817.00 Bandit Activities/517
The Minister in Honduras (Lay) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 7.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to my telegram No. 76 of August 19, 3 PM.79 and my confidential despatch No. 599 of the same date with regard to the additional measures being taken, pursuant to my representations, by the Honduran Government to secure greater effectiveness in prevention of munitions smuggling to the Nicaraguan bandits. The President informed the Legation yesterday that he had [Page 939] sent by airplane to General Plata two machine guns, uniforms for his entire command, and pay for his men until September 1; that he had gotten a telegram from Plata saying that they had been received; and that he had arrived at Pedragalito, a place on the frontier where contraband munitions were reported to be collected.
The President in our interview of August 19 stated that he would also place all the inspectors of police and treasury, which he thought numbered four, of the Department of El Paraíso, with their armed escorts, each of four to six men, at Plata’s orders, which would increase his strength from 75 to 95 or 100 men.
On my informing the President that arms were being smuggled from La Union, El Salvador, to points in Honduras on the Gulf of Fonseca close to the Nicaraguan border by the vessels Eva and Choluteca of Paulino Carias, a Honduran, he stated that he would have a government ship put in service to break up this traffic.
The President is showing himself more than willing to please the Legation in this matter by taking every measure that his extremely limited means will permit, and I hope that from all these measures will come some tangible and substantial result in the form of the seizure of quantities of bandit munitions.
Respectfully yours,
- Not printed.↩