The Devil and Mr. Casement: One Man's Battle for Human Rights in South America's Heart of Darkness Book

Despite the complaints of some, this book was not intended as a biography of Sir Roger Casement. Its focus is on the exploitation of the resources and native people of the upper Amazon, the political intrigue that nurtured it, and the criminal business-as-usual mentality that sustained it. Because the charges involved British interests - unlike the Congo - there was comparatively little international hysteria in addressing the genocidal doings along the Putumayo. This particular crusade has been largely forgotten, remaining under the rug where it was swept by South American, US, and British diplomacy a century ago.

This is instructive. This period bridges two eras: the colonial conquest - and extermination - of native peoples by European settlers and their governments; followed by the era of "totalitarian regimes". What we see is no break between the two, but continuity. These are not South American Nazis at work in this tale, but eminently respectable businessmen such as Sr. Arana and his British partners; ensconced in the financial and political world of the West, conducting the most gruesome slavery, unchallenged except by pesky mavericks like Casement. Bitterly ironic that he could be knighted by one hand, and executed by the other for "treason" - with both attached to the same body politic: indicative of the West's schizophrenia in facing up to its own moral accountability.

A good accounting of an issue far from resolved at the so-called democratic "end of history."