721.23/1984

The Ambassador in Peru ( Dearing ) to the Secretary of State

No. 3042

Sir: With reference to the Leticia Conference at Rio de Janeiro and the unsettled boundary questions with Ecuador, I have the honor to enclose to the Department herewith copy of a memorandum of a conversation I had with the Foreign Minister yesterday afternoon.

Respectfully yours,

Fred Morris Dearing
[Enclosure]

Memorandum by the Ambassador in Peru (Dearing)

I spoke to Dr. Polo25 about the Leticia negotiations in Rio de Janeiro this afternoon, remarking that I had noticed with interest the character of the speeches made by the departing Peruvian delegates (See Embassy’s despatches Nos. 3037 of September 19th26 and 3042 of September 20th), and saying that all the information I had from Colombia was to the effect that the Colombian delegates were inspired with an equal desire to find a friendly and satisfactory solution for the difficulties. Dr. Polo said he was glad to hear that. I asked whether he would take up the boundary negotiations with Ecuador on October 20th, the date the Conference convenes, to which he replied that he had told the Ecuadorian Minister that he was ready to take up the boundary negotiations whenever Ecuador desired, thus leaving the initiative with Ecuador. He noted the fact, however, that Ecuador’s action might be somewhat paralysed by the present situation in Quito between the President and the Congress.

Dr. Polo said the Ecuadorian Minister had requested that an Ecuadorian observer should sit in at the real conference but that he had found this a very awkward and embarrassing matter and had frankly said so to the Minister. He said he had told the Minister he could well understand Ecuador’s interest and that it was immediate and direct but that he felt it would make matters difficult and be a cause of misunderstanding for an Ecuadorian observer to sit in. He wished, however, he said to reassure Ecuador in any way possible and stated he was prepared, if the Ecuadorian Government wished, to give Ecuador a written statement that Ecuadorian interests would not be touched on at all during the conference which would concern itself solely with the Salomon-Lozano Treaty and the Leticia Trapeze. I reminded Dr. Polo that a great deal had been made in the Peruvian arguments [Page 579] regarding Colombia’s alleged failure to comply with the terms of the Treaty and to turn over the Sucumbios or San Miguel territory. Dr. Polo replied at once that if Ecuador had any concern on that account, Peru would be willing to turn the whole district back to Colombia so that Colombia could arrange the question with Ecuador as if in the first place implying that thereafter Peru and Colombia would settle all other questions directly between themselves and that it was the intention not to involve Ecuador in any way, but to leave all Ecuadorian matters for settlement in the direct negotiations with Ecuador in case Ecuador acts and initiates the negotiations here in Lima.

I asked Dr. Polo whether he thought the Leticia negotiations would extend through the time of the Seventh Pan American Conference at Montevideo.27 Dr. Polo said he imagined the Leticia Conference at Rio de Janeiro would require some six months at least to reach final agreements, and I judge both from what he has told me and from a brief conversation I have just had with Dr. Belaunde, that Peru intends to make an exhaustive effort to secure a revision of the Salomon-Lozano Treaty and some change of the boundary lines in the vicinity of the Leticia Trapeze, with the idea of again incorporating the northern bank of the Amazon in Peruvian territory. This aspiration and the certainty that Colombia will not be favorable to it as well as the certainty that Colombia will demand an indemnity which Peru will be unwilling to pay, make me feel that we should not be too optimistic regarding the Rio de Janeiro conference, and that the political situations in Colombia and Peru will have to be carefully watched in the meantime, as they will also contain somewhat disturbing implications for the future relations between the two countries. The best reliance for success is the evident fair-mindedness of the Presidents in both countries and the repugnance of the two peoples to go to war, now that they have some direct realization of what it really means, in addition to the terrible object lesson of the Chaco.

F[red] M. D[earing]
  1. Solón Polo, Peruvian Minister for Foreign Affairs.
  2. Not printed.
  3. See pp. 1 ff.