Minister Barrett to the Secretary of State.
Bogotá, December 13, 1905.
Sir: Although the Department may have been informed fully by the American minister in Caracas about the negotiations recently conducted there in regard to the relations of Colombia and Venezuela, I have the honor to report briefly on the matter as given out officially here.
It will be remembered that a few months ago the President of Venezuela refused to receive a special envoy of Colombia sent to Caracas to reopen diplomatic relations which were broken off some time ago on account of troubles of the boundary and the navigation of the upper waters of the Orinoco. When the Colombian envoy retired another man by the name of Dr. J. Ignacio Díaz Granados was sent to Caracas as a confidential agent of President Reyes to look over the situation and try to pave the way for a better understanding.
Doctor Granados, after working quietly but effectively for several months, has at last signed an agreement or protocol with Doctor Rafael López Baralt, confidential agent of Venezuela, by which it is agreed that past differences between the two nations are forgotten, that both shall send to the respective capitals ministers plenipotentiary and envoys extraordinary, and that a new treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation shall be negotiated. The initial framing and principal discussion of the treaty will take place at Caracas between Gen. Benjamin Herrera, a distinguished liberal of Colombia, who will be named as Colombian envoy, and the plenipotentiary of Venezuela yet to be named or the minister of foreign affairs.
The importance of this announcement and of the coming negotiations is emphasized greatly by the fact that there is a very serious difference between the two countries over the boundary and that Colombian commerce has suffered acutely through the practical closing to Colombian navigation and trade by Venezuela of the Orinoco, whose upper waters or tributaries flow through or into large and resourceful sections of Colombia. As a number of Americans have legitimately operated in the trade of this district and upon these rivers, the United States is indirectly concerned in the results to be obtained by the negotiation of this new treaty. * * *
I have, etc.,