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."