723.2515/2153: Telegram
The Consul at Arica (Von Tresckow) to the Secretary of State
From Lassiter. Your April 15, 6 p.m. The following statement prepared by my legal advisers is forwarded herewith:
Chile’s real default does not lie in the technical nonfulfillment of this or that provision of the prerequisites resolution or of any other [Page 391] specific demand of the Commission, although technical nonfulfillment can be shown. Her real default lies in the ruthless deportation of Peruvian electors which has continued since the protocol, the submission, and the award, in flagrant fraud of all three. It lies in the establishment and maintenance since the award, through open violence and secret coercion, of a reign of terrorism over the Peruvians who have been allowed to remain in the province. Chile, by her deportations and by her consistent campaign of open violence and secret terrorism, has placed herself in a position where she can afford to accord from time to time a purely technical and formal compliance with a number of the provisions of the prerequisites resolution without in the least relaxing her unlawful strangle hold on the situation and without permitting any improvement in essential conditions. See telegram March 17, 6 p.m.61
Every impartial person acquainted with the situation here knows that the foregoing is the simple truth. But because it is the truth, it follows that it is difficult to prove it as one proves an ordinary case in court. If it is true that the Chilean authorities systematically deport Peruvians, it follows that they will leave no written record of what they have done and that when questioned they will one and all deny it. If it is true that Peruvians are living in terror of their lives, it follows that they will fear to give evidence, even of the fact that they are afraid, in the presence of the representatives of the men they fear. If it is true that a man who complains is likely to disappear without a trace, it follows that most men will be ready to make an affidavit that they have no cause for complaint. The case against Chile must therefore be proved by the best evidence which in the nature of the situation is available. We are able to prove by legal evidence direct participation of the authorities in deportations and other acts of violence in a few cases, such as the forcible wholesale deportations of March, 1925, in which the Chilean officials have been unusually bold or careless or the victims unusually courageous, and around these cases we are able [to] group a great many incidents where direct complicity cannot be proved but which seem to every American here to afford ample corroboration.
It will practically never be possible to establish any facts in regard to this conspiracy except by a preponderance of conflicting evidence. Chile is of course counting on this situation; she is counting on the difficulty of obtaining satisfactory evidence; and counting on the facility and impunity with which she can manufacture counter-affidavits by the wholesale. Edwards said in the Commission that “it is a Chilean doctrine that no Chilean testifies against his own country.” Chilean counsel said in a document submitted to the [Page 392] investigating committee: “The Peruvian will say one thing and [the?] Chilean will never be lacking to say the opposite. How can the truth be gleaned?” It can be answered that the truth can be ascertained, first, out of the mouths of American witnesses who have made a record of what they have seen and heard here for the past 8 months and that the situation is one in which any Anglo-Saxon court would also admit opinion evidence because of the impossibility of conveying a correct impression of all the facts in any other way; second, that the truth may be ascertained by the impartial judgment of the investigating committee and its examiners and, finally, of the Commission itself based upon the testimony of a large number of witnesses which has been taken with every formality except that it has not been deemed either necessary or desirable to administer an oath to the witnesses. It is submitted that it is a function of the Commission, and finally of the Arbitrator, to determine the truth by reliance upon these means.
Further to the Department’s questions regarding fulfillment of the prerequisites. Resolution will follow in another cable. Discussion in this cable of two or three items will illustrate Chile’s formal and technical compliance combined with her substantial evasion and refusal.
Item 5. The Commission at various dates has requested the relief of 18 officials in the interest of a fair plebiscite. Chile has technically complied in 17 instances. In two cases, after a long delay partly due to Edwards’ withdrawal on November 21; in the remaining case Chile claimed that the official in question, registrar in charge of the civil registry, was a judicial official and pleaded constitutional difficulties; but the relieved officials have in every instance been relieved and replaced in a manner to deprive their removal of every particle of corrective significance and to accord the Commission the shadow without the substance.
Barcelo, Intendente of the province, and Bustos, Governor of Arica, relieved on request of the Commission, received every possible mark of honor and respect on the occasion of their relief. A great public banquet, attended by officials, was tendered Barcelo; and Bustos, among other honors, was asked to a dinner given by Edwards at which General Pershing was a guest. Bustos was promoted to be Intendente at Tarapaca where he is in a position to continue his electoral activities by preventing the escape of the many Peruvians unlawfully deported from this province and interned in the nitrate fields; and Barcelo remains as unofficial mentor of the new Intendente and as the principal public figure in conducting the Chilean campaign.
Blanlot, subdelegate of Azapa, was relieved; and, after serving temporarily as judge in Arica in the court in which a number of cases [Page 393] involving attacks on Peruvians were and are pending, he has been appointed a member of the registration and election board in Azapa; and the Peruvian peasants, in whose deportation to the nitrate fields he was involved and who stand in deadly fear of him, must face him as an election official if they return to vote. Vargas, former prefect of police at Tacna, Lopehandía, former subdelegate of Lluta, Herrera, former police inspector of Molinos, all hated and feared by the Peruvian people, and Quiroga, the official of the civil registry above referred to, have also been named as Chilean board members.
