SOUTH AMERICA ON THE WARPATH

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 35, 6 March 1909, Page 4

SOUTH AMERICA ON THE WARPATH

Au Interesting Article dealing with South American Civil Wars, by One Who Has Been Through Three. It lias been my fortune to bear a part in three Latin-American revolutions' the. Liberal rUing in Colombia in 1808 the Firmin .i(i»urreetion in Hayti in l'JOo' ami the Matu< revolution in Venezuela in 1001.

It IS the fashion in England to regard these lTOjuent civil wars 01 Sfutli America as they would a light opera, and, there is oltemi comic side to tliem; I out they are fearful and tragic enough in all conscience.

During the Colombian revolution, when ] 1 'was m command of a detachment of Liberal troops at the town of Cali, in I the department of the Cauca, an liuliau headman came to my quarters and asked for a permit to sell some gold which he had brought into the town. PLUNDERED DEAD HEN. I granted the permit without enquiring where, he had got the gold, takin" it for granted that he had washed it from one of the rivers. Soon afterwards a local merchant sent for me, and said: 'Do you kuow what this man wants to sell?" "Yes—gold."

'■Gold, certainly. The gold fillings of human teeth. He has scores of them—look here!"

The man had knocked the fillings out of the teeth oi bodies found on a battlefield over which we fought three weeks before. I had l him arrested, and he was afterwards hanged, as he was proved to have murdered! at least one wounded man for the purpose of plunder. But ■I heard of many other instances of this hideous traffic in gold. At the battle of Paia Xegro, near Bogota, where the hopes of our Liberal party and anti-clerical revolution were iquenched: in awful slaughter, I witnessed an aet of cold-blooded cruelty which appalled evcu the war-hardened Colombians with me, half-Indian though tboy [ were.

I We held a long, jungle-covered ridge 'agaiust a battalion of the Government i troops, who had halted at the edge of a itKicket nearly a mile off, being airaid to advance up the uncovered slope of the hill in face of our iire. i SHOT THEJUI OWN AiEX.

Suddenly, about twenty liguros dash id out of the cover, aud were met at once ,by a volley that killed half of theui. The others hesitated, and turned to retreat, but there were two or three pull's of smoke from the thicket. Their own men were liring at thein in order to compel them to go ou. Desperatc'y they advanced towards us again, and our men shot them down.

A French soldier of fortune, Captain Eugene Andre, was looking through his fieldt-glasses at my side, shouted, "They are boys—mere children! Dou't fire!" It was too late. Only one of the youngsters escaped. The comjmander of that Government battalion had a good many boys in the ranks, some of 1 them as young as twelve, and eveu ten. This was quite common in the Colombian army at that time, lor grown men were runuiug short on both sides.

| He wanted to locate our exact position, and, therefore, forced those boys to go out and draw our fire. He would .not waste his men for the purpose. This brutal officer was afterwards shot by order of a cort-martial, uot for the crime, but for au act of treachery. FIENDISH CRUELTY.

ITlie Colombian soldiers on both sides were drawn from the peasantry of the country. They had a large strain ci Indian blood., and were capable of cuduriug great hardships. 1 have known them march thirty miles a day barefooted over mountains and through almost trackless juugles, with nothing to cat save a little paneli (rough, unsweetened cake chocolate), and keep this up far weeks oil end. Their courage in hand-to-hand encounters with the machete was beyond dispute, but they hail a distaste for lighting with rilk's at long range, although they were such wretched shots that they seldom did one another any harm 3.1 that way. After blazing away for hours and wasting all their ammunition, they would lliiig their rifles away, as ii by a .common impulse, and diarge at one another without any orders. The naked tfteel then decided "the issue, and it was no unusual thing to see bodies which had been almost hacked to pieces by the heavy cutlasses they carried. In Venezuela, where I served as war correspondent of a Chicago newspaper, I was arrested \>y order of one of President Castro's generals, named Vclutmi, for cabling to America a report of a;a atrocious deed committed by one of his officers. . The man was a half-savage Audin from Castro's own mountain village. He was walking through the streets 01 the captured village of La Victoria, when a comrade taunted him with being a bad shot. -it "I'll show vou if I am, lie retort,en. "Do you sec "that child';" He pointed to a youngster of live years old who was leaning out of an upstairs window looking down on the soldiers. Drawing his revolver, he deliberately aimed at the child's head, and shot it dead, He was never punished. The Audinos were the backbone of Castro's army, and this ollioer happened to be one of the 1110s popular amongst them. Castro's success in gaining the 1 rco - deutship introduced a good deal humor into 'the Ooveniment of Venezuela. Until he appeared at the head 01 his "cvcr-vietorioiu army, he was only known in the capital, Caracas, as the ignorant peasant deputy from Lo» Angelos, who always took* lus boots oil during the sittings of Congress He made the barber of his native vi)ila>'o a general ami Cabinet MinisterWhen X was in Caracas, the tonsoruu artist, although then in the Cabinet, still shaved Castro. The slinister of War was an old hallIndian peasant, who had worn rough canvas smocks all his life. When he first appeared in all the glory of a goldlaced uniform, his faithful old wife was I so overjoyed tl'.at she died 011 the spot from heart disease. The Matos revolution, which cost several thousands of lives and nearly ruined the country, was caused by Castro's fondness for a rough practical joke.

ALL THROUGH A LOAN. General Matos was the richest ami most respected citizen of Caracas—.i mac of great dignity. "When Castro assumed the Presidentship, he sent to Matos ior a "loan" of tweuty-five tliouhand bolivars. Matos uuwiselv refused. Thereupon Castro sent a iile of soldiers to his house, and had hint dragged out of bed and led through jeering crowd* to the gaol, clad only in a blanket, i Matos. bent on revenge, offered to pay up. Castro replied that he wa& sorry to say the needs of the country had increased, and he must now beg for liftv thousand bolivars. Matos paid, realised all his possessions, and went Vj Curacao to organise his revolution.

When I nici him at Jlilleiustad, be acknowledged that if Castro had allowed hint time to dress before dragging liim through the streets, lYenezueia might have been saved two years of devastating civil war. General- were very cheap in the three so-called republics in which J saw service. But I think the limit was reached in l'ort-au-l'rince. Obi General Xord AiexTs, the present President of Hayti. made a negro dock laborer a "general uf division."

Having nothing approaching ji uniform, the mail stole a pail' of gold-laced troupers from a tailor's -hop. He was caught red-handed, and, by the President's orders, paraded round the town seated u|)on a, donkey, with liis face towards the tall, and the stolen trousers lied around his neck. Yet, he- retained I his commission, and afterwards did good service lor Xord Alexis. Pearson a Weeklv.