714.1515/879: Telegram
The Chargé in Honduras (Merrell) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 4—1:35 a.m.]
57. In compliance with your telegram number 41 of May 29, 5 p.m., I spoke with President Mejia Colindres on May 30.
He seemed assured and pleased with the message and said that his Government was doing, and would continue to do, everything it could to avoid aggravating the boundary dispute.
He and part of his Cabinet left the next morning for an inspection of the road between here and Siguatepeque and their absence from the capital has had a tranquilizing effect on the public. Upon his return this morning however he informed me that he had received a report from the Comandante at Cuyamel that the Guatemalan military outposts at Cinchado, La Tienda, and Entre-Rios, have been doubled, that three military chiefs have arrived at Cinchado where the troops within the last few days have been organized for an active campaign, and that on June 2 a detachment of 25 men was about a mile from Cacao.
In my opinion the present Honduran Government greatly desires a definite settlement of the boundary dispute but I believe it will be little if any more favorably disposed toward accepting the Department’s proposal of June 4 last22 than the Government was last year, inasmuch as at least two members of the Cabinet are opposed to it and the President stands in great awe of the editor of El Cronista who will doubtless reopen a bitter campaign against it if its consideration is resumed.
Repeated to Guatemala.
- See telegram No. 51, June 4, 1928, 4 p.m., to the Minister in Guatemala, Foreign Relations, 1928, vol. i, p. 746.↩