On May 10 (1933) the League of Nations advisory committee proposed the evacuation of Leticia by Peru, a League commission in the name of Colombia and at her expense to take over and administer for not over one year the trapezium and enforce order by international forces it should select, and direct negotiations for a settlement of the territorial question. Colombia accepted these proposals on May 12 and Peru on May 24. Eduardo Santos, Colombian delegate to the League, Francisco García Calderón, Peruvian delegate to the League, and Francisco Castillo Nájera of Mexico, new president of the League Council, signed at Geneva May 25, 1933 an agreement embodying the plan, after a statement broadcast by Chairman Lester of the League advisory committee. The League appointed to the commission Colonel Arthur W. Brown of the United States army, judge advocate general's department, first president; Captain Alberto de Lemos Basto of the Brazilian navy; Captain Francisco Iglesias, Spanish aviator; and Armando Mencía of Cuba, secretary. They held their first planary meeting at Taffé, Brazil, on June 19, on board the Colombian S.S. Mosquera, adopted a distinctive flag ( A white rectangle with the inscription in dark blue "League of Nations Commission, Leticia" ), and chose fifty Colombian troops for their service ( This force of Colombian troops ended by being 150 men commanded by Colonel Luis Acevedo and Major Julio Londoño y Londoño ). On June 23, 1933, the commission took charge of Leticia, then inhabited by sixty Peruvians, Tarapacá, Güepi, and the entire trapezium. Thus the League of Nations successfully accomplished, in the manner originally suggested by Brazil, the withdrawal of the Peruvians from the area and its eventual redelivery to Colombia without further hostilities. This was the first instance of assumption of direct control over territory by a League of Nations commission and the first actual operation by the League in the Western hemisphere. On September 28, 1933, the Colombian Senate passed a resolution declaring that Colombia had no boundary dispute since Peru had officially stated that she recognized the juridical force of the 1922 treaty. On January 24, 1934, the population of Leticia was 142 Colombians and 121 Peruvians, and on May 22, 1934, 253 in all, with 999 in the rest of the territory. A wireless station built by Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company, Ltd., for and under contract with the Colombian government was delivered to the commission on February 14 and officially opened on February 16 under a Colombian staff. On May 16, the commission discovered a secret service for espionage and agitation in Leticia, communicating with Loreto, and on May 17 expelled from the territory the persons implicated, without further incident. Source: Boundaries, Possessions, and Conflicts in South America, by Gordon Ireland, U.S.A. 1938. Back to Table of Contents: Booklet No. 7, Leticia Conflict Back to El Dorado List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by The South and Central Military Historians Society This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com