File No. 817.812/151
The award, as your excellency will see, clearly establishes Colombia’s
right of dominion over the Mangles Islands as well as all the other
islands of the Mosquito archipelago which, together with the coast from
Cape Gracias à Dios to Chagres, was separated from the Captaincy General
of Guatemala and made part of the Vice Kingdom of New Granada by royal
order of November 30, 1803. All the nations that were formerly Spanish
colonies in America have accepted the principle of the uti possidetis rule, that is to say that the boundaries of the
now independent States are the same that were assigned to the colonies
by royal acts of the former sovereign. Nicaragua, in particular,
expressly accepted that principle, as evidenced by the Treaty of 1825
between Colombia and the United Provinces of Central America of which
Nicaragua was one. Article 5 of that
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solemn covenant says that the contracting parties
“guarantee one another the integrity of the respective territories—as
they stood before the present War of Independence” that is, as they had
been apportioned and defined by the Spanish sovereign.
Yet Nicaragua disposes of the Mangles Islands as if they were hers and
leases them for 99 years to the United States, thus invading Colombia’s
perfect right of dominion and without heeding her reiterated
protests.
My Government has directed me suitably to remonstrate to your
excellency’s Government, to the end that the said islands called “Great
Corn Island” and “Little Corn Island” be excluded from any engagement
already made or hereafter to be made by Nicaragua with the United
States. I hereby enter, through your excellency, like protest in regard
to the Mosquito Coast which is shown in the enclosed memorandum to be
the property of Colombia, and which has been occupied by Nicaragua
against the many protests of my Government.
[Inclosure—Extract]
[Untitled]
On February 8, 1913, the Government of Nicaragua closed with that of
the United States a secret convention regarding the construction of
an interoceanic canal, by route of the river San Juan and the Great
Lake of Nicaragua, article number 2 of which is as follows:
To facilitate the protection of the Panama Canal and also the
rights considered in the present convention and in order
that the Government of the United States may dictate any
special measure to the Government of Nicaragua with the end
of protecting the interests herewith expressed, the
Government of Nicaragua leases, in favor of that of the
United States and for a term of ninety-nine years, the
Islands of the Caribbean Sea, known as “Great Corn Island”
and “Little Corn Island”, and also agrees to accept the
establishment of a naval base of the Government of the
United States on the Gulf of Fonseca. At the expiration of
this lease, the Government of the United States shall have
the right to renew the present convention.
As soon as the Colombian Government had knowledge of the referred to
convention, it protested, in its note of August 9, 1913,4 against the definite leasing of the Mangles
Islands (Corn Islands), and renewed its former protest against the
unlawful occupation that Nicaragua had been exercising during the
last years in said territory which belongs to us. In accordance with
the provision issued by the Committee of Foreign Affairs, it was
communicated to the Colombian Minister at Washington that, in the
form and at the moment in which he would deem it proper, he was to
let the Government of the United States know that, regarding the
Mangles Islands (Corn Islands), the signed agreement with Nicaragua
could not be carried out because those islands belong to
Colombia.
To the referred to note of our Chancery, the Government of Managua
replied in a long communication, dated December 24, 1913,4 which is the one that has come to our
attention and is the cause of the present report:
[Note.—Here follows an analysis of the
history of the case.]
The arbitral award that His Excellency Emile Loubet, President of the
French Republic, announced on September 11, 1900, in order to
terminate the boundary litigation, declared, on the basis of
documents, the probatory force of which remained solemnly
established, the following:
As regards the most distant islands of the Continent and
comprised between the Coast of Mosquitos and the Isthmus of
Panama, especially Mangle Chico (Little Corn Island), Mangle
Grande (Great Corn Island), Albuquerque Keys, San Andrés,
Santa Catalina, Providencia, Escudo de Veraguas, as well as
any other isles, islets and banks which before were
depending on the old province of Cartagena, under the
denomination of Canton of San Andres, it is understood that
the territory of those islands, without excepting any,
belong to the United States of Colombia.
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This solemn award was given after a long and debated international
litigation, upon the basis of innumerable authentic documents of
juridical decisive force, presented before the arbiter by the
Republic of Colombia, whose cause was defended by their excellencies
Señor Don Francisco Silvela and Don Antonio Maura, ex-presidents of
the Council of Ministers of Spain, and by Mr. Raymond Poincaré, now
President of the Republic of France; the appreciation that such
eminent personalities of the political world and of the forum, held
of the titles and of the rights of Colombia—recognized by the
sovereign who rendered the award as arbiter—, makes it of an
incomparable international juridical value, and there will be no
Government who would want to ignore the incontrovertible
efficacy.
And much less the illustrious Government of the United States of
America, who has made formal declarations upon the award of His
Excellency Mr. Loubet, the execution of which and just
interpretations of which were entrusted by Costa Rica to the
Honorable Chief Justice of the United States, in the arbitral
compromise with Panama, whom, however, Colombia does not and can not
recognize, since it has bound the highest representative of the
Judicial Power of the American Union. It does not seem reasonable
that after this explicit official recognition—which could not be
otherwise—, made by the Government of Washington upon the
international permanent value of the declarations and territorial
adjudications contained in the award given by the Chief Magistrate
of the Republic of France, the Public Powers of the United States of
North America, should accept from Nicaragua a perpetual lease of the
Islands of Mangles (Great and Little Corn Islands), which the French
Sovereign recognized and definitely declared were, in truth and in
justice, as they are and have been, solely and exclusively the
property of the Republic of Colombia.
