ReturnoftheDeji.com

This story is an excerpt from my forthcoming novel Everyone Comes from Belterra: When America Owned the Amazon, slated to be published by Pear Tree Press in July 2008.

The story originates from my background research for the novel, when I encountered the horrific human rights violations committed on the Putumayo river in the early 1900s. The Putumayo, it turned out, was not always a joyful multicolored tableau of dancing parrots, as the world music label suggests. This Peruvian river coursed through the site of a 20th century genocide.

Tens of thousands of indigenous Huitoto Indians were slaughtered at the hands of the Peruvian Amazon Rubber Company in its quest for black gold. Managed at the city of Iquitos by Julio Arana, many of the company’s key investors were English. The atrocities were eventually brought to light by the Irishmen Roger Casement, who had unearthed the genocide of the Congolese during the Belgian hunt for rubber in the Congo. None of the English shareholders were brought to justice. Worse, Julio Arana lived until his 90s and continued exploiting the Huitotos after Casement’s report.

This piece emerged from utter rage. It made me furious that Arana – and his family, who defended and celebrated him until his death – escaped retribution. The history of Arana epitomizes the notion of actions without consequences, and impunity disgusts me. My hope is that this story, drawn from a much lighter and even humorous work, will help keep the memory of these horrors alive, and make them, somehow, feel real enough for us to prevent them from ever happening again.

–Deji Olukotun

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This story is reprinted here from the The London Magazine, in which it appeared in September of 2006.