Although the level of generalization probably required to reach agreement in
principle with the Panamanians will obscure many important and
difficult-to-resolve issues, we believe we should, nevertheless, seek to
accommodate Panama as a means of advancing the negotiations, in light of the
considerable importance Panama apparently attaches to proceeding in this
manner. Accordingly, I have attached for your approval a modified version of
Tack’s eight principles,
retaining as much as possible of the original text, which the Departments of
State and Defense, as well as the U.S. negotiators would accept (Tab C). We
would expect the U.S. negotiators to seek Panamanian acquiescence in the
changes we have proposed.
There is also attached for your approval a proposed reply from you to Foreign
Minister Tack indicating your
willingness to adopt the procedure suggested in his letter to you (Tab
D).
Tab A
Translation of Telegram 1742 From the Embassy in
Jamaica to the Department of State6
Kingston, May 28, 1973,
1530Z.
SUBJECT
- Sec Visit LA—Bilateral with Fon.Min. Tack
REFERENCE
1. Following is text of letter dated May 21 handed to Secretary by
Tack during bilateral
discussion May 24:
Mr. Secretary:
I have the honor to address Your Excellency in relation to the process of
negotiations between our two countries on the conclusion of a new treaty
on the interoceanic canal that operates in Panamanian territory. Your
Excellency will recall that those negotiations were renewed some time
after the talk we had on July 26, 1970, during the Special Meeting of
the General Assembly of the Organization of American States in
Washington, D.C.
As you know, after some months of discussions by the negotiating
missions, your Government’s mission prepared a series of drafts in which
it sought to reduce to treaty terms the subjects that had been
discussed. On December 13, 1971, the United States representatives
[Page 37]
also submitted a memorandum that
classified those subjects under various headings and, according to their
judgment of the matter, set forth the positions of each country.
Later my Government stated that the positions of the United States of
America as set forth in both the drafts and the memorandum were
unacceptable to my country and it gave the pertinent reasons, in writing
and during the visit to Panama of Ambassador David A. Ward and other United States Government
officials in the months of February and June 1972.
On October 5, 1972, His Excellency Robert B.
Anderson, Special Representative of the United States for
Interoceanic Canal Negotiations, sent me a note in which he referred to
the state of the negotiations and expressed certain concepts concerning
the matters under discussion.7 I replied with a note dated October 26,
1972, in which I referred to the points made by Mr. Anderson and reiterated my country’s
basic positions. At the same time I invited the United States delegation
to hold meetings in this city with the Panamanian representatives, and
announced that the latter had precise instructions on the questions they
were to set forth.
Early in December 1972 Ambassadors Robert B.
Anderson, David A.
Ward, and John C. Mundt arrived in Panama, accompanied by
Messrs. John P. Sheffey and Morey
Bell, in order to meet with the Panamanian delegation. On
December 4, 1972, in one of the rooms of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, I handed to Mr. Anderson the document entitled “Panama’s Basic Positions
on the Principal Subjects in the Negotiations on the New Canal Treaty,”
dated December 4, 1972.8
In reply to that document I received, through the Embassy of the United
States of America in Panama, a new communication from Ambassador
Robert B. Anderson, dated at
the Department of State, Washington, D.C., February 23, 1973.9 I replied to that note from Ambassador
Anderson by means of my own
note dated May 7, 1973, a copy of which I attach for Your
Excellency.
However, a careful reading of Ambassador Anderson’s note had led me to decide to address Your
Excellency, as I am now doing, because I believe that it may be
desirable to do so in order to accelerate the later course of the
present negotiations.
[Page 38]
To that end I want on this occasion, Mr. Secretary, to reiterate my
country’s fundamental criterion in this very vital matter. The
negotiations cannot reach their conclusion and fulfill their purpose if
they do not truly result in the elimination of the causes of conflict
that have so seriously affected relations between our two countries
through more than seven decades. Those causes of conflict can be
eliminated only by making radical changes in the system that today
governs the administration, maintenance, and operation of the Canal, a
system that constitutes, as has been said so many times, a colonial
enclave in the midst of the territory of the Republic of Panama, thereby
imposing untenable jurisdictional limitations on my country’s
independence and on the full exercise of its sovereignty over all of the
territory that belongs to it.
