Source: Guardian Weekly
Natives of several tribes march to bring attention to saving the Amazon. Photograph: Vanderlei Almeida/AFP/Getty ImagesOne hundred years ago the first whiff of a scandal broke in the House of Commons concerning a British company operating in the depths of the Amazon rainforest. A Foreign Office investigation led by Roger Casement, later to become an Irish revolutionary and eventually executed for treason, revealed that 30,000 indigenous people had died gathering rubber for the company.
Casement’s investigation is the subject of a book, just published, entitled ‘The Devil and Mr Casement’ by historian Jordan Goodman. Casement’s conclusions were truly shocking. In order to meet a sudden growth in international demand for rubber, known as the ‘Rubber Boom’, thousands of indigenous people were enslaved, routinely starved, flogged, put in chains and stocks, raped, and murdered.
The owner of the British company, the ‘Devil’ in Goodman’s title, was a Peruvian, Julio César Arana, who moved into a house near Hyde Park during Casement’s investigation. That wasn’t the only British connection. The company was registered in London, almost half of its board was British, it had British shareholders, and the rubber was transported from the Amazon in British ships to British ports where it was worked on by British manufacturers.
Recently I met a descendant of some of the survivors of the ‘Boom’. Her name: Fany Kuiru, a Witoto woman, from what is now Colombia but in the early 20th century was Peru. Fany had travelled all the way from the remote Amazon to Europe to publicise what happened one hundred years ago. The Witoto suffered more than anyone: Casement’s estimate was that 20,000, out of a total of 30,000, died in just a few years.
"I’m here with a message," Fany told me. "A message about what happened in the past and about what is happening now. I’m here at the request of local people."
Fany explained that her trip, organised by FUCAI, an indigenous rights organisation in Colombia, had two main aims. One, to obtain economic assistance for the Witoto and other indigenous groups like the Bora, Okaina and Muinane. Two, to raise greater awareness of what happened during the ‘Boom’ and pressure the British government to formally acknowledge it.
What sort of thing did she have in mind? She said an apology or, perhaps, some kind of monument.
"It’s not history for us. It’s not history for me," she said, making it clear that the legacy of the ‘Boom’ is something the Witoto still have to deal with day in, day out.
Fany is from La Chorrera, a settlement on the River Igaraparana. One hundred years ago it was a rubber collection depot and the scene of some of the worst atrocities. When Casement arrived there, one of the first things he saw was three people with, "broad scars on their bare buttocks – some of them 1.5 or 2 inches broad. Weals for life. This is their wealfare, their daily wealfare. All slaves."
Today, in La Chorrera, attempts are being made to heal scars of a different kind. The site of the historic British rubber company’s offices is now known as the ‘House of Knowledge’ and plans are afoot to convert it into an information centre about the ‘Boom’. The intention, as Fany puts it, is to ‘remind the rest of the world that what happened there should not happen again to anyone else.’
When I told Fany about the publication of Jordan Goodman’s book, a different kind of ‘monument’ to the one she may have imagined, her reaction was an emotional one.
"In the minds of the Witoto and other indigenous people in the Western Amazon words like ‘rubber’, ‘England’ and ‘Julio César Arana’ strike notes of death, slavery and barbarity that lasted more than thirty years,"she said. "It is a truly painful history that we pass on from one generation to the next: an open wound that will only heal when the rest of the world discovers the truth about what happened.
"On behalf of my people, I only ask for respect. The world must know who was responsible for this indigenous Holocaust, which includes the British, Peruvian and Colombian governments, and those who voted for those governments. The descendants of the murderers need to publicly acknowledge their responsibility without feeling ashamed for what happened. They need to promise not to let the same thing happen again."
Why, you might ask, does the ‘Rubber Boom’ matter today? It matters because of its impact on people like the Witoto. It matters because in Peru and other countries, British-registered companies continue to violate indigenous peoples’ rights, seize and exploit their land, and bring violence to regions where they work. It matters because there are intriguing parallels between what happened in the early twentieth century and what is happening now.
Earlier this year, indigenous people blockaded an Amazon tributary so the boats from a London-based company (which was recently permitted by Peru to drill for oil in the Amazon) couldn’t ply further upriver to the area where it is working. The company’s response? To break through the blockade with an escort from Peruvian navy gunboats. One hundred years ago, Peruvian navy gunboats helped the British rubber company throw its weight around too.
Fany’s plea could not come at a more critical time. In Colombia indigenous people are murdered on a weekly basis, while in Peru the government has embarked on a massive drive to open up the Amazon to oil, gas and mining companies. Opponents have been persecuted, forced into exile and killed. The assault on indigenous land and lives continues. Let us, as Fany insists, promise to do all we can to stop it.