Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos
has issued an official apology to indigenous communities in the Amazon for
deaths and destruction caused by the rubber boom beginning a century
ago. From 1912 to 1929 the Peruvian firm Casa Arana, led by rubber baron
Julio César Arana with British backing, exploited rubber near La Chorrera
in what is now Colombia's Amazonas department. Up to 100,000 people were killed
and communities devastated in the operations, with indigenous rainforest
dwellers forced into slave labor and slain or displaced if they resisted. The
situation was brought to the world's attention following an investigation by
Roger Casement, an Irishman, who had previously documented similar atrocities
in the Belgian Congo. A few months ago, this blog reported on the wonderful
book by Mario Vargas Llosa about Casement’s remarkable life.
In his official statement, President
Santos said: ‘Today, in the name of the Colombian State, I ask forgiveness from
the communities of the Uitoto, Bora, Okaina, Muinane, Andoque, Nonuya,
Miraña, Yukuna and Matapí peoples for your deaths, for your orphans, for your
victims’. He said he hoped his statement would 'contribute to healing the
wounds that this has left in your lives and in the memory of our nation'.
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