File No. 711.21/334
[Inclosure—Translation]
The Minister for Foreign
Affairs to Minister Thomson
No. 709
Ministry for Foreign Affairs,
Bogotá,
January 25, 1916.
Mr. Minister: On April 6, 1914, there was
signed by the Government of Colombia, represented by various
Plenipotentiaries, and by that of the United States, represented by
your excellency, a Public Treaty for the purpose of defining the
rights of the High Contracting Parties in the Canal and Railroad
[Page 212]
of Panama and to put an
end to the other differences arising from the rebellion of the
Department of Panama, which took place in 1903.
Although the treaty received the approval of the Colombian Congress
that same year, 1914, it has not yet been considered by the Senate
of the United States in the various sessions, ordinary and special,
which that body has held since that date. This long suspension of a
pact which interests the Republic more than anything else can
possibly interest it, and the condition of doubt which so much delay
will cause to the effects of the treaty, are in the highest degree
prejudicial to the Government and people of Colombia, who thus see
their rights forgotten and for whom this situation begins to be
unsupportable.
In fact, if on the part of the Republic there was real solicitude to
approve a convention which accepts a reparation far inferior to its
rights and which at the same time perfects the title of the United
States to enormous acquisitions, still Colombia and its Government
see with great pain that the Senate of the Union is paying no
attention to these reparations, not refusing them, but nevertheless
postponing them in an almost indefinite manner.
I therefore venture to request your excellency to kindly make known
to your Government that that of Colombia awaits that the Senate of
the United States should vouchsafe attention to the condition of a
friendly nation which for more than twelve years has borne with
disregard of the most essential rights of its jurisdiction,
integrity and sovereignty and which has not yet succeeded in having
this loss partially repaired, even by making the sacrifice of
transferring legally to the United States its property rights almost
complete.
Well does the Colombian Government recognize, and well does it
appreciate, the interest and decision with which the present
Government of the United States attended to the necessity of
celebrating a treaty which justice and international amity demanded.
But now that your excellency’s Government has shown in a solemn and
unquestionable manner its spirit of justice and its high intentions,
my Government hopes that it will conclude its just and lofty work
through efforts, by means of its well-deserved and powerful
influence, that the Treaty of April 6, 1914, may have the result
which the two Governments intended when making it, and that it may
not be reduced to a sterile effort.
Should the result be otherwise, the unutterable injuries suffered by
Colombia would be aggravated instead of being repaired, since, in
addition to the impairment of its rights and the damage and
prejudice caused to it since 1903, it would be forgotten:
1st, that it, at the suggestion and proposal of the United States,
agreed to suspend its demand for arbitration for the adjustment of
the controversy;
2d, that the same Government which committed the spoliation of the
rights of Colombia more than twelve years ago and the Administration
which next succeeded it showed a disposition in favor of the
reparation of those wrongs;
3d, that if the Treaty of 1914 should not be considered and approved,
then the violation of the rights of Colombia would not be an act
peculiar to the Government which committed it, but one which in fact
received the acquiescence and ratification of the American Union, by
virtue of the failure of the Senate to act;
4th, that if the treaty should fail to go into effect, then the
Republic would be placed in a situation incompatible with all
international amity, since not only would its original rights be
disregarded but so also would be its high spirit of
conciliation;
5th, that the indefinite neglect of the treaty prejudices high
commercial interests, daily more important, as to a country whose
situation and physical conditions are unsurpassedly attractive, and
even prejudice the respect of the other Latin American peoples to
whom the ruin of the rights of a sister-people, consummated as it
were by repeated afflictions, cannot be a matter of
indifference;
6th, that it is not just that, having caused Colombia a series of
daily wrongs and damages in its civil and commercial, personal and
public, relations with the rebel Department of Panama, it should
oblige it to suffer those wrongs indefinitely, all because of the
protection which the Government of the United States gives to the
rebellious section and on account of the failure of the same nation
to approve the Treaty of 1914.
Understanding and experiencing the high spirit of justice which
distinguishes your excellency, I beg you to kindly make known this
representation, as deferential as it is earnest, to your Government,
in the quickest way that your excellency may find convenient
I renew [etc.]
