Armando Normand (1880–?) was a plantation manager of Peruvian and Bolivian descent who had a central role in the Peruvian Amazon Company's perpetration of the Putumayo genocide.[1][2][3] For six years in the Putumayo, Normand committed uncounted abuses against the indigenous population.[4]
Normand worked for the company, which extracted rubber with illegal slave labour, between 1904 and October 1910.[5][6] During those years, he led a reign of terror against local indigenous populations. According to British consul-general Roger Casement, who investigated crime in the Putumayo River basin in 1910, Normand committed "innumerable murders and tortures" during this period.[7] Several of the crimes that Normand was incriminated with include immolation, bashing out the brains of children,[8][9][10] and dismemberment.[11][12][7]
Reports and evidence of Normand's crimes were first documented by Benjamin Saldaña Rocca in 1907,[13] Roger Casement in 1910,[14] and Judge Carlos A. Valcarcel in 1915.[15] A warrant for Normand's arrest was issued by Judge Rómulo Paredes on 29 June 1911 along with 214 other men employed by the Peruvian Amazon Company's agency at La Chorrera.[16] Normand was arrested in 1912 but was not brought to trial and escaped from prison in 1915.[17][2]