User:Ttocserp/Canstatt affair

The Canstatt affair (cuestión Canstatt) was an international dispute about the right of a State to protect its nationals if detained in another State. It concerned the fate of one Canstatt, who was arrested in Paraguay for treason and claimed British nationality. He was refused access to the British consul, held incommunicado for a year, and sentenced to death. The United Kingdom resorted to reprisals, in effect blockading a Paraguayan warship in the neutral port of Buenos Aires until Canstatt was released.

The dispute lasted from 1859 to 1862, eventually being settled by diplomacy. Canstatt received compensation, and there were mutual apologies between the two countries.

The case raised issues that were not adequately addressed by the international law and practice of the era: such as the right of an arrested person to consular access; conflicting definitions of nationality; dual citizenship; equality between States; and minimum judicial standards.

Arrest of Canstatt
Santiago (or James - he used both names) Canstatt, while residing in Paraguay on business, was arrested in 1859 on suspicion of intended regicide. Official details were sparse but, according to later understanding, 13 conspirators including Canstatt were supposed to have plotted to shoot the president, Carlos Antonio López, when attending the theatre. Canstatt, who had entered Paraguay on a British passport, asked to see the British consul, but was refused and held incommunicado.

Canstatt was seen being taken off to jail, however, and the British consul, C.A. Henderson, heard of it. He asked the Paraguayan government to be allowed to visit Canstatt, but his request was refused. It appears that Canstatt smuggled a letter out of prison saying he was being held in irons and asking his brother to supply him with leather patches in order to protect his wrists. This too was raised by Henderson. There were mutual recriminations between the consul and the Paraguayan government, which said he had no right to interfere. Paraguay's only newspaper, a government publication, reproved him for impertinence. The consul complained to London, which instructed him to make a firm stand and present an ultimatum. Not having received satisfaction, the consul pursuant to his instructions broke off diplomatic relations, warned that Great Britain would take reprisals, and left the country. ,

Reprisals
About a year later the president's son, Francisco Solano López, happened to be in Buenos Aires on an important diplomatic mission. He was mediating a dispute between the Argentine Confederation and the State of Buenos Aires. He had travelled there on a Paraguayan warship, the Tacuarí, which was waiting for him in the city harbour. His mediation having been accomplished with success, he boarded Tacuarí and made to depart for home. However, two British warships, HMSS Grappler and Buzzard, were waiting outside the harbour. They intended to seize Tacuarí and hold her hostage for the release of Canstatt. One of them fired a blank shot which caused Tacuarí to retreat back into the harbour. There she remained until the Paraguayan government released Canstatt, at which she was allowed to depart.

Buenos Aires was a neutral port and Tacuari was fired on and pursued while still in its roadstead. This might be considered an act of war. The incident was particularly humiliating because, in order to return to Paraguay, the president's son was obliged to undergo a tedious overland voyage. To make matters worse there was a substantial faction in Buenos Aires that hated López and was secretly glad that he had been humiliated. Another faction was angered by the breach of neutrality and protested vociferously. Still another felt that the British had not preserved the decencies: they should have waited until Tacuarí was out of sight of the town before seizing her. It seems no really effective measures were taken to oppose the British action and the authorities even allowed one of the British vessels to berth alongside Tacuarí to keep an eye on her.

The action was ordered by Admiral Sir Stephen Lushington, Commander-in-chief of the South East Coast of America Station. The British government claimed he was acting on his own initiative, and perhaps he was. In an era before telegraphic communications with London were usual, flag officers had considerable discretion.

Dispute: positions
In the resulting dispute both countries assumed categorically different positions. Paraguay said its judicial system alone could decide Canstatt's guilt: European notions of justice were irrelevant. the British consul's intervention was an impertinence. Anyway he was only a lowly consul and had no standing in such matters. In any case Canstatt was not British, he was Uruguayan.

