THE RUBBER ATROCITIES.

Evening Star, Issue 14963, 24 August 1912, Page 2

THE RUBBER ATROCITIES.

A HELL UPON EARTH FOR PERUVIAN INDIANS. ENGLISH CONSUL'S REPORT. The Melbourne '' Age ' publishes a long article from its London correspondent embodying the report of Sir Roger Casement to the Foreign Office on the maltreatment of natives employed in the collection of rubber for the Peru-vian-Amazon Company in the Putumayo district, Peru. Even the crimes perpetrated in the Congo under the Leopoldian regime are surpassed in variety and deadly effects by this new record of horrors. British intervention in Peru is explained by the fact that the sufferers include a small proportion of negroes from the Barbadoes. The report embodies inquiries extending over nearly two years. It states that the system of enforced labor is an absolutely illegal system, and involves the entire population of tho. Putumayo district in a condition of abject slavery. Failure by the natives to deliver the required quantity of rubber, or any attempt to escape from the local agents—mostly Peruvians and Columbians—has resulted in flogging, tortures, and wholesale massacre. Since 1906 this fiendish oppression has reduced the population bv 50,000 or 70,000. The rubber region of Putumayo was first worked by Columbian settlers 12 years ago. These were attacked and dispersed by a firm known as Arana Brothers, whose agents were permitted to terrorise the country, enslave the Indian inhabitants, and secure great quantities of rubber by forced labor, for which they did not pay a penny. In 1907 this blood-stained business passed into the bands of the Peru-vian-Amazon Company, probably a British company registered in London, which went into liquidation at the end of 1911. It is evident, however, that the oppression of the slaves is still being carried on. THE OLDER TRADERS. Sir Roger Casement describes the general practice of the rubber traders as follows:— " It 'is tho commonest thing to hear on the Upper Amazon a trader speak of ' my ' Indians or ; my ' river men, who descend or ascend a hitherto unsettled river, establish themselves on the banks, and induce the forest tribe to work for thorn on their terms Henceforth that river and those Indians become a close preserve, jealously guarded by the iirst adventurer, and any attempt to secure that river by another adventurer is regarded as piracy, while to enter into friendly relations with the Indians is a capital offence. Those attempting it must go with their lives in their hands. Rubber pirates are shot at sight, while ' thefts ' of Indians involve bloody reprisals and private wars, like tho feudal conflicts of the early Middle Ages. An Indian tribe once conquered becomes the exclusive property of the successful assailant, and this lawless claim is recognised as a right over a widely extended region, not limited to the Putumayo district alone—a custom sanctioned by long tradition and evil usage, whose niaxim that an ' Indian has no rights ' is far stronger than the distant law that rarely emerges into practice." According to the testimony which the British official accepts as correct, S)<) per cent, of the surviving Indian population bear marks of horrible floggings on their naked bodies. The signs of the lash were not confined to men or to adults. Women and even little children were found with their limbs scarred with weals by a thong or twisted tapir hide, the chief implement for coercing and terrorising the native. The crimes charged against many of the men who served the Peruvian-Amazon Company are- of a most atrocious kind, including murder, violation of women, burning, and constant flogging. Though flogging is generally indiscriminate, it is the least of tho tortures inflicted for failure to bring in the prescribed quantity of rubber. Men, and even women, have been confined in stocks for weeks, ! starved, and in some cases left to die. ! Others have been suspended by their arms from beams, and fires have been lighted under them. AGENTS AND CRIMINALS. The local agents, who carry on the forced system and are paid commission on the rubber collected, were found by the British consul to be criminals of the worst type. Of one, named Armando Normand, he says:—"The crimes) alleged against this man, going from ; the end of 1904 up to the present j month of October. 1910. when I found ' him in charge of the station at Matan- j zas. or Andokes. seem well nigh in- | credible. They included innumerable : murders, torture of defenceless Indians, j pouring kerosene oil on Indian men and j women and then .setting fire to them, j burning men at the stake, dashing the j brains of children out agaiiuand again, j cutting off the legs and arms of Indians | ! and leaving them to die in agony." An- j 1 other man was made a prisoner by Nor- j mand in 1907, and was kept chained for a year. lie was then released on con- i dition that he joined the traders. At j first he was employed flogging Indians. , He has improved on his masters, and | has killed scores of natives, cut their I ears off, and done tilings even some of the worst Peruvians say they could not tolerate. "'Senhor Tizon. chief representative of the company, told mo hundreds of Indians perished in the compulsory carriage of rubber from the more distant j sections to C'horrea. No food is given ] by the company to these unfortunates j on their enforced marches, which lake i several weeks three times a vear. The 1 Indians were frequently flogged to j death. Cases were reported to me where j men and women bad died under the j lash, but the deaths due to flogging! generally ensued some day.-, after, in ; many cases where men or women had \ i been so crucllv floirgecl that the wound* J putrefied. The victim.* wore shot by | one of the ' racionales,' acting under '. jtbe orders of the cli'wf of the seetion. j or even by the latter himself. Sali and water would sometimes be applied to i their wounds, but in many oa*o* the ', fatal flogging was not attended even j by this poor effort at healing, and the : victim, with maggot.* in the flesh, was - turned adrift to die in the forest, or j was shot, and the corpse burned or j buried, or often enough thrown into the j bush near the station houses. j MOTHERS CRUELLY BEATEN. j " I was informed by a British subject. • j who bad himself often flogged Indians. ' that he bad seen mothers flogged on : account of the shortage of rubber by ■■ their little sons. These boys were field ] to be too small to chastise, and mi. ' while the little boy stood terrified and | crying at the sight, his mother would \ be beaten just a few strokes to make j him a better worker. Men and women . would be suspended by the arms, often j twisted behind their backs, and tied together at the wrists, and_ in tin's agonising posture, feet banging high above the ground, they were scourged on the nether limbs and lower back, i Men and lads —rubber defaulters or 1 fugitives from the collection —wore sus- | pended by a chain fastened round the j nock to the beams of a bouse or store. ; sometimes with the feet scarcely touching the floor, and, tlm chain being hauled taut, they were left in this halfstrangled position until life was almost extinct. Deliberate starvation was again and again resorted to. but this was not so when it was desired merely to friabten. but when the intention was to kill. Men and women were kept prisoners in the station stocks until they died of hunger." HORRIBLE TORTURES. Another torture is described thus:— "The accused man was hung up by the nook, beaten, and then confined by the legs in a heavy wooden stock, as each station is furnished with one of these places cf detention. The stocks consist of two long, very heavy blocks of wood hinged together at one end, and opening at the other, with a padlock to close on a staple. The leg blocks are so small as inst to fit the ankle of an Indian. Thev are cut in- the wood. The

top beam is lifted on a hinge, the legn of the victim are inserted in these boles, and it is then closed down and padlocked at the other end. Imprisoned by the ankles, often stretched several feet apart, the victim, lying upon bis back, or possibly being turned face downwards, remains sometimes for hours, sometimes for days, often for, weeks, and sometimes for months, i.l this pitiful confinement. The storks at Ultimo ltetiro were the cruellest I saw. The ankle holes were so small that for an ordinary well-built Indian, when closed, the wood would often have eaten into the flesh. For an ordinary sized European or negro the top beam would not close upon the leg without being forced down upon the ankle or shin bone. This is what happened to a negro named Dyall: Ho and men who witnessed his imprisonment assured me that to make the top beam close down so that the padlock could be inserted in the staple two had to sit upon it and force it down upon his legs. More than three years has passed since he suffered this punishment. Both of his ankles were deeply scarred "hero the wood, almost as hard as iron, had cut into the ankle flesh and sinews.''