No. 585.
Señor Calderon to Mr. Evarts.
Lima, November 5, 1880. (Received December 21.)
It is proper that it should be known to America and to the world at large who is responsible for the great perturbation which the present war on the Pacific coast has brought upon this continent, causing, at the same time, incalculable injury to the industry and commerce of all nations with which we are on terms of friendship; it is proper that it should be clearly established upon whom rests the responsibility for the bloodshed and for the suffering which, in a sphere far above that of material interest, has been originated, and will continue to be so, for Heaven knows how long, by the wicked war into which we have been forced, without being influenced ourselves by ambition of any kind, or by any selfish motive whatever; it is proper that our friends should know how great was the self-abnegation manifested by us when an opportunity of seeking justice through peaceful channels was offered, and how arrogant and treacherous was the attitude assumed by our adversaries, who never did, and do not now, entertain any design, save the realization of a preconceived plan for their own aggrandizement at the expense and in derogation of the honor of others.
I have already had the honor directly to inform your excellency how a question relative to the boundary between the Republic of Chili and that of Bolivia, our ally, was the sole cause of the war on the Pacific coast. Chili has now made known with her own mouth (as your excellency will see by the copy which accompanies this circular), in all its monstrous proportions, what she so long and so obstinately denied, viz, that the real cause of her conduct in her differences with Bolivia has been no other than that which I have just stated; and she has revealed to us at the same time the astounding advances that she has made in her ambitious views.
These are, indeed, the result of a morbid condition and of the febrile delirium to which great passions lead when not checked in time, yet this delirum is occasioning the greatest disasters in this portion of America, and is a presage of the most serious dangers in the future.
It is important, therefore, that it should be denounced before the community of civilized nations, and it is high time that it should receive an exemplary check.
The inclosed memorandum,* which was presented at the conference held at Arica, by the plenipotentiaries of Chili, as a recapitulation of the conditions deemed essential to the restoration of peace, is a concise statement, which cannot be disavowed by our enemies, of their real views and purposes in this war.
I beg your excellency, as the duty is a somewhat important one, to permit me to point out, to the best of my ability, the moral deformity which these conditions indicate.
The first is “the cession to Chili of the territories of Peru and Bolivia [Page 959] which extend to the south of the Camarones Valley, and to the west of the line which separates Peru from Bolivia in the Andes Mountains, to the Chacarilla Valley, and also to the west of a line extending from the latter point to the Argentine frontier, passing through the center of Lake Ascotan.”
The demands which Chili makes of the allies are by no means small. Peru has even more reason than Bolivia to be astonished at their magnitude, because, after all, she never had and never could have any dispute with the common enemy concerning boundaries, nor did Chili ever, either before the war or after it had been declared, raise any claim that Peru was her debtor.
When one looks on the map of the two republics (whose dismemberment Chili so coolly demands), at the portion of territory belonging to both, which she seeks to appropriate to herself, the feeling of indignation which first arises is succeeded by one of amusement, which is increased by the reasons which are alleged for the spoliation with all the solemnity which befits a diplomatic conference held in the presence of a mediator who is worthy of all respect.
Let us see what are these reasons:
- First. The necessity which Chili feels of enlarging her territory by rectifying her frontiers for her future security.
- Second. The fact that she has fertilized those wilds with the labor and the capital of her citizens, who have settled in those regions in large numbers, and whom she cannot abandon, especially after the blood of her heroes has been shed there and she has established a military occupation of the country.
The first of these extraordinary arguments is simply egotistical communism, expressed without the least shadow of shame, with the irritating concomitant of styling “a rectification of frontiers” that which at the first view is a twofold increase of territory.
The second is herein reduced to the language of truth and honesty, so far as concerns Peru.
Inasmuch as a vast field of speculation and fabulous returns for Chilian capital has lain open gratuitously, affording lucrative and reformatory employment for the worthless class which overflowed from Chili, driven forth, moreover, into foreign parts by an administration as discreet as it was far-sighted, therefore Chili makes her own the territory from which she derived such important benefits. That is to say, that what should have constrained her to gratitude is turned by her, scandalously, into a claim of usurpation, and this not limited to the space held by her armed force, but to regions to which has not been extended, neither can be extended, the abuse of a material force and preponderance as ephemeral as the circumstances from which it springs.
Moreover, the mere enunciation of the pretensions of Chili is an insult to the public law of our age, which condemns territorial acquisition by means of conquest, and which has not tolerated cessions of this class, except when they have been, in some sense, excused by historic reasons and by the imperative exigencies of peace and common tranquility, and even then consulting the essential and sacred condition of the liberty of a people, which condition has never failed to find the most conscientious support, even among the advocates of hereditary kingdoms.
