File No. 723.2515/248.
[Inclosure—Translation.]
memorandum.
After the long series of hostilities carried out in Tacna and Arica
against the Peruvian customhouse agents, carters, workmen,
professors, teachers, and village priests with the object of
obliging them to abandon those Provinces and so reducing a great
number of the votes which Peru would have been able to count on upon
the carrying out of the plebiscite stipulated in the treaty of
Ancon, the Chilean populace of Iquique held a meeting on the 27th of
May last expressly directed against the Peruvian element still
residing in that port. A number of outrages were committed on the
Peruvians, including the destruction and looting of commercial
establishments, newspaper offices, and the Peruvian Club and social
centers, the destruction of the shield of the Consulate, the ill
treatment of many of our fellow citizens, and threats against the
person of the Peruvian Consul, Mr. Forero, who was obliged to take
refuge, first, in the American Consulate, then in the British
Consulate, and finally to return to his own country, in order to
avoid greater complications which might have brought about a
disastrous conflict. These offenses were the more outrageous because
uncalled for, as it is well known that neither Peru nor any of its
citizens had given any pretext whatever for their perpetration, nor
can any other explanation be given for them than the design to
prosecute [provoke?] on the part of our country retaliation on which
to base aggression. The state of things to which Chile tenaciously
and unjustly seeks to drag us is the desire of checking our recovery
and rendering the peace of the country and its progress for a long
time impossible; and this opposition, far from being imaginary, is
confirmed by later events, for on the 18th of July another meeting
was held in Tacna on the
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pretext of demonstrating the adhesion which was considered necessary
to the conclusions drawn up at the meeting held in Iquique, and thus
without cause or explainable motive gave rise to the horrible,
contemptible outrages and crimes of May last, when, amid the savage
fury of the Chilean mobs, complete destruction was visited upon the
newspaper offices, clubs, places of business of our fellow citizens
in those parts, causing them, as in Iquique, to begin to emigrate in
large numbers in consequence of finding themselves deprived of peace
and protection in their own land.
Happily, the good common sense of our people, in spite of the painful
news received of these events, avoided any kind of hostile
demonstration toward Chile, frustrating the sinister plans of that
country, in whose interest it is to drag us into an armed conflict
the result of which is only too obvious, considering that country’s
undeniable superiority.
Shortly afterwards news came of the invasion of our territory and of
a probably unjustifiable occupation of Peruvian territory on the
border (Ticaco), a scandalous act which was not consummated, thanks
to the opportuneness of the intervention which the Governments of
the United States of America, the Argentine Republic, and Brazil
interposed, which made Chile aware of the previous discovery of
those disgraceful plans.
Chilean forces a short time ago furtively and by surprise established
themselves in the little village of Conchachire, situated on the
left bank of the River Maure, completely outside of the jurisdiction
of the Provinces of Tacna and Arica and even of that of Tarata, and
hence unjustifiably occupied by Chile.
This village, on account of its being on the left bank of the river,
belongs to the Province of Chucuito, in the Department of Puno,
whose boundary on the west is the said River Maure.
This last occurrence serves to show that in their desire to injure
and provoke Peru there is nothing that is respected nor worthy of
respect by the insatiability and fury of the Chilean Government.
Lastly, within the last few days, taking as their pretext a
falsified version of a speech delivered by the President of Peru at
a meeting organized by the exiled Peruvians from the Provinces of
the south, who are now resident in Lima and Callao, wherein he
recognized the necessity of providing for the national defenses, and
inventing the report that our country had acquired the old French
battleship Jeanne d’Arc, the Chilean press
has carried to an extreme its call for war against Peru and has
widened the district of operations and the number of its forces in
military maneuvers carried on on the Peruvian boundary line. It has
decreed the acquisition of new naval units and even large military
supplies, and has decided to carry this almost warlike demonstration
to such a point on our frontier line that its forces will probably
cover territory and localities which are indisputably ours, and
again bring about a fresh provocation, the consequences of which it
may prove very difficult for Peru to overcome. In this situation and
as the patience of our people can not be eternal, now tired of
innumerable outrages, the peace of America is threatened by a
country that has resolved upon our ruin, after having in 1879
treacherously assaulted and impoverished our country and mutilated
its territory, denied all justice and right by us to the point of
indefinitely postponing the fulfillment of solemn agreements which
should have been effected since 1893. In a condition when might
becomes the only right and abuse the only national resort, when the
continent is scandalized and disturbed at sight of such
unjustifiable and unprovoked insult, all of which is aggravated by
the attitude which, at the instance of Chile, Ecuador, Colombia and
Bolivia are now assuming in their boundary disputes with our
country, and in view of the alarming coincidents of the last
mentioned of these countries, carrying out simultaneously with Chile
extraordinary military maneuvers which take place on our frontier,
this Government can not but address itself to the highly civilized
and powerful nations who have honored it with friendly mediation in
our conflict with Ecuador in order that they may apprise their
respective Governments of the facts here narrated, and call their
attention to the dangerous situation prevailing in this part of
America, in order that they may contemplate the storm which is
threatening these nations to the detriment of peace and to the
discredit of the civilization of the continent, and in order that
they may in their greatness and wisdom at once ward off the danger
by all the means in their power.
Foreign Office,
Lima, October 23, 1911.
