Geisha Kow­lessar

The De­fence Force has said warn­ing shots fired by sol­diers dur­ing Mon­day's protest ac­tion by Beetham Gar­dens res­i­dents were nec­es­sary to dis­perse the crowd and to en­sure there was no dam­age to prop­er­ty or peo­ple.That was the re­sponse from civ­il mil­i­tary af­fairs of­fi­cer of the De­fence Force, Ma­jor Al Alexan­der, yes­ter­day af­ter video footage showed the res­i­dents scam­per­ing when sol­diers fired shots.

On Mon­day res­i­dents vent­ed their anger over the killing of Beetham Gar­dens res­i­dent Christo­pher Greaves, in­sist­ing he was shot in the back by po­lice as he left a shop with a soft drink.They blocked the Beetham High­way caus­ing a traf­fic jam for sev­er­al hours on the day the new school term opened.Video footage al­so showed sev­er­al res­i­dents hurl­ing ob­jects at the sol­diers be­fore the shots were fired.

Say­ing he had seen the video, Alexan­der added: "First of all the sol­diers did not shoot at any­one or fired at any­one. They fired warn­ing shots in the air to dis­perse the crowd to bring about some lev­el of calm and ci­vil­i­ty."If you look at the video you would see the crowd right up on the sol­diers... com­ing clos­er and clos­er. The sit­u­a­tion was clear­ly es­ca­lat­ing ,so at that stage it be­came nec­es­sary to fire the warn­ing shots. No one was hurt and noth­ing was dam­aged."

Alexan­der said apart from the mis­siles thrown at the sol­diers there were al­so un­con­firmed re­ports that the sol­diers were shot at ,which could al­so have prompt­ed the warn­ing shots to be fired.On what was the spe­cif­ic role and who was in charge of the sol­diers at Beetham Gar­dens on Mon­day, Alexan­der said they were there in sup­port of the po­lice, who were in com­mand."Our role is more of a sup­port­ive role, and the po­lice have the lead role. Our role is al­ways to aid the civ­il pow­er, which the po­lice would play."

But Alexan­der said the sol­diers were not nec­es­sar­i­ly an­swer­able to the po­lice."While we lend key as­sis­tance to the po­lice in the form of pa­trols and so on ,the De­fence Force has its own in­ter­nal com­mand and pro­ce­dures. If, for in­stance, a sol­dier shoots some­one, then that per­son will have to ap­pear be­fore a board of in­quiry in the De­fence Force."So it's not to say the po­lice are re­spon­si­ble for us. We have our own sys­tems to work with"

Asked who would have giv­en the com­mand to fire the warn­ing shots, Alexan­der said he was un­sure, adding: "The sol­diers would have been giv­en that or­der, be­cause they would not have act­ed on their own."Apart from armed sol­diers, the De­fence Force al­so de­ployed its own ri­ot team at Beetham Gar­dens on Mon­day to sup­port the po­lice."We have our own ri­ot team, with shields, and mem­bers were in the front and at the back of the po­lice at all times, as an­oth­er mea­sure of sup­port," Alexan­der added.

The video al­so showed the po­lice throw­ing tear gas to dis­perse the crowd. That mea­sure al­so was backed by the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, which said the of­fi­cers re­spond­ed ap­pro­pri­ate­ly to the sit­u­a­tion.Com­ment­ing yes­ter­day, the as­so­ci­a­tion's sec­re­tary, act­ing In­sp Michael Seales, said: "We are con­cerned about the wel­fare of our of­fi­cers. They re­spond­ed ac­cord­ing­ly to the sit­u­a­tion and used the nec­es­sary method, be­cause the sit­u­a­tion was more than that of a crowd–it was a ri­ot.

"There was an of­fi­cer with a tear-gas can­is­ter in his hand, but an­oth­er of­fi­cer told him to hold his hand. It was on­ly when stones and bot­tles were thrown at the shields of the law­men was the tear gas thrown to bring con­trol."Seales said while the po­lice re­spect­ed the right to protest, law-abid­ing cit­i­zens must not suf­fer as a re­sult.

He said sev­er­al dri­vers us­ing the Beetham High­way on Mon­day ex­pressed con­cern to the po­lice that they were afraid to use the route, fear­ing their lives and those of their chil­dren were in dan­ger.