817.00/6339: Telegram
The Chargé in Nicaragua (Hanna) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:11 p.m.]
160. Department’s telegram No. 85, June 10, 5 p.m. I have conferred with Generals Williams and McDougal. The volunteers have been reduced recently from about two hundred and fifty to less than one hundred men and it is expected to effect their complete disbandment as soon as possible. However, President Moncada’s wishes in this matter may necessitate some delay and some appropriate occupation must be found for Escamilla. The guardia forces are being gradually increased as much as possible in the Matagalpa and Ocotal areas but it is not deemed advisable to reduce the marine forces in those areas for the present.
Bandit activity in the Matagalpa area has increased during the past three weeks. General Williams believes this is due (1) to encouragement of anti-administration elements in an effort to discredit the administration, marines and guardia; (2) to considerable numbers of unemployed floaters following the discharge of several hundred men until recently employed on the Matagalpa road and termination of the coffee picking season. The British Chargé d’Affaires has informed me officially that bandits attacked in that area the plantation of Charles Potter, a British subject, on June 5. General Williams believes that the attacks on foreign-owned plantations have been made to obtain supplies and loot and also in an effort to show that the administration [Page 576] supported by the marines and guardia is not giving complete protection to foreign interests. It is believed that Altamirano and Blandon are the responsible outlaw leaders. The situation in this area is considered serious but has been met by increasing the strength of both marines and guardia and by a stronger and more active patrol service. I am also informed that the bandits were encouraged by reports current in that area that the marine forces in Nicaragua were being reduced.
Concerning road construction, General Williams is emphatically of the opinion that the expenditure of money for this purpose is desirable for military reasons alone. He says that transportation of military supplies over various poor roads by bull carts costs approximately ten times as much and transportation by pack animals over trails twenty times as much per unit of weight as transportation by motor truck over good roads. For this reason alone he believes it in the interest of economy for the Government of the United States to construct roads passable for motor trucks from some point on the railroad to Ocotal, Matagalpa and Jinotega. General McDougal concurs emphatically in this opinion. Although this road work would not be in the heart of the disturbed areas, nevertheless it would have an important quieting influence by giving work to unemployed, many of whom are potential bandits. Both officers concur in my views as to the effect that road construction in the heart of the infested areas would have on the elimination of banditry and the desirability of beginning such construction with the least possible delay as set forth in my despatch 1008, May 24th, 1929. After further investigation I believe that an adequate program for road construction could be carried out at a cost not to exceed twenty-five thousand dollars a month and Mr. Willey,20 whose experience in this class of work is known to the Department, confirms this estimate. If this receives the Department’s favorable consideration I would appreciate an expression of the Department’s views that I can make use of when I take the matter up with the Nicaraguan Government.
- Presumably John A. Willey, American Consular Agent at Matagalpa; employed by the Nicaraguan Government as engineer in road construction.↩