This short interview with Homer Venters from Physicians for Human Rights, recorded in May at the the Right to Protest conference in Buenas Aires, is a succinct and important summary of the lie of "less-lethal" crowd-control weapons that kill and maim protesters, from tear-gas burns on lung-tissue to lethal, point-blank rubber bullet usage.
"Manufacturers of these weapons are engaged in a highly profitable and growing trade and as companies that are seeking primarily to amass more profit through the sale of these weapons, their motives are actually rather transparent. What is most concerning is that the purchasers of these weapons – governments, security forces – often take most or all of their counsel from the companies that are seeking to sell them, that there's not a broad discussion about the broad responses to peaceful protest, and certainly there is not a structured discussion about the lethality of these weapons."These are often violent responses to peaceful protest and that is the core element of how people come to be injured and killed in these situations. The mechanism is through these weapons that we've been deceived into accepting as non-lethal, but the core of the problem is the inability of governments and security forces to respond peacefully to peaceful protest."
Crowd-control weapons: "These weapons should not be interpreted as less than lethal"
[Anna Norman and Homer Venters/Opendemocracy]
(via Naked Capitalism)
