Completing Casement’s work 100 years later

Lifestyle –  Judy Murphy meets Galway human rights lawyer Brendan Tobin who aims to ensure that awful jungle atrocities are not forgotten

Uncovering the truth so that the dead can rest in peace, is the aim of Galway human rights lawyer, Brendan Tobin, who is determined to finish the work started in 1910 by Roger Casement to halt genocide in a remote, Colombian jungle.

Casement, who was executed by the British Government in August 1916, for his role in the Easter Rising, first came to public prominence in 1904 for his eye-witness report, highlighting human rights abuses and genocide by rubber barons in the Belgian Congo.

In 1910, Casement was sent to the Putunmayo region of South Colombia to examine similar allegations of abuse by rubber barons in that area – demand for rubber was being fuelled by the growing car industry.

What he witnessed in this region of the Amazon Basin was the final straw for Roger Casement, who had become increasingly involved in Irish nationalism after his experiences in the Congo.

The horrors he heard about in Columbia put him firmly on the path towards fighting for Irish independence, which ultimately led to his execution.

“It was where Casement really snapped with colonialism,” says Galway-city man Brendan Tobin, who first learned about Casement’s journey to Colombia about 10 years ago when he picked up The Amazon Journals of Roger Casement, edited by UL academic Angus Mitchell. Brendan had known about Casement’s work in Africa but “was astonished to learn the Dublin-born diplomat had been in the Amazon”.

Brendan’s own background in human rights law, specialising in indigenous people’s rights, as well as many years spent in Peru (where his two children live), gave him a special interest in the subject. Casement had reclaimed the humanity of indigenous peoples who were being exploited, and often butchered by the Peruvian Amazon Company. Brendan admired this and vowed to follow in his footsteps.

The Peruvian Amazon Rubber Company was founded by Julio Cesar Arana in the late 19th century, to harvest rubber from the Colombian rainforest.  They used local people to access the rubber, bartering goods, such as hatchets with them.

“But these people only needed one hatchet each and the need for rubber was ongoing,” Brendan explains. Arana’s company continued to barter useless items with local people while imposing quotas on them. If they failed to collect the designated amount or rubber, they were beaten, put in the stocks, and many were killed with great cruelty.

Word of this eventually reached the outside world via the writings of an American eye-witness, Walter Hardenburg, and caused a furore in Britain.

The Peruvian Amazon Company (PAC) was registered in Britain, which meant that the UK had to take responsibility for its actions.  In addition, many of the overseers with the PAC were from Barbados, which was a British colony. These men, British subjects, were as badly treated as local people.

The government established a commission, with Casement being the only independent observer, says Brendan. All others on the commission had interests in the industry. It was such a dangerous trip that he kept his revolver at the ready for fear he would be attacked.

This region of Colombia is remote and inaccessible today, and more than 100 years ago, it was even more isolated, says Brendan of Casement’s experience. The commission arrived in the Peruvian city of Iquitos, hugely wealthy because of rubber, and travelled upstream to La Chorrera, headquarters of the PAC.

Casement noted how the company made local people clear paths so the investigators could travel. They also carried food but weren’t offered any, until Casement started sharing with them.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.