715.1715/380: Telegram
The Minister in Nicaragua ( Hanna ) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 1—3:07 a.m.]
95. The following telegram was sent to the Legation at Tegucigalpa:
July 31, 5 p.m. Your July 14, 9 p.m.93 This Government accepts the draft protocol with the following changes and additions.
- In article 1, insert “as a basis” after the word “pledge”.
- In article 2, substitute “jointly” for “unconditionally”, and the words “an arbitral boundary” for the words “a joint”.
- To article 3, add the sentence “In all doubtful cases, moreover, the President of the Commission shall decide and his decision shall be without appeal”.
- In article 4, insert the words “Nicaraguan and Honduranean” after the word “commissioners”.
Add the following eight articles after article 5.
- “6. The delivery of the territories which Honduras or Nicaragua is to receive through the fulfillment of the present agreement will be carried out within six months following the demarcation of the border.
- 7. The inhabitants of the territories which pass to a new sovereignty will retain their previous nationality but will have one year from the date of the delivery of the respective territories within which to choose either of the two nationalities. Silence at the expiration of the period will indicate a will not to change nationality.
- 8. The territorial property of the indigenous tribes, whether individual or collective, will not be altered by the change in sovereignty. If the territorial property of the tribes inhabiting the territory subject to a change in sovereignty has not been legalized, the state which may acquire said territory will be obligated to establish collectively or individually a legal regime of property in favor of said tribes by the terms of which they will be given gratuitously lots of ground in sufficient quantity to provide for their necessities.
- 9. Neither the agrarian regime in general nor that of private property will be altered in any way, and the latter shall be respected provided that it has been duly legalized in the country which may have possessed the territory affected in fact or by right prior to this agreement.
- 10. The Government of Nicaragua reserves the right to transfer to Nicaraguan territory the indigenous settlements located on the left bank of the river Coco or Segovia, and those which may be located to the north of said river in territory which on the date of the signing of the present agreement may have been in fact or by right subject to the jurisdiction of Nicaragua, including the [Page 370] settlement of Cruta at the mouth of the river of the same name. The Government of Nicaragua will exercise this right with the consent or on the petition of the inhabitants of said settlements and indigenous tribes. This right will terminate five years from the date on which Honduras has received the territory situated to the north of the river Coco or Segovia.
- 11. Concessions granted to nationals or foreigners by either of the contracting states which are valid on the date of the present agreement and which apply or may apply to territory subject to a change in sovereignty by the execution of the award and of this agreement will continue in effect; that is, the state which may acquire the affected territory will reinvest the other in all the obligations and rights of the respective contract.
- 12. For the purposes of the preceding article and of the provisions of articles 8 and 9, the owners of lands or concessions acquired by virtue of acts of sovereignty of either of the contracting states, executed and perfected prior to the date of this agreement, will have the right to register their respective titles in the state which is to exercise sovereignty within the territory affected within a period of two years counting from the date of the delivery of said territory, made in compliance with the present agreement.
- 13. The present agreement will be submitted to the approval of the Congress of Nicaragua and will be ratified by the Government of Honduras in conformity with the terms of its political constitution; and the exchange of ratifications will be made in Managua or Tegucigalpa within the least possible time.”
The changes in articles 1 and 2, in the opinion of President Moncada, will make the protocol less objectionable to the Nicaraguan public without altering the force of protocol, and the purpose of the addition to article 3 is to eliminate all doubt as to the power of the President of the Commission.
I will immediately transmit to you by radio en clair the original Spanish text of the foregoing eight additional articles and will await your report as to whether they are acceptable to the Government of Honduras.
- See telegram No. 60 of the same date to the Secretary of State, supra. ↩