714.1515/684: Telegram
The Minister in Guatemala (Geissler) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 24—1 p.m.]
69. Referring to Legation’s telegram of May 22, 4 p.m.22 An important memorandum received this evening by instruction of the President from the Minister of Foreign Affairs omits statements to the effect that the Assembly would first have to grant authorization.
The memorandum, containing about 1200 words, says that Guatemala desires that the frontier be definitely established and that this [was] demonstrated by the attitude of its delegation at Cuyamel; that when “His Excellency, Mr. Davis, proposed an acceptable frontier, [Page 745] although with great sacrifices for Guatemala, that frontier was accepted by the Guatemalan Commission and without doubt the boundary question would have been definitely concluded if the Honduranean Commission, placing itself upon the same plane as that of Guatemala, had accepted the conciliatory mediation of Mr. Davis;” that inspections made by Mr. Davis and the Commissioners showed that Honduras, properly speaking, does not possess “in the disputed zone” an inch of ground cultivated or held by Honduraneans; that Honduras has not a banana tree nor a permanent settlement apart from camps of the Cuyamel Fruit Company; that the inspections showed that there are 71 banana plantations on the right bank of the Motagua cultivated by Guatemalans or persons subject to the jurisdiction of Guatemala; that the territory never belonged to Honduras and is of no use to Honduras; that Guatemala by placing in jeopardy its vital interests in the region of the Motagua would expose the integrity of its territory, its commerce and its railroads and that its peace might become constantly menaced by a river frontier; that “in the supposed case of an arbitral award fixing the Motagua or another nearby line as the frontier”—“It would encourage resentments which would be inextinguishable.”
The memorandum concludes as follows: “Notwithstanding the foregoing the Government of Guatemala will authorize its Boundary Commission to enter into conversations upon a project of a treaty of arbitration which contemplates a frontier protecting the rights and the economic, commercial and political necessities of the country.”
The concluding paragraph did not appear in the unofficial draft referred to in Legation’s cablegram May 19, 5 p.m.
- Not printed.↩