On the other side, Great Britain stood by its consul, hinted there was no Paraguayan judicial system to speak of, complained that Canstatt had never been allowed to see the charges or confront the witnesses, contended that a British subject had been thrown in jail without cause or due process, and peremptorily demanded his release, compensation for the ruin of his business, and an apology for insulting their consul. If this was not granted in three days they would break off diplomatic relations and take reprisals.

Reprisals
In 19th century international law

Was Canstatt a British national?
A crucial point was the national status of Canstatt, since the British consul had no standing if Canstatt was not British. If, on the other hand, he was, it would be a violation of international law — according to present-day notions, anyway — to refuse him consular access. (For instance, in 1998 Paraguay successfully asked the International Court of Justice to intervene when a Paraguayan citizen was sentenced to death by an American court, after he had been arrested without being informed of his right to contact the Paraguayan consul.)

Canstatt was born about 1835 in Montevideo, in the downriver republic of Uruguay. His mother was Uruguayan, but, according to him, his father was British. If that was right he could claim British nationality under British law, and in fact the British authorities had issued him with a British passport.

According to the Paraguayan government, however, his father was never British, but a Belgian doctor who settled in Uruguay and acquired Uruguayan citizenship. In applying for a passport Canstatt had deceived the British authorities. Hence Santiago Canstatt was simply a Uruguayan citizen, not entitled to the assistance of the British consul. As a fact, the government of Uruguay too had issued him with a passport. In any case Paraguay, like many other nations, did not accept that nationality could descend from father to son.

When travelling to Paraguay on business, Canstatt sometimes used his Uruguayan passport, sometimes his British. It appears that he was fluently bilingual.

Thus, nowadays, Canstatt might be considered to have dual nationality. At the time, however, this was a controversial idea, and a body of opinion thought it was an absurdity, since a man could not owe allegiance to two nations.

Did Canstatt conspire to assassinate the president?
Whether there really was a conspiracy to shoot López and, if so, whether Canstatt was part of it, cannot now be known. There was no public trial; the country's only newspaper just reported the sentences handed down. It is not possible to know the evidence against him, except that he was "known to the police" and was alleged to have attended "seditious meetings". But possibly any meeting at which people criticised the government might have counted as seditious.

According to Charles Ames Washburn, later the American envoy to Paraguay, though it was true some prominent citizens were discontented and wished for a change of regime, there was no conspiracy. What had happened was that, recently, López's power and prestige had been challenged by the United States, which had sent a naval squadron to South America to threaten him (see the article Paraguay expedition), and so he was anxious to reassert his authority. He decided to arrest some malcontents on trumped up charges. His police rounded up a number, guilty or not, including Canstatt. Thirteen including Canstatt were sentenced to death.

While this may be so, Washburn is not regarded as an unbiased source, since he hated the López family. Paraguay had an authoritarian regime that tolerated no opposition and certainly there were Paraguayan exiles in Buenos Aires who would have welcomed a revolution.

According to Spanish-Paraguayan author Josefina Pla, Canstatt was a brash young man "of frank and imprudent speech" who did not bother to conceal his opinions of Paraguay and its government; in that era, this was unwise; and it attracted the attention of López's vast network of police spies.

Fortuitously, a vivid pen-portrait of Canstatt has been left by the Scottish writer Robert Cunninghame Graham, who knew him in Paraguay the 1870s. Canstatt by then was a steamboat skipper; he spoke English without a trace of a foreign accent but swore volubly at his crew in vivid Spanish. While the writer was convinced of his innocence, he hints that Canstatt was a steely man handy with a gun.

Emergent Paraguay
Paraguay is a landlocked state in the heart of South America; at that time it was emerging into the modern world from a state of backward isolation.

Once part of the Spanish Viceroyalty of the River Plate, whose capital was in distant Buenos Aires, in colonial times Paraguay was forced to struggle with endemic Portuguese and Indian raids; this made Paraguayans insecure and suspicious of outsiders.

