War of Leticia?

War of Leticia (See map)

Soldiers come cheap in South America. Patched up freight boats will do as warships. Even so, three Class A South American States were beggaring their treasuries last week to fling fleets of battle planes, flotillas of war craft and whole armies of eager young troops upon Leticia, a humid jungle town just under the Equator and 2,500 mi. up the world's biggest river, turgid Mother Amazon who oozes along about as fast as most women walk (3 m. p. h.).

Involved, perhaps fatally embroiled last week were Colombia and Peru, the protagonists proper, with the United States of Brazil an anxious bystander. Because Mother Amazon is so very long (3,900 mi.) solemn treaties long since made her an "international waterway." Under these treaties Colombian war boats have been slowly steaming up the Amazon and across Brazil with as much freedom as though they were on the open sea. Knowing that trouble might result, Brazilians have had to send troopships of their own up the Amazon to preserve "armed neutrality." Finally from Iquitos, high up Mother Amazon in Peru, gunboats have been slithering down to the swampy, malarial port of trouble, Leticia.*

War? By the Saloman-Lozano Treaty of 1922, Peru ceded to Colombia a "Corridor to the Amazon" at the tip of which is Leticia (see map).

Early last September, filibustering Peruvians staged a private raid, seized Leticia. expelled the town's Colombian officials and called on all Peru to applaud their deed. Most of Peru applauded. The surge of patriotism was too strong to be resisted by President Luiz M. Sanchez Cerro of Peru, into whose tough little body would-be assassins have all too often fired bullets (TIME, March 14). By the end of last September both Colombia and Peru were mobilizing men, money and munitions. In Bridgeport, Conn, on Sept. 30, close-lipped Saunders Norvell, president of Remington Arms Co., exuberantly exclaimed: "We have just received a very large order for munitions from the Republic of Colombia! We expect another from Brazil within 24 hours."

Three days earlier in Bogota, Colombia's capital, President & Senora Enrique Olaya Herrera had called at the Bank of the Republic to have their thick gold wedding rings cut from their fingers. Thousands of other Colombian spouses with big finger joints made the same sacrifice. Brides & grooms slipped off their rings, flung them into the Treasury's "Defense Chest."

Not "War Chest." Because Leticia is part of Colombia by treaty right, the sending of Colombian warships, troops and battle planes to recover it is not regarded in Colombia as even remotely an act of war. Many Colombians are convinced that a certain "Mr. Vigil" who owned a property near Leticia called "La Victoria" caused all the trouble by threatening the Colombian Government that unless it bought his property for some $80,000 he would incite Peruvians to seize Leticia. Colombians further believe that their Government refused to be blackmailed, that Mr. Vigil made good his threat. With ease the Colombian Treasury has sold $10,000,000 worth of "Defense Bonds."

In Lima, Peru's Capital, the patriotic bond issue was $5,000,000. On the very day that Colombia's President had his wedding ring nipped off, Peru's Congress voted 15% of their month's pay to the cause.

Five-Month Windup. Like a languid baseball pitcher whose windup seems interminable, Colombia & Peru have been a long time getting ready to throw their balls. No railways and no roads firm enough for an army's advance connected Bogota, last September, with the Leticia corridor. Roads have now been built, rushed to completion at prodigious cost. Socialite maidens from the best families of Bogota are ready at Florencia, demurely garbed as Red Cross nurses. Last week at least 3,000 Colombian troops with artillery and machine guns were deployed behind the Putumayo River, facing roughly equal Peruvian forces.

At Tabatinga, five miles below Leticia on Brazilian soil, several thousand Brazilian troops maintained "armed neutrality" last week. Their first job on arrival had been to improve "sanitary conditions" at Tabatinga, which were described as "unbelievable." With the stench abating last week, smart Brazilian officers from sophisticated Rio de Janeiro 2,000 mi. away stopped holding their noses.

At Peru's Military Aviation School near Lima last week President Sanchez Cerro approvingly inspected a brand new fleet of Douglas combat planes, just arrived from Santa Monica, Calif. "Within a few days," said he, "they will be tuned up and ready."

"As One Man!" Leading Colombia's fleet up the Amazon last week was Conservative General Alfredo Vasquez Cobo who, in Colombia's last presidential election, was defeated by Liberal Dr. Enrique Olaya Herrera.

That the Liberal President should have trusted the Conservative President-reject to lead Colombia's forces is proof, boasted Colombians, that "we have sunk all party differences and stand united as one man!"

About the time General Vasquez Cobo passed Manaos he exchanged defiant messages with his prospective foe, the Peruvian commander at Iquitos, Colonel Victor Ramos, who wired: "I have taken all kinds of military measures to prevent the entrance of your expedition upon Leticia; to guarantee our security in the Peruvian Amazonic basin; and for the purpose of preventing any attempt at acts of hostility against my countrymen now legitimately occupying the Leticia zone. They are supported by advanced principles of free determination of nationality."

Replied rotund, grey-haired General Vasquez Cobo: "I comply with an obligation of courtesy to acknowledge receipt of your telegram. . . . I abstain from all comment. In any case, I take advantage of this opportunity to let you and the inhabitants of the Amazonas and Putumayo regions know that my mission is one of peace. I am trying only to restore order in territories that belong to us by [the Saloman-Lozano] Treaty."*

Steaming on up the Amazon, General Vasquez Cobo's fleet approached last week almost within shooting distance of Leticia.

Stimson et aL Efforts by neutral statesmen of all sorts to end the Leticia trouble have been ceaseless since it began. Diplomatic notes have piled up in bales at Lima and Bogota. Last week U. S. Secretary of State Stimson rapped Peru over the knuckles with a 2,600-word note, sternly pointing out that even Peru admits the validity of the Saloman-Lozano Treaty and that should Peru use force to hold Leticia she would clearly violate her pledge under the Briand-Kellogg Pact.

Next day the Council of the League of Nations sent to Lima the sort of cablegram it itches to send to Tokyo but dares not. Peru was commanded by the Council "to refrain from any intervention by force on Colombian territory and . . . not hinder the Colombian authorities from the exercise of full sovereignty and jurisdiction in territory recognized by treaty to belong to Colombia."

In Lima, Peru's Cabinet, after sweating over the Stimson & League notes, justified themselves as follows: "The Peruvian Government is not defending the territory of Leticia but its fellow countrymen who occupy it with a view of securing its return to its former nationality, which is not a crime justifying the use of measures of extermination. . . .

"Preparations for an offensive war were initiated by Colombia, and the advance of her flotilla on the Amazon constitutes the beginning of an aggression which we cannot regard with equanimity."

A few hours before this statement was issued the Presidents of Peru and Colombia were reported about to "talk things over" by radio telephone between Lima and Bogota, with rumors strong that both countries would agree to mediation by the Government of Brazil.

* Named after beauteous Miss Leticia Smith, daughter of a onetime British vice consul at Iquitos, by her lovelorn Peruvian admirer, Engineer Charon. When Engineer Charon returned from founding Leticia he was vexed to find that Miss Smith had married an Englishman, removed to Mexico.

* In Paris, several years ago, Peru's President Sanchez Cerro (then a lieutenant colonel) argued the merits of this treaty fiercely with General Vasquez Cobo, charged that it was signed under the influence of bribes. So tart were the General's retorts that Latin friends of the peppery pair said afterward: "They almost fought a duel."

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