738.39/317
The Minister in the Dominican Republic (Norweb) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 14.]
Sir: Now that a Protocol of Settlement has been signed by the representatives of Haiti and the Dominican Republic,21 terminating the controversy which arose as the result of the tragic massacres of last October, I have the honor to submit to the Department certain observations in retrospect which I feel, for the Legation at least, will be of value in deriving certain lessons from the negotiations thus brought to conclusion.
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… The action of Haiti in requesting the good offices of Cuba, Mexico and the United States on November 12 made the matter [Page 197] squarely a test of that will for peace which found concrete expression at the Buenos Aires Conference in December 1936. Thus the main line of the Legation’s diplomacy early became established by conditions beyond its control; the appeal of Haiti for good offices and the prompt action upon that appeal made by the Governments of Cuba, Mexico and the United States.
The Legation, accordingly, on November 15, strongly impressed upon President Trujillo the necessity for securing a settlement of the controversy within the spirit of the American peace treaties. From this principal thesis the Legation did not depart in subsequent discussions with the Dominican Government.
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Two pressures, however, at last forced the Dominican Government into a settlement of the controversy against its will. The first of these was the world press, which gave with considerable accuracy of detail a dramatic picture of the savage mass murders which had caused the dispute and enlisted the sympathy of outside nations with the injured party to the controversy. The second pressure exerted was probably not of such immediate moment to the Dominican Government but without it it is doubtful if adverse publicity alone could have compelled President Trujillo to accede to a settlement. This force was the practically unanimous will among the nations of the Western Hemisphere that international disputes should have peaceful settlement. Its unvarying application by the United States and the other interested Governments was a contributing if indirect factor in forcing the compromise of the dispute within the framework of the Gondra Pact and the 1929 Treaty of Inter-American Conciliation.
While analysing these pressures it must be recognized, however, that the actual instrument of settlement was not the Permanent Commission of the Gondra Treaty sitting in Washington nor the American Governments invoking the various instruments for the settlement of international difficulties, but was the diplomacy of the Vatican.
Due most probably to the considerable influence upon President Trujillo of the Archbishop of Santo Domingo, Monsignor Richard Pittini, and to the strong interest in the dispute of the Papal Nuncio to both countries, Monsignor Silvani, the Church offered the two Governments a means for meeting on common ground; and the final protocol signed at Washington was none other than the instrument drafted by the Papal Nuncio a fortnight before.
This participation of the Nuncio in the settlement was due more to force of circumstances than to deliberate policy on the part of the Holy See. Previously, in early November, the Nuncio had attempted to mediate in the dispute and had been rebuffed. It was only when President Trujillo under the unremitting pressure of the moral force [Page 198] which found expression in the peace treaties realized that some form of settlement would have to be offered, that he found in the Legation of the Vatican an exit which would give him that settlement by direct negotiation which had been all along the principal object of his Government. It is indisputable in my mind that had not the treaties been invoked and their moral force applied President Trujillo would have followed the line so clearly indicated by his representatives from October through December: an insistence that the joint communiqué of October 1522 settled the controversy and that consequently no difference with Haiti existed.
Accordingly, while I know of no recent instance in the diplomatic history of the American Republics in which Vatican diplomacy has been availed of for the appeasement of international differences, I feel that this present case must be judged in the light of the special circumstances attendant, and that in many respects it was a local phenomenon. At the same time the participation of the Holy See in an American diplomatic controversy will no doubt attract the continued interest of the Department.
I would add in this respect that the Dominican Government and press have made no reference to the assistance of the Papal Nuncio in bringing both parties together, and that on the contrary the settlement has been played up as an example of Dominican fidelity to the principles of inter-American solidarity in behalf of peace.
As for the lessons which may come from the negotiations now terminated, it is my feeling that the Legation should earlier have foreseen that the nature of the controversy was such as to make exceedingly difficult the chances for success of the conciliatory processes established by the American peace treaties. Had the Legation sooner informed the Department of the practical impossibility of the Dominican Government willingly accepting any conciliatory machinery, it may have been that the friendly Governments would not so quickly have tendered good offices and that it might have been possible to work out a direct arrangement between the two countries through diplomatic channels. Once the treaties were invoked, however, and mediation was offered, as has been seen the Dominican Government tried every means of escape from the treaty forces which were brought into play.
I recognize, of course, that the internal situation in Haiti was precarious, and that quick action was essential lest conditions in that country become chaotic, which would have greatly lessened the prospects for a peaceful arrangement of the difficulties with the Dominican Republic. Notwithstanding this evident fact, it was argued in the [Page 199] Dominican Republic that, to preserve domestic stability in one country, the friendly powers threatened to disturb it in the other.
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My only observation in this regard is that in future it might be even more effective if, before calling into play the American peace accords, more time could be devoted to a diplomatic preparation of the ground.
As for the specific case for which a transactional settlement has just been found, I feel that the Protocol signed at Washington was a good arrangement under the circumstances. The Dominican Government had the satisfaction of achieving a settlement by direct negotiations, the Haitian Government received a substantial indemnity and prompt action with which to appease popular feeling at home, and the community of American nations saw that the spirit of the peace treaties was an active force. Beyond doubt the greatest value from the wider point of view was this; that the peace treaties had been called into play in a serious dispute and had not been found wanting. Such a demonstration establishes a precedent in the right direction.
I regret that in respect of the basic Haitian-Dominican problem I can not be sanguine. The Protocol of Settlement promises some progress for adjusting certain mutual problems, such as armaments and immigration. On the latter question, so long as the present Foreign Secretary is in office, the Legation would anticipate that a strong line will be followed in accordance with Mr. Ortega’s view that persons of African blood, especially from Haiti, are undesirable aliens and threaten to extinguish the “neo-white” civilization in the eastern areas of Hispaniola. While owing to the needs of the sugar industry Haitian contract cane cutters may be admitted annually for the sugar season and carefully returned to the other side of the frontier at the end of their employment, there is no doubt that the infiltration of Haitian migrants to Dominican territory will be sternly repressed.
The old problem therefore persists. So long as one third of the island holds two thirds of the population there will be pressure upon the frontier and with that pressure, trouble. There is no solution for that problem other than birth control or industrialization in Haiti—both outside the realm of probability—or immigration of surplus elements of the Haitian population. Such elements are now being deported from Cuba, and the Dominican frontier, shielding a sparsely settled territory, is closed. A crisis will eventually come in Haiti, and at that time the ancient enmity will awake between the two peoples. Wergild and bloodwight have been paid, but the settlement was well termed “transactional”.
Respectfully yours,
- Signed at Washington, January 31, 1938; for exchange of messages by President Roosevelt and the Presidents of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, see Department of State, Press Releases, February 12, 1938, pp. 229–232.↩
- República Dominicana, Secretaria de Estado de Relaciones Exteriores, Memoria de Relaciones Exteriores de 1937 (Imprenta Listin Diario. Ciudad Trujillo, R. D., 1938), p. 66.↩