THE HORRORS OF PUTUMAYO

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 12, 14 June 1913, Page 9

THE HORRORS OF PUTUMAYO

BY THE MAN WHO EXPOSED THEM. Mr. W. E. Hardenburg, to whom the world owes its knowledge of the atrocities on the Putumayo, the Devil's Paradise, on his arrival at Liverpool in order to answer in person the charges made against him by Senor Arana, late managing director of the Peruvian Amazon Company, and to give evidence before the Parliamentary Committee, was interviewed by a representatives of the Daily Chronicle. About 35 years old, clean-shaven, and with a pronounced American accent, Mr. Hardenburg, said the reporter, impresses you at once with his force and sincerity. _ The reporter first asked him how it was he came to be in South America in the year 1907. He replied: "I had been employed by the Colombian Pacific Railway Company on the Cauca railroad as assistant locating engineer for some 15 months, and having saved a little money. I and my friend Perkins thought we would go to Brazil, so after two months overland travel we crossed the Andes, and struck the source of the Putumayo river. Here we bought a canoe for su do!., and into this canoe packed ourselves, two Cioni boatmen, our baggage, and our engineering instruments, and began our inland voyage, which for three weeks was that of drifting down the swift current, through swirling whirlpools, avoided the numerous stumps and logs which stud the whole course of the river." KEPT IN A CAGE. "When did you first hear of the bad treatment of the Indians?" "We met at Yaracaya a man named Lopez, the owner of a rubber establishment, who in the course of conversation told us that the Peruvian Amazon Company were planning to get the rubber estates of the Colombians on the Caraparana. Then we came across sevenor eight soldiers of Martinez, a Colomian police inspector, who informed us that Martinez had been captured by representatives of the same company, this Martinez being charged with stealing the company's Indians. Later on he was transported in a cage to Iquitos. So far • we had only hints of trouble, but resuming our journey down the river we reached Remolino on December 31, 1907, the Putumayo port of La Union on the Caraparana,'and proceeded the following day to La Union itself. There our guide, an intelligent fellow, told me what was going on in the Peruvian Amazon territory, saying that if his countrymen j did not collect sufficient _ rubber they j were flogged, shot, or mutilated, at the will of the man in charge. At La Reserca I met Serrano, a Colombian, the owner of the place, and at dinner I remarked to him: 'Surely these stories we hear of cruelties to Indians are exaggerated?' 'They cannot be,' he replied, and thereupon told me that because he had owed a small sum of money to the El Encanto branch of the Arana Company, Loazza, a head man of the company, had made this an excuse to send up a 'Commission' a month before our arrival to intimidate him into abandoning hi 3 estate. WIFE AND HOME TAKEN. "The wretches of the 'commission,' after chaining Serrano to a tree, forcibly entered his wife's room, dragged her to the porch, seized his entire stock of merchandise, amounting to £IOOO, and went J off with this, taking with them his wife j and daughter, neither of whom he had' since seen, though lie had heard that his wife had been given to Loazza, and his little daughter was acting as servant to the same-.man. Serrano himself was afterward murdered. " The daughter, according to the Colombian Consul, is still retained by Loazza." "Did you meet this Loazza?" "Well', next day I accompanied Orjuela, a Colombian police inspector, down the river to see him. and waited two days for him at El Dorado, but as he did not arrive we went back up the river. That night I was fast asleep when Orjuela suddenly woke me with 'Hush! There are lights coming up the river!' They | were the lights of two vessels, one we afterwards discovered being the Liberal, belonging te the Arana Company, and | the other the Iquitos, a Peruvian Government gunboat, on their way to raid La Union, the Colombian station. They passed up in the dark, and as soon as day broke we went on up the river to Argelia. Upon ariviug there two men on the bank held us up with their rifles, and told us to come ashore. We c.\& so, and they said they must detain Orjuela, but we could continue onr journey. iowards dusk two days later we heard a whistle, and pulled up under the left bank of the river to escape notice. The Indian boatman immediately jumped off and disappeared into the bush, saying, 'Peruvian no good.' I remained with Sanchez, a Colombian exile. Directly after we say,the same two vessels we had observed previously. The first, all lit, aip, swept past without seeing our canoe, the second, the Iquitos. caught sight of us, and someone yelled out on hoard, 'Sink the canoe!' other calling out •Wait a minute!' 'Come here,' they shoulted, and we drew towarus the gunboat, lined with some 40 or 50 soldiers as quickly as we could; but before" wo could reach the side a shot was fired at us, but fell wide. Reaching the ship, we were roughly hauled and kicked on board, most of the men being drunk. After being taken before the commander of the troops, Commander Benavides, who was too drunk to understand me, we were placed under guard and taken to El Encanto. where Loazza came and taunted us." THE BRANDING MARK. '•Where did you. first come across Indians marked with what are known as the 'Marco d'Arana'?" "At this spot, El Encanto, T first noticed the backs of the natives furrowed ' with scars and scored with the marks of the lash, men. women and children bearing these marks, concerning which Mr. Justice Swinfcn Eady in his Putumayo judgment observes: 'lt is hard to believe they had not been impressed with hot irons.'" "In your volume. 'The Devil's Paradise.' you say the cruelties included flogging and starving to death, torture by means of fire and water, soaking in nil and burning alive, crucifixion head down, cutting to pieces and dismemberment with knives, axes and machetes, using men, women and children as rifle targets to provide sport on saints' days: have all these charges been confirmed?" "Yes, emphatically and entirely, not only by Sir Roger Casement, but by the Arana Company's own commission, which latter went so far as to say that worse crimes still than those I have recorded were brought to light." "Have any of the criminals been brought to justice?" "No. Notwithstanding the fact that over 200 warrants have been issued, not a single criminal has been punished. On the contrary. Loazza is still in charge of El Encanto, and Pablo Zubaeta, Arana's brother-in-law, is actually still managing director at Iquitos. and since the disclosures has been elected to the positions of vice-mayor, president of the local chamber of commerce, and, most ironic touch of all, president of the local benevolent society. Normand, too, perhaps the greatest monster of them all. concerning whom Sir Roger Casement declared 'nothing good could be said,' is with the other maior and minor criminals, still at large."