The elimination of those causes of conflict requires, first [of] all, an
express declaration of abrogation of the Treaty of 1903 and of all the
other treaties and instruments of any kind whatever related thereto. It
is true that the United States has stated in official documents its
agreement concerning that abrogation, but it is also true that the
abrogation would not have full effect if a new treaty were to contain
provisions that in any form or degree limited, confused, or obstructed
the return of the portion of Panamanian territory known as the Canal
Zone to the full jurisdiction of the Republic of Panama. Furthermore, we
consider it just and equitable that in the new treaty, as expressed by
your Government in the note signed by Ambassador Anderson on October 5, 1972, the bases
should be laid for the Republic of Panama to assume in due course full
responsibility for the operation of the interoceanic waterway.
Mr. Secretary, the Panamanian Government considers that the root of the
problem in advancing the negotiations lies in the need to clarify in
advance a point that is fundamental and decisive: Is the interoceanic
canal, which is operated, maintained, and protected by the Government of
the United States, functioning in territory that is an integral part of
the Republic of Panama, or does the United States consider that the
territory where the canal is located should be severed from the
effective sovereignty and full jurisdiction of the Republic of
Panama?
Unquestionably, unless there is a prior clear and precise agreement on
this point, it will be very difficult for negotiations to advance. To
Panama it is very clear that the canal is operating in Panamanian territory, and my country cannot permit the
limitations that the United States has imposed on the exercise of its
effective sovereignty in and full jurisdiction over the Canal Zone to
continue much longer. For the sake of reaching a negotiated settlement,
my Government has agreed to a transition period so that the Canal Zone
may be returned completely to the effective sovereignty of the
Panamanian State.
The United States negotiators appeared to accept this Panamanian position
when, for example, Ambassador Anderson affirmed in his
[Page 39]
latest note10 that the United States has already proposed
wide-sweeping changes, among which he mentions “the adoption of measures
which would permit the cultural, social, and economic integration of the
Canal Zone with Panama and the end of the Zone as a
separate area under United States jurisdiction.” However, that
language proves ambiguous [words missing] political integration of the Zone to Panama. And further on in
the same note, he says: “The United States is prepared to relinquish all
significant governmental functions within a
number of years which we can no doubt agree upon. Some would be
relinquished immediately, others at various times that we can discuss.
Minor rights which are inseparable from
operational responsibilities should be retained.” (Underlining
is mine).11
It is here, Mr. Secretary, in this ambiguity, that the root of the
problem lies, and therefore, my country cannot agree to the proposals
formulated by the United States, much less in the form in which they
were stated by the United States delegation in the 1971 drafts.
I wish to point out that Ambassador Anderson states in the above-mentioned communications
certain concepts that appear to be close to the Panamanian positions.
However, his statements are nearly always general, and part of the
difficulty lies in the fact that in the course of the negotiations, when
an effort is made to develop those general statements into contractual
stipulations, the proposals made by the United States Ambassadors
distort the principles that they themselves have stated, so that,
instead of settling the situation that both countries are committed to
eliminate, conditions for subsequent differences and conflicts are
established.
I also wish to tell you once more, Mr. Secretary, that my Government
reiterates its desire to reach agreement with the Government of the
United States on the adoption of a just and equitable treaty that will
put an end to the causes of conflict between our two countries. The
problem of the Panama Canal is a matter of special concern to the
nations of this Hemisphere, which, as the Secretary General of the
United Nations has said, “awaits a solution that can only be based on
respect for law and a search for justice.” “Any solution,” in the
opinion of that distinguished official of the world organization, “will
have to take into account the basic principles set forth in the Charter,
such as territorial integrity, sovereign equality, and the obligation to
settle all international disputes by pacific means, as well as the
principle that has now become a generally accepted one, that is to say,
that every
[Page 40]
State has the right
to exploit fully and on its own account all its natural
possibilities.”