The country ceased to be Spanish in about 1811, and to take orders from Buenos Aires, but it did not formally declare its independence or give itself a constitution until 1842. Its independence was not recognised by the governor of Buenos Aires, Juan Manuel de Rosas and virtual ruler of Argentina: he regarded Paraguay as a breakaway province that needed to be brought to heel. He tried "to coerce Paraguay economically and bring it to its knees"; but it "only stiffened Paraguayan nationalism and produced a voluntary, xenophobic isolation of the breakaway province".

Isolation was the chosen policy of Paraguay's first ruler José Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia (1814-40) whose official title was "Supreme Dictator of the Republic during his life". Under his regime there was no printing press in Paraguay — his decrees were copied out by hand - let alone a newspaper. It could be difficult to enter or leave the country.

Carlos Antonio López
Francia was succeeded by President López, who had many progressive tendencies. He is now acknowledged as one of Paraguay's better rulers — a moderniser. López gradually brought Paraguay out of its long period of isolation. Importing British technicians, he built a railway, an ironworks, an arsenal and a shipyard. Moreover he paid for these without getting Paraguay into debt. "There is no doubt that he [left] a nation both unified, debt-free, and technologically advanced in relation to other countries of the continent". He founded schools and started a weekly newspaper which, initially, he edited himself.

However, like his predecessor, López was a dictator whose word was law; his regime has been described as "frankly despotic". He did not reform the judicial system inherited from Francia. In cases of treason or public security, the Supreme Government (i.e. López himself) was the judge; his own newspaper declared it.

When justifying his attitude in the Canstatt affair, López disdained to adopt the trappings of liberal democracy."The task of the President is difficult and tedious; he needs the sympathy and forbearance of European nations. South America is full of revolutionists ... and it must be long before European notions of individual liberty can be appreciated. At present force and energy are necessary."

Moreover, his knowledge of foreign affairs and international relations was limited, and apt to be dogmatic. He has been described as "an egotist who refused to maintain an adequate diplomatic service"; one "who had no representatives abroad and did not care to get information about the outside world"; and one who "got into hot water with all the Powers he had anything to do with. He was of a petulant temper, and disliked foreigners generally". As mentioned, he had recently had misunderstandings with the United States that led to a punitive American naval squadron. It appears it could have been avoided by competent diplomacy.

Consul Henderson
, who had been issued British and Uruguayan passports, was arrested while on a visit to Paraguay on suspicion of conspiring to assassinate the president, Carlos Antonio López. He claimed British nationality and asked to see the British consul, but was held incommunicado for months, eventually being sentenced to death. The British consul claimed Canstatt did not get a proper trial, not being allowed to know the evidence against him or to confront the witnesses; further, that he, the consul, had been obstructed in the performance of his duties and insulted. The Paraguayan government claimed Canstatt was not a British national but a Uruguayan, and anyway had been treated by the same judicial standards as his Paraguayan co-conspirators. After failing to obtain satisfaction the British government warned that it would seek reprisals and broke off diplomatic relations.

Two British warships then attempted to seize the Tacuarí, a Paraguayan warship, while she was leaving the neutral port of Buenos Aires, carrying the president's son, himself an important Paraguayan official. Tacuarí took refuge in the port and was effectively blockaded there until the government of Paraguay should set Canstatt at liberty, which it eventually did. Afterwards, in a separate incident, Tacuarí accidentally collided with a British merchant vessel, whose owners sought compensation against Paraguay for negligent navigation. The British government declined to renew diplomatic relations unless Paraguay compensated Canstatt and the owners of the merchant vessel, and apologised for the treatment of their consul. Paraguay for its part sought an apology for the treatment of Tacuarí and the president's son. Paraguay sent a distinguished lawyer to London to negotiate but he was refused diplomatic recognition. Matters thus reached an impasse.

The affair was eventually settled by mutual apologies and the payment of compensation.