User:Xavexgoem

Tear-gas canisters marked Peruvian being used in Honduras amidst allegations and lawsuits.

Friday, October 7, 2011 

Tegucigalpa, Honduras - Following ousted Honduran President Zelaya's return to the Brazilian Embassy in the Honduras' capital of Tegucigalpa, photos have emerged of the Honduran National Police demonstrating the use of at least two weapons directed at Brazil's sovereign embassy. One weapon, termed a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), emits loud and high-frequency sounds intended to alarm and disrupt protesters. The other weapon is tear-gas developed by Combined Systems, Inc.. The tear-gas canisters were marked "National Police of Perú", setting off an intense political discussion in Perú.

Investigations and rumors quickly exploded across the internet alleging that Perú was complicit in supporting the de facto Honduran government primarily responsible for the ousting of elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya by gun-point on July 19, 2009.

The first to report the story was Narco News' Al Giordano on his blog The Field. Soon, newspapers across Latin America picked up the story, first by the Brazilian weekly Carta Capital, and later by the Peruvian dailies La Primera and La República, prompting a congressional investigation in that country, demanding Perú's Government Minister Octavia Salazar to attend a hearing on the matter.

Salazar demanded under threat of legal action that La República retract a line of its text that queried how tear-gas containers supposedly in the possession of Perú's national police could be in Honduras.

La República published a 7-point summary of Salazar's explanation for the gas incident: In the August of 2007, Combined Systems, Inc., signed a contract to provide the Peruvian police force with the gas canisters; this was canceled in October of the same year, but Combined Systems failed to remove the markings for the Peruvian Police.

How the canisters made it into Honduras remains unknown.