In discussing the controversy with me President Ubico stated that he
would gladly accept settlement of it on the basis of England’s
relinquishment of the territory not included in the original
usufructuary grant of the King of Spain.5 He
has no desire to acquire sovereignty over Belize itself, nor would he,
if the foregoing concession were made, demand any indemnity for
England’s non-compliance with Article VII of the Treaty of 1859.
[Enclosure—Translation5a]
The Guatemalan Ministry for
Foreign Affairs to the American
Legation
Memorandum Relative to the
Question of Belize Pending Between Guatemala and Great
Britain
Sir Henry Bulwer, English Minister in Washington, before effecting
the exchange of ratifications of the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty,
[Page 205]
signed the 19th of April,
1850, declared on the 29th of June that the clauses of the Treaty,
as understood by the Government of Her Majesty, were not applicable
to the establishment of Belize and that with that explicit
declaration the ratifications would be exchanged. Mr. Clayton,
Secretary of State, in a letter of July 4 following, agreed to the
reservation of the English Minister, but at the same time he
declined to accept or to reject the British title to Belize.6
Bassett Moore, in his Digest of International
Law (Vol. III, page 130 et sequ.),
gives the complete and detailed history of the diplomatic
controversy afterwards arising between the United States and England
relative to the application of the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty, the
provisions of whose Article I prohibits England from maintaining any
occupation in Central American territory.
Although England claimed to have taken possession of Belize during
the Anglo-Spanish War of 1796, the Government of Washington
maintained and proved that numerous acts of the British Government
had exceeded (aumentado) the force of the
Treaty of Peace of Amiens (1802),7 in accordance with
Article III of which, and with the exception of the Island of
Trinidad, Great Britain renounced any Spanish territory occupied by
its forces during the war. “It is, however, distinctly to be
understood, that the Government of the United States acknowledge no
claim of Great Britain within Belize, except the temporary ‘liberty
of making use of the wood of different kinds, the fruits and other
produce in their natural state’, fully recognizing that the former
Spanish sovereignty over the country belongs either to Guatemala or
Mexico”, Mr. Buchanan, Minister of the United States, advised Lord
Clarendon on July 22, 1854.8
The controversy was prolonged until the year 1857, when the
Government of Great Britain declared on October 19 its resolution to
send a representative to Central America to arrange in separate
treaties with the respective Governments of these Republics the
matters on which the United States and England had not come to
agreement;9 the Government of the United
States received that announcement with satisfaction and declared “in
reference to the extended boundary claimed by Great Britain for the
Belize (to which it had ever objected), that he could make no
absolute engagement in this matter; but he would say this much,
‘that if the Bay Islands were fairly and handsomely evacuated, such
a measure would have a great effect with him,10
[Page 206]
and with the American
people, in regard to the settlement of the other points at
issue.’”11
The instructions of the English envoy to Central America, as
communicated to the Government of the United States on December 5,
1857, included three points:12
- 1.
- The return by England of the Bay Islands to
Honduras;
- 2.
- Recognition of Nicaraguan sovereignty over the Mosquito
Coast.
- 3.
- “The regulation of the frontier of British Honduras was to
be effected by negotiation with the Government of Guatemala.
Her Majesty’s Government trusted to obtain from that
Republic a recognition of limits ‘which, if we may judge
from previous communications on the subject, may be accepted
in a spirit of conciliation, if not with absolute approval,
by the President.’”
The Plenipotentiary of Great Britain presented himself before the
Government of Guatemala, the situation of which with regard to
Belize resulted very disadvantageously as a consequence of the
Dallas-Clarendon Treaty (London, 1854)13 which, without any participation, nor scarcely
official knowledge of the Government of Guatemala, contained an
agreement of the Governments of the United States and England
relative to the establishment of the frontiers of Belize as and how
claimed by Great Britain to the River Sarstun, much more than 100
English miles south of the Sibún, the limit of the usufruct
concession of 1786. If England was lacking in title to the
territorial possession of the area included between the Rivers Hondo
and Sibún, it was able to invoke even less authority for legitimate
pretentions to territories situated to the south and to the west of
the conditional concession of the King of Spain: the argument of the
armed conquest during the war of 1796 remains nullified by the
copious and interesting British documentation of the Archives of British Honduras (three volumes,
London, 1931/35), compiled by the ex-Governor of Belize, Sir John
Alder Burdon.
