

"There is no such crime as a crime of thought: there are only crimes of action." Clarence Darrow, 1917.
IVO ANDRIC, (1892-1975) was a Yugoslavian diplomat and novelist. He is most widely known for his book THE BRIDGE ON THE DRINA, published in 1945 and made available in English translation in 1959. Andric was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961.
No Canadian reader should ever be daunted by a story set in Bosnia. After all, the Canadian Forces fought in Bosnia less than twenty years ago. Our Foreign Policy was fixed on supporting the Bosnian Muslims and our CF18s bombed the hell out of the Serbs. [For a take on the stupid mess the Canadian government invested in, see a 2008 video interview with retired General Lewis Mackenzie - WE BOMBED THE WRONG SIDE.] In fact our government still holds the names of CF18 Hornet crews of the Balkan deployment a secret, lest there be reprisals made against them or their families. The same cloak of secrecy has been invoked for the CF18 crews who are currently bombing the hell out of the Libyans. Ottawa has good reason to anticipate revenge attacks against Canadian fighter jockeys where they eat or sleep or live, as the Libyans have no ability to knock those jet aircraft out of the sky. .A German map of the town, published in 1911, shows the historic stone bridge across the Dvina, on the road to Sarajevo. It also shows the shorter, wooden bridge across Rzava and the "sandy tongue of land between two rivers, the great and the small." Note the presence of "Militar-Lager" or military camps overlooking opposing sides of the bridge, a reminder of its strategic importance. It was the site of a massacre in 1992, fueled by age old racism.
This photo shows a table dressed with weaponry seized from the 7000 block Curtis Avenue, Burnaby on May 30, 2011. The auto-loading 12 gauge shotgun and the .44 Magnum revolver are the most lethal. Smaller calibre pistols have been threaded for improvised suppressors (silencers) as has the baby Uzi, which looks like it wouldn't have sufficient internal volume to handle the hot gases in auto fire. Note that the ammunition is displayed in the black metal box which comes with the collector edition of Grand Theft Auto 4 for X Box. I guess the 24 year old who was arrested on Curtis Street with the guns and the half pound bag of Marijuana, has a thing for hot video games as well as destructive devices.
Two significant weapons seizures in Burnaby, though five years apart, seem related as both involve crudely fabricated suppressors (silencers) for rifles, pistols and submachine guns. In July 2006 it was revealed that the parking lot at Burnaby EIGHT RINKS, 6501 Sprott, was the favored spot for arms transfers, because it is a high traffic location where muscular men are commonly seen taking bulky hockey bags out of large vehicles and stuffing them into others. Note that EIGHT RINKS is less than ten minutes from where another batch of home-made silencers, of very similar manufacture, was discovered earlier this week.
This crudely made suppressor, fitted to an Uzi SMG, was seized in Burnaby, May 30, 2011. It bears close resemblance to suppressors trading hands in the parking lot of nearby EIGHT RINKS in 2006. I'm convinced that these devices are not properly made. Perhaps the RCMP would arrange a demonstration of these basement built silencers lately turning up in Burnaby? If you would enjoy watching some PRO gunsmiths at work, check out the fascinating new show on Discovery Channel. It's called SONS OF GUNS.
Here we see a wall of weapons confiscated during PROJECT E- PORTAL, and put on display in Abbotsford in July of 2006, for the media. The operation was conducted by twelve Canadian and American agencies, which targeted a network of outlaws whose stock in trade is modified or refurbished weapons. They were selling their skills to drug gangs in Western Canada, most notoriously to the infamous UN Gang which was based in Abottsford, B.C. The weapons included (in one seizure) 27 WW2 era STEN guns seized in Winnipeg and several ex-Canadian Army BREN guns seized in B.C. and assembled in one place for the news conference. Noteworthy in the photo are weapons fitted with sound suppressors (silencers) made from commonly available metal tubing. They are crudely made, with no attempt to apply a non-reflective finish. Essentially these devices are made to impress or intimidate. One STEN has been used in a Surrey murder, but I do not recall the police claiming that a silenced automatic weapon has been used in our area. A badly made suppressor actually risks injury to the shooter and increases the chance of a jamming. Not good if you are a small assassin targeting some behemoth of a drug dealer fresh from the gym.