Moreover, the pretension of Chili is subversive of American public law, and in violation, especially, of a positive principle, formulated, recognized, and adhered to until now by all of the republics of Spanish origin established on this continent. At the same time that they stood [Page 960] before the world with the decree of emancipation which they had won in the tribunal of arms, they proclaimed with one voice, as a guarantee of peace and safeguard of their repose for the future, the permanent establishment of the possessions and respective frontiers of each of them, adopting, to that end, the brief but expressive phrase of the celebrated Roman injunction uti possidetis ita possideatis.
In view thereof, there never has been any question among the possessors of these vast dominions as to the rule which they should follow in case of doubt or conflict touching territorial extension. All that has been discussed in such cases has simply been the just application to the subject in controversy of the principle sanctioned as fundamental for the decision of all such questions.
The uti possidetis, a practical principle, which sprang forth from the nature of things at the epoch of the independence of these republics, established the equilibrium necessary and proper for the development and progress of all of them, without prejudice, however, to such free acts as, by modifying their status, might tend to larger advantages and fuller greatness.
To-day Chili, while seeking to destroy that equilibrium, in violation of the primordial basis of the international constitution of these republics, endeavors to impose upon Bolivia and Peru, by the fifth of the conditions now under consideration, the rupture of the purely defensive alliance they have made, and the annulment of the federal union which they have agreed upon and which is now in the path of completion and full execution. The tyranny of Chili, if there were the force to sustain it, would be the most irritating and vexatious of any that could be devised for the sovereignty and freedom of both republics. No; it is not possible to permit such absurd pretensions to be even enunciated without bringing them to judgment and branding them before all the world with the stigma they deserve.
After having unexpectedly declared war against the allies, and having revived, in the most cruel and horrible manner, a barbarity which humanity had with shame consigned to oblivion, Chili dares to demand, in the second of her essential conditions of peace, an enormous indemnity for the expenses she has incurred for the sole purpose of inflicting calamities and injuries, the complete reparation of which would be due to us in good right, but which Chili can never give us, so far is her wealth and her solvency inferior to the losses she has caused to us.
Chili, in her condition of peace, has not only put herself outside of the pale of right, but is completely opposed to the right.
“The restoration of the property of which Chilian companies and citizens have been despoiled in Peru and Bolivia,” exacted by the third condition of the memorandum, is devoid of all signification with respect to Peru, who has carried her generous chivalry to the extent of leaving all such property intact, notwithstanding that the ferocious conduct of her adversary warranted her in the adoption of every kind of retortion and reprisals.
The fourth condition demands the return of the transport Rimac, captured according to all rules in the course of a naval battle for which Peru was wholly unfit, notwithstanding that Chili holds all that she has taken from us on the seas through her temporary superiority, which was due solely to the unfortunate confidence in which Peru slumbered, while reposing faith in the flattering assurances of her sister and former ally, in a contest from which she derived all the advantages and Peru reaped all the disadvantages.
To complete the picture of the pretensions of the memorandum, the [Page 961] sixth and seventh conditions thereof involve, for the present and until Peru shall have satisfied those previously set forth, the retention by Chili of the districts of Moquegua, Tacna, and Arica, and, as to this latter port, for the future, the prohibition of fortifying it upon its return to Peru.
Even if not just, the harmony and transcendental foresight of the conditions proposed by Chili for deigning to grant us peace is undeniable.
Not we, but the world, and especially America, will pass final judgment thereon; and its judgment, dictated by a sense of justice, will be the re-establishment of the moral order which Chili has overthrown in this fratricidal war to the affronting of civilization and humanity.
My government, for its part, maintains and has declared the irrevocable resolve to be faithful to its honor and to the solemn charge which the supreme chief of the republic received from the people of Peru when he was chosen as their leader under such grave and difficult circumstances, and when absolute powers were conferred by them upon him.
I beg your excellency to be pleased to accept on this occasion the assurances of the high consideration and distinguished appreciation with which I have the pleasure to subscribe myself,
Your excellency’s faithful and obedient servant,
Note.—Annex No. 1 is the text of the memorandum of the essential conditions of peace presented by Chili in the conference of Arica.
Annex No. 2 is the protocols of the conference of Arica, published in House Executive Document No. 68, part 2, pp. 406–418, 47th Congress, 1st session.