RUBBER HORRORS OF PERU.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 207, 29 August 1912, Page 8

RUBBER HORRORS OF PERU.

STORY OF APPALLING CRUELTIES 30,000 VICTIMS OF MURDER AND TORTURE. APrEAL TO BRITISH GOVERNMENT Appnlliuc stories of rruelty inflicted on , liiloss Indians and British subjects ■ during the collection of rubber in Peru . are related in the report of Consul-Ocn-cr.-il Sir Roper Casement, just published ; as .i Government nine Book. ] It was in July, 1010, that Sir Roger i Casement was selected by Sir Edward > Grey to proceed to the Putumayo in con- J nection with the Commission of Inquiry i nnpointcd by the Peruvian Amazon Com- i piny to report on the possibilities of 1 commercial development of the company's properties, and to inquire into the rela- | tion between the native employees and ; the agents of tlie company. < The evidence published is of the most c voluminous nature. In a preliminary re- i port Sir Roper Casement says:— >t "The Indians almost everywhere bnre l evidence of being flogged, and the marks ( oi the lash were not confined to men nor , a.inlta. Women, and even little children, ' wre more than once found, their limbs * scarred with weals loft by the thong of * the twisted tapir hide, which is the chief s implement used for coercing and terror- f ising tho native population." * After stating that by the ill-treatment , of the Indians, the population of the district lias fallen from 50.000 in 11)06 to 8.000 in 1911, the Consul-General add 3: * "The number of Indians killed either t by starvation— purposely brought about by destruction of crops over n whole district, or inflicted as a form of |, death penalty on individuals for failing , to bring in their quota of rubberor by , deliberate murder by bullet, fire, beheading, or Hogging to death, accompanied by a variety of atrocious tortures, during the course of twelve years in order to T extort 4.000 tons of rubber, cannot have, been less than 30,000." ° A later report contains the names of "some of the worst criminals on the Putumayo," all of them charged with atrocious offence 3 against the Indians. s One of these, a Colombian, after being __ k. pt a chained prisoner for a year, wa3 ! r , released on condition that he joined the | f others and undertook the work of flog- 1 M gin£j Indians. He is alleged to have killed ! _ scores; to have cut ears off, and done!" things that even some of the worst Peru- j _ vians have said they could not tolerate. I fl Instances of cruelty of the most re- '■ _ volting and barbarous kind are given by j n spores in Sir Roger Casement's report. _ The acts alleged against one man includ- |p ed innumerable murders and tortures of I _ defenceless Indians —pouring kerosene I a oi! on men and women anc then setting j {, : fire to them, burning men at the stake, J dashing the brains out of children, and : „ again and again cutting off the arms and legs of Indians and leaving them to Epeedy death in this agony. INDIAN GIRL SHOT. p Among the witnesses examined by Sir s Roger Casement was a Barbadian named j J Frederick Bishop, a British subject, who had been in the Putumayo district in the l employ of one firm for about five years. ] E Bishop's duty was to sec that the Indians j' brought in certain quantities of rubber ' at fixed dates. In the course of his uvi- ': d'nee Bishop said he himself had several times flogged Indians for not bringing in c rubber, acting under the direct orders of . the chief of the section he was employed in at the time. He did not like doing it. * but had to. Asked by the Consul-General if he did not know this to be wrong, he said he could not —that a man might be a man down in Iquitos, but * "you couldn't be a man up there." t Aske' if he had himself seen any In- - dians killed by agents of the company, D he said, " Yes." First, he remembered * t.hit when he first came, long ago, he r had seen two Indians kliled. They had " " run away " because they did not want c to work. They were pursued, captured, * and their heads were cut off. This he saw with his own eyes, but it was long "i ago. Their heads were cut off with ma- ' chetes. Asked if he knew of any more people ' who had been killed, he said he knew of j a girl, an Indian girl, who had been in the stocks at Ultimo Retiro. It was this year, in January. She was taken out of T the stocks at night, and' taken up on a 'I bill just outside the station and * shot. This girl was charged with wanting to " run away." Describing the ill-treatment of a man ' named Dyall, a British subject, Bishop said:—He was put in the stocks and kept there for hours by the chief of the section. The leg-holes of the stocks were too small for his ankles, and the wood cut into his legs badly, and he was screaming out. The holes were. small that when - they tried to close the stocks on his legs they could not shut them, and a man i sat on the stocks and pressed with all the weight of his body to make them shut, and Dyall groaned and cried with ; pain. After he had been a long time like that they turned the stocks over so that he lay upon his belly, and he lay . like that all night, groaning and crying. . When released from the stocks Dyall . could not walk, but had to crawl on all fours back to his house. He was also . chained up with a chain round his neck, -. and hauled up like this so that his feet just touched the ground. BODY DECAPITATED AND BURNT. ; Joseph Labadie, one of a party of .j ninety Barbadians who went to Peru and • entered the service of the company, de- : scribed how he saw an Indian woman i killed at Sur: —How was she killed? • i naming the agent) sent to call her, and i 1 saw her brought in from the bushes. A i boy was sent to call her; she was < brought in chained round her neck. —— sent an Indian boy to take her about • twenty-five yards from the house and : shoot her. You saw ber shot?— I saw her. She got two shots. How old was the boy?— young boy, baps twenty. b J Was -Ac buried?—No, they have burned her. . ~.._*, l ,£i Sa her burnt.— I saw her body burnt. Ihey cut off her head after slu.ol.ing her and it was broight in to them all and shown to the Indians, and .hey were told that if they "did bad," they wonid be treated the same. What had she done?—l don't know they -aid -he was a "bad" woman. She v>-»t not a station woman; she was ar. old woman. I never saw i.e. till they brou - nt her in and killed her, a __d 1 don't know what she had done l tt_ wag aV.ut two years ago. 1m tame witness further' explained t__t he had seen "lot* 0 f Indians' Cogg«d at tbe section-; that in tbe sec ____rf%r° a dmrge did jU£t M thel Ph-std; _*__ flogged Indians, and killec

