col. Peter Germain, BATSUB Commander
“That was exactly what it was Jackie. Yes obviously I was frustrated
that it was happening again. I was angry and equally disappointed as well. There
are some grenades out there. We don’t know exactly how many so there are
a number of things we need to do to try to prevent these things from coming
out and being used again.”
According to Lt. Peter Germaine, the Commander of the British Army Training
Support Unit, the grenade thrown on the third floor of the residence of Gregory 
Gibson the Comptroller of Custom’s corresponded with the batches of grenades
used by numerous British training units in Belize from mid 2006 to mid 2008.
In the recent case the lot number from the grenade’s fly off lever recovered
from the scene confirmed their suspicions that the grenade did not come from
the army’s ammunition compound.
Lt. Col. Peter Germain,
“So which leads us to conclude by all probability that the grenade
they found was British and it indeed had come from a BATSUB source.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
When?
Lt. Col. Peter Germain,
“Well we were issued that particular batch in middle of 2006 and the
exact figures elude me, I think it was something like 276 and those have been
issued to four or five different units over the following two years, up to the 
middle of 2008 and there are none of that type or batch number left in the ammunition
compound now so that also leads me to conclude that we’re back to that
scenario that we before where a user unit training from the UK has been issued
the grenades and they declare it is expended but somewhere along the line, someone
indiscriminate or dishonest, has either lost or not been truthful about that
fact or worse, criminally offloaded some of the grenades for personal gain.
Now these situations have been investigated by the British Special Investigation
Branch for the previous incident and it is like looking for a needle in a haystack
with the time that has elapsed, the number of different units, the number of
different possible people who could have come into contact whilst these grenades
were being thrown and they just have been unable to identify any concrete evidence
that can pinpoint any blame, for want of a better word, or culprits that might
have been involved in anything illegal.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
Who would have been these people who have been in contact with these grenades?
Lt. Col. Peter Germain,
“Well anyone down to a private soldier who is throwing the grenade
and they all have to practice using these grenades in order to enhance the value
of the training for them before they deploy into operations.
I can confirm on this particular batch that none of that particular batch
was issued by us to anyone in the BDF. That has happened in the past, different
batches, but on this one we know that the units issued it were all British.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
Would it be fair for me to assume then that in this Tuesday night incident it
was a British soldier who is responsible for having that grenade make it from
the training field onto the streets of Belize?
Lt. Col. Peter Germain,
"I think that would be very categoric to say that it was a British
soldier. There are civilians who assist the British soldiers when they exercise
who may somehow have had access either by familiarity with the person who is
running the range, earning their trust and they may have had access to the grenade.
I can’t state that categorically. All I am saying is I can’t categorically
state that it was a British soldier who removed the grenade from the training
area or indeed who might have made the grenade available to someone else who
was on the training area. I just can’t state categorically I am afraid
Jackie and the police investigation that followed was unable to get any closer
to answering that question either. I think now with our revised procedures,
we would be in a much better position to try and track where there could have
been a problem.
At the end of the day it isn’t a British guy who struck the grenade
at the senior official. That doesn’t make the fact that the grenades are
missing any the less heinous but at the end of the day, it is not actually a
British soldier who is conducting the acts. The grenade only becomes dangerous
if someone has malicious intent and it isn’t a British soldier who has
the malicious intent to the Belizean official. I apologize most sincerely to
the controller of Customs, I don’t actually know him personally. It is
an awful thing to happen. The important thing is try and identify if there is
anyone out there who knows anything about where people are obtaining grenades
from, I’d be as keen as anyone in Belize to be told and given the information.
Or if they know anything about the person who might have conducted the attack,
it is a cowardly attack. Use of the grenade is an indiscriminate weapon and
could harm anyone, not just the intended target and anyone uses it, as I said
before, is a coward and people who know people who have these items of equipment
and aren’t revealing it to the police need to look into the mirror occasionally
and ask themselves whether their doing all they can do.”
The BATSUB Commander confirmed that it was all British made grenades that were
used in three of the incidents in Belize City the first at KHMH in September
of 2008, the explosion in an open lot on Faber’s Road in November of 2008
and the blast at the Gibson’s residence on Tuesday, March third.
Jacqueline Godwin,
What security measures have been put in place since the first incident was reported?
Lt. Col. Peter Germain,
“I know the Belizean people will be looking incredulous at an organization
that they thought was well organized and well disciplined and I’d like
to assure them that we are and that we’re not taking failings lightly.
There are two things we need to do. We need to prevent anymore grenades going
missing and there are two ways we’ve done that so far and secondly, finding
those grenades that have gone missing already if we can. So to answer your question
exactly, the first thing we’ve done is completely reviewed the procedure
for the use of the grenades when they are being used by soldiers out on the
training area; and no one was doing anything wrong, they were following the
established British procedure that was laid down in our regulations and clearly
we’ve discovered that that was not working or didn’t work and had
failings in this situation. And so we’ve gone back to the UK authorities
with suggestions of ways we can improve it. And we now in Belize operate a stringent
method of using these grenades out in the field as in anywhere else that the
British Army uses grenades in the world. Kenya is the only other place where
we have similar type of training to this and they operate now the same system
that we have put in place here with more than duplicate copies of paper work
and witness signatures etc. that inevitably reduces the realism of the training
but as you know and as I know the most important thing is to make sure that
no more grenades get into the wrong hands.
Using the old regulations it is almost impossible to work out who of the
hundreds that would have done, might be involved in anything illegal and the
new system is much more full proof with much more accountability and rightly
so because we can’t allow this kind of thing to happen again.”
Jacqueline Godwin,
But at the same time because we don’t know how many grenades are out there,
you can’t put your head on the block to say you will never ever find another
British made grenade?
Lt. Col. Peter Germain,
“No I can’t Jackie and I said as much the last time I was interviewed
and it is not pretty but it is the reality that we find ourselves in now. And
like I said the key thing now is to prevent anymore grenades going missing and
trying to find them. BATSUB spent $20,000 on improving the lighting in the compound
and this year our hope is that the UK authorities will approve $400,000 to address
some security enhancements to the compound itself and that should be spent this
financial year I hope. That I hope will go somewhere in improving the security
of the ammunition compound and as I said the Belize Defense Force has looked
at introducing some closed circuit TV in there and to certainly improve the
conditions of the guard force that work in there.
A special research training team in England, primarily military, that was
involved in Northern Ireland, during the insurgency there, very successfully
searching for military hardware and is now doing similar things in Iraq and
Afghanistan and I hope to be able to obtain their services to come out to Belize
and work with the police and other agencies as seen fit by the Belizean authorities
and run some several courses where they could share ideas and maybe glean information
off each other on better ways of doing things. There may be nothing but both
the Security Ministry and also Mr. Jeffries who I was speaking to yesterday
were keen to follow that up. I am very willing to do anything that would give
them a better chance of trying to locate any of these things. But for them it
is also looking for a needle in a haystack.”
At this time the Belize City Police have no leads in the case and are
still appealing to the general public for any information that can lead them
to a suspicious looking white car seen leaving the Belama Phase one area sometime
between eight and eight thirty when the grenade exploded. We understand that
the Comptroller of Customs Gregory Gibson had arrived home only fifteen minutes
before the blast. Gibson’s wife and daughter were at home with him. The
grenade is believed to have been thrown from the ground floor of an adjacent
property and landed on the third floor of the residence that houses a balcony
and a gym. The only damaged sustained were several holes in a concrete wall
including an opening believed to be six inches in diameter.
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