Section 4

Intelligence gathering on arms caches

Operation Rachel is information driven, which means that it is dependant on information gathered through intelligence initiatives and information supplied by the general public and villagers when the operation is in a specific area. Joint responsibility is taken with regards to the intelligence gathering process by both the Mozambican and South African Police. They gather information and intelligence pertaining to the weapons caches inside Mozambique. These two teams jointly plot the location of the caches on a Global Positioning System (GPS). These plottings are then transferred to maps for operational planning and the subsequent deployment to the field to destroy the weapons on-site.

Maintaining a proper intelligence network to supply the police with both credible and constant information on firearms is very difficult if there are insufficient resources to sustain such a network and to pay informants forinformation that resulted in a positive destruction. Proper training in the handling and maintaining of these intelligence networks, backed by credibility from the police towards informants concerning rewards, results in a constant flow of intelligence and information on arms caches for destruction.

What makes this situation unique from the Mozambican side is the fact that the Mozambican police officers are under-resourced. There is little or no money to pay the informants for the information supplied, and no vehicles to cover the long distances to and from caches. Still, they managed to successfully collect information, and in Operation Rachel VIII (1) about 90% of the information collected that led to the destruction of arms caches came from the Mozambican teams.

Information and intelligence collected is the single largest factor resulting in the destruction of firearms, ammunition and other war-related material. Other firearms destroyed in these operations include the firearms and ammunition collected by the Mozambican police through their normal day-to-day policing activities, and firearms surrendered by the civilian population at their local police station. These firearms are moved to a safe location for destruction by the destruction teams.