These election officials can be removed by the Commission under the regulations if good offices fail and a real election is to be attempted; but their appointment gives a true measure of Chile’s good faith in accepting the decisions of the Commission.
Item 8. The indefensible travel restrictions were nominally revoked. No information has been obtained to the effect that the objectionable hotel and guest law has been revoked or modified, but no complaint that the law is being formally invoked against Peruvians has been recalled.
The situation both as respects free transit and as respects the right to entertain Peruvians, item 8, as well as equal opportunity for propaganda and flag display, item 9, may be judged from a report made yesterday by Udy who has just returned from taking the testimony of over 30 witnesses both Peruvians and Chileans in Putre, a town in the interior. Udy is an examiner appointed pursuant to a resolution of the Commission. The testimony given before him has of course been made of record. His report shows: (a) flagrant interference with the transit of returning Peruvian electors by carbineers despite the often proclaimed repeal of the transit restrictions; (b) repeated brutal beatings of these same electors by carbineers and Chilean propagandists; (c) a beating of the mother of a returning Peruvian elector because she received her son in her house; (d) prevention of legitimate Peruvian propaganda by espionage and intimidation to such an extent that the townspeople do not dare to speak to returning Peruvian electors or Peruvian personnel of the registration and election board; (e) forbidding Peruvians to fly the Peruvian flag; (f) depriving returning Peruvian electors of their personal property and the use of their real property; and (g) a complete failure on the part of the local authorities either to punish the perpetrators of any of these offenses or to prevent their recurrence and continuation. In fact the ring leaders and instigators of the unlawful oppression, coercion, intimidation, and violence are the Chilean member of the registration and election board and the local commander of carbineers. The situation in Putre is typical of conditions which exist all over the province and which would render any election under present conditions a farce.
[Page 394]Carbineers exercise strict control over circulation in the interior by means of posts established for that purpose at the more important towns, villages, and intersections of trails. This control is explained at times as being exercised to prevent smuggling but it is applied irrespective of direction in which the traveller is proceeding. The result is that Peruvians cannot circulate in the interior without being subjected to constant carbineer observation and interference. This control is exercised even in the presence of American observers and is just as effective as if the travel [permits were?] revoked.
Right here in Arica transit to the pier for the purpose of proceeding to the transport upon which the Peruvian Commissioner makes his headquarters which was the subject of an agreement embodied in a memorandum on September 4th last, is even yet precarious and is interrupted by frequent incidents several of which were recently the subject of formal correspondence.
Item 9. Flag flying. The best evidence that Peruvians dare not fly their flag is the fact that they do not fly it although the flags of many other nations are constantly displayed in the plebiscitary territory. An attempt to fly the Peruvian flag means an incident like that reported by Udy at Putre; see October 21, midnight.62
Parades. The only time that Peruvians have ventured to parade was at Tacna on March 5. Parade was disgracefully mobbed. On this occasion Chile carefully furnished the form without the substance of police protection. No one was punished. Returning Peruvian electors were brutally mobbed in Tacna on January 6; see General Pershing’s January 863 and 12.62 On several subsequent occasions groups of returning voters were escorted through the streets of Tacna by police in order to protect them from injury, but these were not parades.
Propaganda. The sale of La Voz del Sur, the Peruvian paper, has been constantly interrupted by incidents. Peruvian propagandists have been constantly interfered with. The second report of the investigation committee (Kreger,64 December 16, transmitted December 26)62 deals with several instances of interference with propaganda.
Prerequisite number 9 was accepted in law and in theory but is absolutely disregarded in administration and in practice.
Items 1, 2, and 3. According [to] rosters and reports supplied by Chilean authorities, reductions in the army carbineers, police, and secret service to substantially the numbers agreed to by the Commission [Page 395] were made during the month of January, 1926. How many of each class have returned to the territory we do not know as it is impossible for the Commission to cope with the ability of the authorities to defeat the prerequisites. The reduction was sought in the hope of eliminating some of the terror and abject subjection induced among the Peruvians by the activities of the official agencies referred to, but that hope has proved futile. Carbineers, police, and secret service agents continually appear as engaged in unjust or obstructive tactics directed against the Peruvians.
Items 4 and 6. No important information is available on these two points. Experience has shown that nothing effective could be gained by these prerequisites as any officials removed from the province could be replaced by individuals whose activities were equally prejudicial to a fair plebiscite.
Item 10. On December 14th Edwards said the censorship had been abolished. However, distribution of the Peruvian publication Yoz del Sur has repeatedly been impeded and often entirely prevented.
Item 11. Remarks regarding Peruvian electors within Chilean jurisdiction outside of Tacna Arica will be included in a later date cablegram in which I endeavor to summarize the principal evidence indicating frustration of the plebiscite and in which I shall refer also to deportations and expulsions.