The unfavorable situation in which it was placed by the
Dallas-Clarendon treaty, and the serious conditions resulting from
prolonged civil war and political and economic difficulties
compelled the Government of Guatemala to resign itself to accepting
the consequences of that treaty in which two great powers
agreed—even though only in principle—that Belize belonged to England
with the boundaries which the latter claimed.
[Page 207]
As in every way England saw itself in the necessity of exhibiting in
Washington legitimate title to the possession of Belize, and only
Guatemala was able to grant it; the latter, despite the
Dallas–Clarendon Treaty which converted into an accomplished fact
and recognized the English usurpation, demanded as a condition for
the acceptance of the limits of the frontiers agreed to in London
the corresponding compensatory clause.
But England could not disclose, in the treaty which precisely it had
to invoke in Washington, that in 1859 it had flagrantly violated the
Clayton–Bulwer treaty, by virtue of which it had promised the United
States, in 1850, not to occupy, fortify, colonize,
assume or exercise any dominion over Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the
Mosquito Coast nor any part of Central America.14 In
consequence, it obliged Guatemala not to mention the cession of the territory of Belize, and the Convention
of 1859 was called simply the Boundaries of
Belize. The greatest ambiguity possible was given to the
compensatory clause, Article VII, which says literally:
“Article VII. With the object of practically carrying out the
views set forth in the preamble of the present Convention,
for improving and perpetuating the friendly relations which
at present so happily exist between the two High Contracting
Parties, they mutually agree conjointly to use their best
efforts, by taking adequate means for establishing the
easiest communication either by means of a cart-road or
employing the rivers, or both united, according to the
opinion of the surveying engineers, between the fittest
place on the Atlantic Coast, near the settlement of Belize,
and the capital of Guatemala; whereby the commerce of
England on the one hand, and the material prosperity of the
Republic on the other, cannot fail to be sensibly increased;
at the same time that the limits of the two countries being
now clearly defined, all further encroachments by either
party on the territory of the other will be effectually
checked and prevented for the future.”
It was England which advanced into Guatemalan territory and, on
agreeing on limits of such advances, the Government of Guatemala did
nothing but to cede sovereignty: why the English promise to
construct a highway to the end of “augmenting considerably the
material prosperity of the Republic”, if not in compensation for
that territorial cession?
But England, the proposition of obtaining a legitimate title to the
object of the Dallas–Clarendon Treaty being attained, rejected the
obligation of the compensatory clause: from the middle of the 19th
century, and with incidents many times offensive to the Republic,
the latter maintained the reserve of its rights and claim for
complete compliance with the Convention of 1859. Finally, in 1937
and confronted
[Page 208]
with the
force of justice which assists the Republic, the English Government
accepted the proposal to arbitrate the question, but it refused to
accept the President of the United States as arbitrator on the
pretext that the matter is solely concerned with the mere legal
interpretation, contrary to the opinion of Guatemala which sustains
the thesis of the material and intangible damages which, sustained
during fifty years because of the lack of the highway agreed
upon—Guatemala inaugurated its Atlantic railway in 1908—, the
non-compliance of England has caused it.
The English Legation has communicated to the Government of Guatemala
that its Government, in view of not being able to come to an
agreement on the question, definitely declined compliance with
Article VII of the Convention of Limits with Belize, and at the same
time holds Guatemala responsible for the consequences of not
accepting on its part the limits unilaterally laid out by English
engineers.
In view of the attitude of Great Britain, Guatemala holds the
following point of view: the non-compliance with Article VII of the
Treaty, the compensatory clause, obligation of England, invalidates
the other articles of the treaty, which only constitutes a sacrifice
for Guatemala.
The Convention of Limits—which was that of cession—with Belize,
invalidated by England, the situation of the actual colony returns
to the status quo ante, that is to say,
England has as a usufruct concession the area included between the
Rivers Hondo and Sibún, and unlawfully holds (detenta) through successive usurpations from the Republic
of Guatemala all of the territory situated at the south of the River
Sibún and to the west of the concession of the King of Spain.
The situation unhappily created by one of the powers, England, which
proclaims the sanctity of international treaties, cannot be other.
And Guatemala, which traditionally has complied faithfully with all
of its contractual agreements with other nations, solemnly invokes
the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty which, the Convention of 1859 being
nullified, is the only (treaty) legitimately invokable to settle the
question of Belize.
Guatemala, July 8, 1938.
