The Police Commissioner Egon Keil and Acting Prime Prime Minister Lautafi Selafi Fio Purcell at the launching of the gun amnesty in Samoa Photo: RNZI / Autagavaia Tipi Autagavaia
Samoans who have illegal weapons, or guns of any kind, can hand them in without any legal repercussions until the end of the year.
The police have just begun a two-month gun amnesty, and started by destroying around 80 guns as a demonstration this week.
The police commissioner, Egon Keil, says the purpose is to save lives and he hopes many will come forward.
He told Alex Perrottet the amnesty runs until December the 31st.
EGON KEIL: So far we've recovered about 20 guns, which is amazing. And we're expecting to get in a lot more. This is a time when someone can bring in a weapon, we won't prosecute them, there will be no questions asked, it's just taken, we receipt it, and we cut up this firearm. The ultimate goal of this program is to save lives, not to arrest anybody, not to get information. We just want these guns in, take them off the streets and we can make Samoa a little bit safer a place to live and also to visit.
ALEX PERROTTET: How is it actually working? You've made advertisements about people to bring in whatever firearms they have and they won't be arrested. Are you being specific about what sorts of firearms you're asking for?
EK: Any type of firearm, we're talking handguns, we've got machine guns, whatever, shotguns, .22s, whatever type of firearms they might have. It also goes to ammunition, explosives as well. But so far we've been getting in about 20 guns already and this goes throughout the whole Samoa. Ideally they can drop it off at our station, but sometimes they discover these guns and they don't have transportation so there is a chance we can actually go out and recover these guns from their homes if they feel that it's unsafe to touch it or deliver it here into town. "But we've actually had people walk in with rifles and handguns and delivered it to us right in our station, which is pretty amazing.
AP: And what's the motivation to do that, how are you selling this idea to the people?
EK: It's that you're not going to get prosecuted. If you've got illegal weapons with you, this is the time to get rid of them, because we are not going to arrest you, we are not going to ask questions, we just want them off the street. Bring them in, we receipt it, we document it, we photograph them then we destroy them, that's the ideal thing. We've been getting a lot of guns through our different operations so we know there's going to be more guns out there and obviously now, the third day into it and we're getting about 20 guns already so we've got two months to go so I'm assuming we're going to get a whole lot more. And this is only in Upolu, you know there's two main islands and Savai'i is the other one and so far we haven't tracked Savai'i yet but I'm sure they've got guns being turned in there as well. So I'm looking for a huge success. I'm just trying to get the community and whoever has these guns to feel comfortable enough to come in and relinquish these weapons so we can confiscate them.
AP: And I guess that begs the question, how do these guns get into the country in the first place?
EK: Absolutely that's a good question. There's many multiple ways that they can bring firearms into this country. You just have to think of certain things and I don't want to put ideas into anybody's minds so I'm not going to, there's tonnes of ways you can bring them into a country especially a small country like this, with limited resources. And it's not just Samoa, it's the whole region. There's a lot of guns in the South Pacific. So we're trying to limit that as well, we're working together with other countries, island nations, to try and minimise gun issues.