lie had seen men, women and children —even little children—flogged at Sox. They would be really flogged, badly cut, and bleeding, and sometimes they would be put in the "cepo" (the stocks) after being flogged and left there without medicine or without food. A man named Lewis described how Indians were shot " for sport." He said he had seen the most atrocious crimes committed by another agent and his subordinates, and added: — I have seen Indians killed for sport, tied up to trees, aud shot at by the agent and the others. After they were drinking they would sometimes do this. l'iiev would take a roan out of the cepo and "tic him to a tree, and shoot at him for a target. I have often seen Indians killed thus, and also shot after they had been flogged and their flesh was otten through maggots. Others I have .ecu killed by the diolitos small Indian boys being trained into raucha■hos. These boys were armed with nachetes, and they would cut their icads oil against the tree stumps. I once saw an agent do the following hing: He had an Indian nurse girl mindng a child of his, a baby he had by one if his Indian women. This nurse was juite a young girl, and she was carryng the baby, and it picked up a leaf of obacco and put it in its mouth. The Lgent came along just then, and be'.ause the baby was crying and he saw vhy, he beat the girl with his fists, and rhen she was knocked about a lot and ler mouth was cut, he sent her down o the river to wash, and then when he came up he drew his revolver and hot her, and one of his men, named iengifo, came out and drew his re■olver and shot the girl, too, and so they ailed her. Her body was buriedAnother thing there I saw was this tengifo kill a girl. This -was a girl that le had, and she was friends with mc 00. and with several of us. She was ent by Rengifo to Wash clothes, and he went to a stream in the forest where c .had told hex not to go; so he took is gun and shot her right -through the .ack and belly, and she fell down and ried out, and lay there on the ground ' rying, and died. Both these things I aw with my own eyes, just as 1 sa.w ndians tied to the trees and shot at, r shot after they had been flogged or .tiled with machetes. WOMAN BURNT ALIVE. _^ Another mac named James Chase tated that he saw kill Indians. ■ LS-ked if he hao' seen women killed, be . eplied: "Yes. They were shot and died rum blows" (firom floggings). They •ere cut to pieces sometimes, and smelt . readi'Ully. Once he hrmseH was put in : cepo" alongside some of these rotting . uman beings who had 'been inhumanly . ogged, and thii smell was so bad he , egged and imp.lored to be taken out— ' c could not sl.and it, but the agent ept him in all night. He saw these ' eople die from these floggings; their : odies would sometimes be dragged away nd thrown in the bush around the staion, or burnt. ]Re has seen the "muaachos" shoot Indians. Continual flogings went on at that time among 'omen and children. After describinjT now an agent killed n Indian in a manner too horrible forublication, Cliaso describes how the amc man shot several Indians with a ■ille. Sometimes he phot them while hey were in the. stocks; others were -aken out on the open ground, and he .hot them from the verandah. The last _se of this kind "that Chase witnessed vas that of a young girl. The agent, le e>ays, bandaged her eyes and face so hat even her mouth and nose were overed. She was then made to walk .way, and whilst she was thus blindolded the agent shot her "as a sport or his friends." STATEMENT IN PARLIAMENT. Replying to a question put In the louse of Commons on the subject of he Putumayo rubber atrocities, Mr. icland stated that the Government had o power to interfere directly with the 'utumayo .territory, but they hoped the ecent publication of papers would be sel-pful, and that the effect upon public .pinion would be to stimulate private mtenprise to establish a mission. Lord Robert Cecil asked if some oi he victims of the atrocities were not British subjects. Mr. Acland: Yes, and (that was the •eason why an opportunity had beeriven of fully investigating the .ionsMr. Moore inquired if a Protestant as veil as a Catholic mission was not being Dromoted, and which the Government supported. Mr. Acland: The answer I gave was that the Government would stimulate Private enterprise to establish a mission. Mr. Moore: Which mission? No answer .was given, PERTJYIAN GOVERNMENT'S DEFENCE. The Peruvian Minister for Foreign Affairs has sent the following telegram to London in view of the publication by the British Government of Sir Roger Casement's report on the atrocities in Putumayo, where Indian rubber gatherers have been shot, tortured, flogged, and maimed on a wholesale scale:— "These crimes were committed before 1907, and could not be promptly suppressed, as they took place in wild forest regions remote from all inhabited oentres. The Peruvian Government has taken and continues to. take the necessary steps to punish the guilty parties and to prevent all possibility of a repetition of such outrages by sending to the Putumayo a Peruvian judicial commission, which is making every effort to capture the culprits, and by appointing another commission for the purpose Df introducing definite reforms in that region. There is every certainty that such crimes are no longer committed, md that the welfare of the Indians is issured. The Peruvian Government will shortly issue a detailed report on the ect." Tlie "Times" points out that these statements are in direct conflict with i,hc evidence .published in the Blue Book.