Letter from Seán Lester to Joseph P. Walshe (Dublin)
(S. 7/14/5)

Colombia-Peru Dispute

You will see by a copy of the Provisional Minutes which will reach you in due course, that the Council yesterday considered the appeal of Colombia under Article 15. The Peruvian representative did not attend. The Bolivian representative, in the course of his speech attacking the Peruvian Administration, used the name of Sir Roger Casement.¹ I believe that this was not done without advertence to the fact that the Irish Representative was Chairman of the Council Committee. I knew I was about to be appointed President of the Council Committee to endeavour, under Paragraph 3 of Article 15, to bring both parties together.

My natural reaction was to say subsequently that I had heard, not without emotion, the name of Roger Casement mentioned at the Council Table - the name of a great humanitarian and a great patriot. That was my very natural reaction, but the fact that Casement's work on the Putamayo was being used to condemn one of the two parties to the dispute, and that I was to preside over this Committee in which the slightest suggestion of approval of the Colombian attack would be fatal, compelled me to let the opportunity slip. I felt that I had lost an opportunity with political and national interests. I still suffer from an acute sense of having been thwarted.

In a personal conversation with Mr. Santos² afterwards, I thanked him for his reference to Casement. He was fully aware of the predicament in which he had placed me!