Occasional Paper

Operations Rachel 1995 – 2001

“Operations Rachel is a bilateral co-operation agreement on arms destruction between the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM), effective since 1996. The specific co-operation is taking the form of a number of joint weapons destruction operations code-named ‘Operations Rachel’. Through these operations, a significant source of illegal weapons that have been destabilising the Southern Africa sub-region have been destroyed. Many of the defining characteristics of Rachel were not planned in advance, but resulted from responses to operational difficulties arising from the use of two different national police forces and from looking to rural communities to provide a continual supply of information on arms caches.”