Section 3

Training & capacity building

Executing the actual destruction part of an Operation Rachel is an extremely risky undertaking. Not only are the two police agencies gathering information about arms caches, and pin-pointing their location, they are also moving these weapons, often comprising of unexploded ordinances and unstable ammunition, to secure sites for destruction through the use of explosives.

The weapons themselves have a street value and criminal use in Southern African countries and can find their way to conflict areas in the African continent, and for this reason the police need to work swiftly to remove the weapons before competing criminal elements lay claim to them. Once the weapons have been located, explosives are utilised to destroy the weapons on-site. Due to these hazards in carrying out these operations, specialised skills and knowledge of a variety of disciplines are essential. To this end, multi-disciplinary teams are utilised in the execution of these operations.

As these operations must be well co-ordinated and members of the teams must be able to carry out their tasks to achieve their common goal, it is essential that the team members be well trained to an equally high standard. Due to the South African Police Service's capacity and expertise, they took it upon themselves to assist the Mozambican Police in this regard, providing numerous training sessions preceding and following each of the successive operations held to date.

The aim of this training is not only to enhance the skills and knowledge of all the team members to be utilised during current and forthcoming Operations Rachel, but also during their normal policing functions.

Different divisions of the South African Police Service are involved in providing specialised skills development and operational oversight. The following South African Police Service components are responsible for this training and capacity building:

Illegal Firearm Investigation Unit of the Serious and Violent Crime Unit;
SAPS Special Task Force;
Explosive Unit; and the
Air wing.

The training of the police officers and that of the rest of the teamsincluded, amongst others;

The safe handling and identification of foreign firearms, munitions and explosives;
Techniques for safely uncovering underground caches;
Communication skills;
The use of Global Positioning Systems and map reading; and the
Establishment and maintenance of a proper intelligence network on arms caches in their respected areas.

Training received in more recent operations included 'Air Wing' training so as to familiarise team members with how to orientate themselves in finding arms caches from the air after they plotted the caches on the ground, and the clearing of landing zones for the helicopters.

With all the training, members in the teams are cross-trained in more than one discipline. This ensures that the teams operate as a whole, and team members are interchangeable.