Like the other States of Latin America and the rest of the world, Panama
wishes to have the unequivocal right to assume its responsibilities for
its own ideas, initiatives, and actions. My small country also has a
very clear idea of its own national identity. But those responsibilities
and that national identity cannot be fully realized as long as an
important part of our territory continues to be subject to
jurisdictional limitations.
President Nixon set forth the
five basic principles of United States policy toward Latin America in
October 1969 and reaffirmed them in his foreign policy report to the
United States Congress on May 3, 1973.12 The
second of those five principles establishes the following: respect for
national identity and national dignity.
Also, in that same report, President Nixon expressed the following concepts with respect to
the question of the Panama Canal:
“Another important unresolved problem concerns the Panama Canal and the
surrounding Zone. U.S. operation of the Canal and our presence in Panama
are governed by the terms of a treaty drafted in 1903. The world has
changed radically during the 70 years this treaty has been in effect.
Latin America has changed. Panama has changed. And the terms of our
relationship should reflect those changes in a reasonable way.
“For the past nine years, efforts to work out a new treaty acceptable to
both parties have failed. That failure has put considerable strain on
our relations with Panama. It is time for both parties to take a fresh
look at this problem and to develop a new relationship between us—one
that will guarantee continued effective operation of the Canal while
meeting Panama’s legitimate aspirations.”13
The concepts of the President of the United States certainly reflect a
very clear historical awareness of the significance of the profound
political, economic, and social changes which characterize the present
era.
Within the framework of that philosophy we could make a vigorous effort
to establish, in advance, the basic principles which should serve as the
foundation for that new just and fair Canal treaty that our two
countries agreed to conclude in the Joint Declaration of April 3, 1964,
signed under the auspices of the Council of the Organization of Ameri
[Page 41]
can States acting provisionally
as Organ of Consultation.14 The Republic of Panama deems those basic principles
to be:
1. The 1903 treaty must be abrogated. The two countries are willing to
conclude an entirely new interoceanic canal treaty.
2. The concept of perpetuity is rejected. The new treaty concerning the
lock canal shall have a fixed termination date.
3. The exercise of any type of jurisdiction by the United States in
Panamanian territory shall quickly cease, at the end of the transition
period agreed upon.
4. The so-called Canal Zone shall be returned to full Panamanian
jurisdiction. The Republic of Panama, as territorial sovereign, is
willing to grant the Government of the United States, for the duration
of the new treaty on the interoceanic canal, the right to use the lands
and waters proved to be essential for the operation and maintenance of
the canal, the transit of ships, and the protection of vital
installations.
5. The Republic of Panama shall have a just and equitable share in the
benefits, in proportion to the total benefits that the United States and
world trade derive from Panama’s geographic location.
6. The activity of the United States Government shall be limited to the
administration of transit through the interoceanic waterway. The
activities of the United States Government shall be those which have a
direct relation to the operation, maintenance, and protection of the
Canal, as shall be specified in the treaty.
7. The United States of America shall exercise, in the facilities for
protection, such activities as may be expressly stipulated in the
treaty, for the duration of the treaty.
8. The Republic of Panama is willing to include in that same treaty
provisions authorizing the Government of the United States to construct
a sea-level canal along what has been designated Route 14, on the
following conditions: (a) The United States will notify Panama of its
decision to construct the sea-level canal along Route 14 within a
reasonable period to be negotiated, following the entry into force of
the new treaty, and if it should fail to do so its right in that respect
would lapse; (b) Panama would retain full jurisdiction in the area that
would be occupied by the sea-level canal; and (c) with respect to the
sea-level canal, the life of the treaty shall have a limited duration,
with a specified termination date.
[Page 42]
I would hope, Mr. Secretary, that the United States negotiators might
come to Panama as soon as possible, with specific instructions that
would make possible the clear determination of those basic principles to
which I have referred above, and continue discussions with the
Panamanian negotiators, in a definitive effort to agree on a solution to
the questions which have so long caused differences in the relations
between our two countries.15
I avail myself of the opportunity to renew to Your Excellency the
assurances of my highest and most distinguished consideration.
Juan Antonio Tack
Minister of Foreign Affairs
