File No. 22372/22.
Vice Consul Caldera to the Secretary of State.
Managua, November 20, 1909.
Sir: I have the honor to report that on the 15th instant at 3.15 a.m. I received a telegram from El Castillo, Nicaragua, signed by Lee Roy Cannon, informing me that they had been sentenced to death, and imploring their pardon from President Zelaya.
Knowing that Lee Roy Cannon was an American, as he had been identified with previous revolutionary movements in Central America, I immediately telegraphed to President Zelaya transmitting the request, and adding that we should be grateful if he would commute the sentence.
Later on the morning of the same day, I could find out that the Americans sentenced were above-mentioned Cannon and a Leonard Groce, known by several persons in this city.
So many false reports are circulated daily here that it is very hard to find out actual facts.
I called on General Minister Irias, who has been in bed for several days suffering the consequences of a fall by which his left eye was injured, and upon my inquiring regarding these two Americans he said that he knew nothing except that they had been caught, and that they were the dynamiters of the revolutionists.
He promised me to do all in his power to save their lives; meanwhile Señor Matamoras, the under secretary of foreign affairs, had come to see the minister and, at my request, he was immediately sent to the President to find out for me what was being done with the prisoners.
I could not see Señor Matamoras again until 12 M., when he informed me that the President said that he had already answered my telegram, and that he would decide when he had the details of the case.
I asked Minister Irias and Señor Matamoras to kindly inform me of any new developments in this case, but they seemed to know nothing, and on the evening of the 16th I again asked Minister Irias to please inquire from the President what had been done, whereupon he again sent Señor Matamoras, who could not see the President until late that night.
On the morning of the 17th I called on Señor Matamoras, who informed me that the President said the sentence was final, but not that they had been executed.
It is the opinion of several local lawyers, among whom is one employed by the Government as counsel, and whose name could not be mentioned in this connection without endangering his personal [Page 449] safety, that there is no law in this country which authorizes the execution of prisoners of war.
Furthermore, I have found out through a member of the Red Cross, who arrived from El Castillo, that Groce and Cannon had already fled from the reach of the troops of the Government after the battle was over, when they were seen at a distance and called by the commander on the river steamer Diamante and assured by him that they would not be harmed if they gave themselves up, but when they arrived at El Castillo they say that they confessed that they had laid down mines in the river to blow up the steamers carrying Government’s troops.
They were then accused by the fiscal de guerra (military prosecuting attorney), Señor Salomon Selva, tried by court martial, sentenced to the capital punishment, and executed at 10 a.m. of the 17th instant.
I am informed that Gen. Toledo, a Guatemalan revolutionist, now in command of the army operating in the San Juan River, and Gen. Medina, the second in command, in charge of the troops at El Castillo, were not favorable to the execution; Minister Irias told me he was opposed, and I am assured that in a letter written to the President from his sick bed, he expressed his opinion against the execution of the two Americans captured.
It is very seldom that anybody in Nicaragua has dared to express an opinion contrary to that of the President, and many who have done so are now locked up in the penitentiary; nevertheless in this occasion knowing that the execution of these two men was one of his most unpopular acts he hastened to do it, it is believed, not so much because they were revolutionists, but because they were Americans.
After having written the foregoing I received the cablegram from the department instructing me to send full information as to the capture and execution of the two Americans referred to.
In obedience thereto, after making further inquiries from official sources, I cabled the substance of this report.
The general minister showed me the telegram addressed to the President by the authorities at El Castillo reporting the sentence and execution, but not the capture.
In one of the telegrams they report that both Americans wrote letters to their families in which they confess their guilt, and that said letters had been filed with the proceedings.
I remarked that such letters did not belong there, but to this consulate, and I claimed them. The minister replied that they would see when the original proceedings arrive here.
According to Nicaraguan law those letters can not constitute legal proof of any kind, no matter what they may say; furthermore, the letters were addressed to the writers’ families and undoubtedly violated by the Government’s officials.
Based on well-known practice among officials of this Government, it is not to be doubted, as it is rumored, that the prisoners were compelled to sign declarations and even write letters confessing their guilt, the former dictated by the prosecuting attorney, by promising them that by so doing their lives might be spared.
I have now consulted six of the most prominent lawyers in Managua, and they all agree that the sentence, as executed, is unwarrantable [Page 450] and have offered me their written opinion upon examination of the proceedings.
Finally, it is unexceptionably declared by respectable citizens of Nicaragua that the execution of prisoners of war is unprecedented in Nicaragua in the last 50 years.
I have, etc.,