File No. 714.1515/47
Chargé Thurston to the Secretary of State
Guatemala, December 24, 1917, 11 p.m.
Department’s two cablegrams identical date of December 22, 7 p.m. arrived this morning. All Government machinery stopped for the holidays but succeeded in obtaining interview with the Minister for Foreign Affairs this afternoon.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs states that he is not aware that Guatemalan troops are being massed south of Motagua River. Mr. Morley [Page 793] arrived on to-night’s train, having just left the disputed territory. He states that the situation is but little changed since my visit as regards advances of troops but that there are now approximately 175 Guatemalan troops in the neighborhood of Sinchado and that they are cutting a new trail from that point to the Cuyamel Railroad which it will intersect six kilometers west of Gimerito.
With reference to the proposal that the Governments of Guatemala and Honduras should sign a boundary arbitration treaty the Minister for Foreign Affairs could not see the appropriateness of the word “arbitration” which is not used in the first article of the protocol signed September 17, 1917. He stated, however, that a diplomatic convention will be signed if the special mission composed of Minister Plenipotentiary, a lawyer and two engineers and four technical secretaries now en route to Honduras is successful. This is in strict observance of Articles II and III of the protocol. Article V of the protocol states that should this treaty not materialize or fail to be ratified by the respective legislatures the boundary treaty of August 1, 1914, will be revived. The mission is not empowered to deliver any ultimatum to Honduras.
The point was conceded that questions of concession rights to the disputed territory should not be discussed in a question of international boundary.
In view of the fact that the Minister for Foreign Affairs did not feel disposed to commit himself when I submitted to him the Departments feeling that President Cabrera’s suggestion that the Governments of Guatemala and Honduras should both withdraw all troops from the disputed territory be carried out, and likewise in view of the fact that both the disputing parties are engaged in constructive labors (the Hondurans permitting if not urging the pushing forward of the Cuyamel Railroad and the Guatemalan Government building trails to intersect this railroad and thus preventing its operation) which may at any moment bring them into contact, does not the Department deem it advisable to authorize the Legation at Tegucigalpa and myself to energetically urge upon the two Governments the propriety of promptly withdrawing their troops from this disputed territory? From a personal knowledge of the topography of this region, I venture to suggest that the following distribution of the three disturbing elements in the situation pending the outcome of the negotiations at Tegucigalpa be considered: The Guatemalan forces to remain at Sinchado or Tenedores suspending all military operations; the Honduran forces to retire to Cuyamel town or Omoa and the Cuyamel Fruit Company to cease its advance into this disputed territory and confine itself to that portion of its holdings between its Colon farm and Omoa.