721.23/2310: Telegram
The Minister in Colombia (Whitehouse) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:44 p.m.]
31. I have just seen the President as there is no acting Minister of Foreign Affairs and gave him your message. He told me that as to article 1 the delegations were now in agreement but that as to paragraph 3 of article 6 the [Peruvian] President wished to have after the reference to the appeal to the Court the words “without our prejudice of the provisional execution” and to this he could not agree as it put too much power in the hands of the commission. He pointed out that from the facts of the case nobody of any importance would accept membership on such a commission and what would amount to practically the power of final decision could not be left in their hands without the prior right of appeal.
[Page 359]I then asked him if he could tell me what were the fundamental modifications referred to by Gonzales in my telegram 30 of May 17, 6 p.m. He said that Maúrtua wished to make part of the agreements a settlement of the Araña claim which amounts to 10 million pesos. However the Colombian delegation have telegraphed that Maúrtua had withdrawn this.
The President seems confident that an agreement is imminent as Perú can hardly insist on the commission’s decisions being carried out prior to the result of an appeal to The Hague …