714.1515/958: Telegram
The Minister in Guatemala (Geissler) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 28—1:25 p.m.]
133. Referring to Department’s telegram of October 25, 5 p.m. In a note dated the 26th the Minister for Foreign Affairs acknowledges the note of the Secretary of State and requests that I transmit the following reply:
“The communication of this office of last September the 24th expresses the general points of view of the Government of Guatemala regarding the boundary matter with Honduras and its warm desire that the Government of the United States on this occasion, as it has always done, lend the valuable support of its aid and counsel.
Guatemala on all occasions has been disposed toward any settlement having as basis a principle of justice. For that reason it accepted, subscribed and ratified the Central American treaties of 1923, among which is the one creating the Tribunal of International Central American Arbitration and it approved and ratified also the treaty of January 1929 which establishes the inter-American Tribunal of Arbitration and means of conciliation. Absolute respect for treaties and their faithful observance has been a rule of conduct of the Government of Guatemala, wherefore on the present occasion it informed Your Excellency confidentially and unofficially in view of the plan proposed by Honduras that it is (era) not possible for the Government of Guatemala to depart from the obligations contained in the international pacts in force between Guatemala and Honduras but that in the desire of demonstrating its good will for finding legal and just ways in their procedure it would suggest to Your Excellency that there could be designated as president of the International Central American Tribunal one of the American jurists of the Permanent Court of The Hague.
Given those antecedents the Government of Guatemala takes [Page 966] pleasure in accepting the courteous invitation of the Government of the United States to cause itself to be represented at the proposed conference and for that purpose it will opportunely designate a delegate in order that within the international treaty [treaties] in force40 there can be studied the form leading the two states to a satisfactory solution of their differences, it being understood that representatives of the Government of Your Excellency will do us the honor to preside over the sessions of the delegates for the purpose of imparting their guidance and counsel of which the Government of Guatemala hopes so much for the happy termination of the existing conflict with Honduras.
Begging Your Excellency to be the faithful interpreter of the Government of Guatemala in presenting to that of the United States its gratitude for the benevolence with which it proceeds in this distressing matter, I am pleased to assure” et cetera.
- For substitution of phrase reading “preferably within the international treaties in force,” see telegram No. 135, October 29, 6 p.m., from the Minister in Guatemala, printed below.↩