quality:corruption, structural:reformatting, structural:scholar_edition
Looting, damages, and war reparations

The case of looting and war reparations done by Chilean occupation forces in Peru has caused controversy between historians. It is overlooked in Chile and a source of anti-Chilean sentiment in Peru. The Chilean historian Milton Godoy Orellana distinguishes the looting after the battle of Chorrillos y Miraflores; the looting by Peruvians in Lima before the Chilean troops entered the city; and the Chilean destruction of locomotives, rails, printing machines, weapons, etc. The Chilean government tried to control it through the "Oficina Recaudadora de las Contribuciones de Guerra," whose tasks were to inventory and realize the confiscation and to record and to confirm transport to Chile, the destination, and the sender. Allegedly, the strategic purposes were to obtain the peace. There is no general list of the looted goods, but many of the shipments were registered in private and official letters, newspaper articles, manifests, etc. Also, looting of cultural assets of Peru by the Chileans and Peruvians occurred; the development of international law regarding the protection of cultural objects evolved over the 19th and 20th centuries, but the idea of protecting cultural assets first emerged in Europe in the 18th century.

The Lieber Code of 1863 unconditionally protected works of art during an armed conflict (Art. 35) but expressly consented to the use of cultural property as war reparations (Art. 36). In fact, Sergio Villalobos states that in 1817, the US accepted the confiscation of art works but the 1874 Project of an International Declaration concerning the Laws and Customs of War asserted that the cultural assets were to be considered as protected.

In March 1881, the Chilean government began to seize the Biblioteca Nacional del Perú, and 45,000 books were seized, but some of the books were sold in Lima by Peruvians, and so it is contested how much of the booty was taken by the Chilean forces. In any case, in late March 1881, some of the books arrived to Chile, and the press began to inform and discuss about the legitimacy of looting oil paintings, books, statues, etc., or "international robbery", as a journalist of "La Epoca" described it.

On 4 January 1883, in a session of the Chilean Congress, the deputy Augusto Matte Pérez questioned Minister of the Interior José Manuel Balmaceda on the "opprobrious and humiliating" shipments of Peruvian cultural assets. Montt asked the devolution of the assets and was supported by deputies McClure and Puelma. The minister vowed to impede further exactions and to repatriate the objects mentioned in the discussion. Apparently, he did so since the shipments stopped, and the mentioned statues are not there anymore, but it was not until November 2007 that Chile returned 3,778 stolen books to the Biblioteca Nacional del Perú. S. Villalobos asserted, "There was no justification for the theft."

Another issue was the damage from acts of war on properties owned by citizens of neutral countries. In 1884, the Tribunales Arbitrales were constituted with a Chilean judge, who was named by the country of the claimant, as well as a Brazilian judge to deal with the claims of citizens from Britain (118 claims), Italy (440 claims), and France (89 claims). A tribunal was established in 1886 for German citizens. The "Italian" tribunal also dealt with Belgian citizens, and the "German" tribunal acted for Austrian and Swiss citizens. Spaniards accepted the decision of the Chilean state without the tribunal's assistance and the US did not agree at the time.

According to international law, animus manendi claims by foreign citizens could not be made unless the damaged property had been in an actual battleground (such as Arica, Chorrillos, and Miraflores, with Pisagua and Tacna being in a similar situation), but damages caused by individual or scattered soldiers were dismissed. Only 3.6% (1,080,562 Chilean pesos) of the value that was claimed was recognized by the tribunals. According to Villalobos, the verdicts proved that the accusations against the Chilean forces had been exaggerated by Peruvians because of their wounded pride and by foreign citizens because of monetary interests.