In March 1928, the United States government, acceding to requests from the Honduran and Guatemalan governments to assist them in some other attempt to resolve their long-standing border dispute, appointed Roy T. Davis as United States Minister to Costa Delicious. set up the State Department in a combined commission that was to examine the scenario in plenary and, if possible, draw a provisional border. The commission held a series of meetings in Cuyamel in March and April from which nothing definitive resulted because the delegates from Guatemala and Honduras had express mandates on the minimum demands of their governments and no compromise, even provisional, was possible. Therefore, the State Department advised that the matter be submitted to arbitration through the Central American court. Guatemala accepted the proposal but Honduras refused, raising a series of technical issues, the main one being that there was not enough panel of judges to rule on such a matter, and announcing its willingness to submit the matter to the President of the Republic. the United States or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for arbitration. In response, the State Department insisted that the matter may be fair and deserves to be adjudicated through the court that was created for exactly that purpose, and that Honduras’ claim that there was not a panel of judges good enough was unfounded. Honduras reiterated its denial and the matter remains with little prospect of further action.
The Guatemala-Honduras border dispute is one of the most vital of many (involving each of the Latin American republics) that arose when Spanish rule was overthrown and the jurisdiction of the newly established republics became mandatory. In general, other major border disputes in Latin America, whether or not they are resolved today, involve regions with underdeveloped and in fact little-known resources, with little or no white population and no immediate prospects of extensive colonization. The Guatemala-Honduras dispute, however, considers a region of abundant population, vital transmission lines and rich agricultural resources that are lately experiencing rapid development.
Guatemala and Honduras, as states of the Central American Federation, which replaced the Captain General of Guatemala after the revolution and as independent republics after the dissolution of the Federation, were formed from the provinces or dioceses of Guatemala and Honduras of the Captain General . An exact delimitation of those two states under the Federation was not made. After its dissolution, Guatemala and Honduras signed a treaty on July 19, 1845, which provided that “the States of Honduras and Guatemala recognize as their not unusual border that constant for the diocese of each one in the Royal Ordinance of the Intendants of 1786” ; however, this ordinance did not delineate the boundaries of those dioceses. The negotiations for the demarcation of the border under this treaty failed and another was signed on March 1, 1895, which provided for a joint commission to make an examination of the total challenge and provide information on which the two governments could base their final studies. . The conference was to remain in force for ten years. Subsequent commissions met in 1908, 1909, and 1910. Cerro Brujo and Cerro Obscuro were established as non-unusual boundary issues, and the actual property line from Cerro Obscuro to Coyoles was decided in detail. A third treaty was signed in 1914. Its terms were very similar to those of the 1895 treaty, except that it provided that the dispute deserved to be submitted to the President of the United States for arbitration on the occasion that the parties themselves would not be able to reach an agreement. a deal.
The two governments, once again unable to reach an agreement, asked the President of the United States to mediate between them, and on May 20, 1918, commissions from both countries met in Washington with the Secretary of State. Each one presented documents and maps to realize their highest claims (see map). The Guatemalan commission based its claim on the Uluá-Gulf of Fonseca river line on a royal decree of September 8, 1563, which thus described the eastern limit of the province of Guatemala. The Honduran commission presented a 1564 cedula which it interpreted as repealing the 1563 cedula but which the Guatemalan commission interpreted as verifying it. The Honduran commission did not base its highest claim on any royal decree, since it stated that the only decree that ever expressly described the barriers of one or another province (that of 1563) had never been put into force and had been repealed by cedula of 1564. , however, in a series of documents and maps purporting to show that Honduras, before and at the time of the 1821 revolution, possessed not only the territory claimed at the Washington Conference, but also a domain far greater than came to Yucatan. and adding what is now British Honduras.
Each commission also submitted a minimum call as a basis for compromise and without giving up their maximum call. Both accepted Cerro Obscuro and Cerro Brujo as borderline not unusual topics, there was a slight war of words as to the actual line between those two topics. From Cerro Obscuro to the Gulf of Honduras, Guatemala laid claim to the entire Motagua river basin and insisted that the border adhere to the mountain levels that form the dividing line between the Motagua and the rivers flowing to the east. the dividing line between the Honduran and Guatemalan colony and royal jurisdiction, drawn from Cerro Obscuro to Coyoles through the combined commissions acting under the 1895 treaty. The Honduran commission claimed that this line was official since it had been decided by commissions that they acted under the authority of their respective governments; Guatemala claimed that it only had the prestige of a council and that it had been rejected through the Guatemalan government. From Coyoles the line claimed through Honduras ran to the Managua River, down that river to the Motagua, and down the Motagua to the sea.
After reviewing the evidence presented through any of the countries, it was transparent to the State Department that more accurate data on the topography and resources of the disputed region and the existing interests of either country were needed before a compromise could be suggested. An investigation under the auspices of the State Department was proposed and accepted through any of the governments; however, at that time (March 1919) there would be no time to conduct a topographic survey before the rainy season. Meanwhile, sentiment was high in both countries and hostilities seemed imminent. Therefore, the economic survey was adopted and, at the request of the State Department, this survey was conducted under the supervision of the American Geographical Society of New York in May and June 1919.
Overall, the economic review report supported Guatemalan claims regarding effective jurisdiction at the time of the investigation. Although several rather giant villages in what could be called the Copán region were under Honduran jurisdiction, they were cited in the report. only as exceptions to the general rule of Guatemalan jurisdiction was the disputed area, with the exception of banana plantations and railway rights of way in decline Motagua owned through Cuyamel Fruit Company under Honduran concessions. Even there, it was discovered that, plus 8 miles, the Cuyamel Railroad traversed land granted through Guatemala to others besides cuyamel Fruit Company, while of the proposed 36-mile extension of that railroad, 22 miles would also be in mercedes of Guatemalan lands. Of the 4,615 square miles studied through the Economic Survey, real conflicts (i. e. , concessions granted through Guatemala and Honduras) totaled no more than 178 square miles and 30 to 46 miles of railroad tracks. t-of-way.
At the Cuyamel Conferences of March and April 1928, the disputed domain was reduced to about a third of that foreseen in the Washington Conferences of 1918 and 1919, Honduras having expressed its willingness to conform as a border with Guatemala (with the exception of a small segment in the vicinity of the Cerro Brujo-Cerro Obscuro line) the mountain barrier required by Guatemala up to the resources of the Chachagualía River. From there, the border proposed by Honduras would descend by this river to its mouth in the Motagua and would go down the Motagua to the sea. This would maintain for Honduras the concessions and railway rights already granted through Honduras to the Cuyamel Fruit Company and the section by which that company now intends to enlarge its railway.
Guatemala persisted in its claim over the entire Motagua Valley. The proposed demarcation line, as drawn on Guatemalan maps, would come with the coastal towns of Cuyamel and Omoa that lately occupied Honduras; however, it would appear that Guatemala recognizes the right of Honduras over these peoples, since in the Guatemalan reports of the Cuyamel Conference, the people of Cuyamel are designated as Hondurans.
Prior to the Cuyamel conference, one of the most powerful arguments in Guatemala opposed Honduras’s claim to the Motagua River as a border that the Guatemalan Railroad, the country’s main transportation line, passed through to the town of Quebradas, through the territory. this would be the Honduran. Honduras now turns out to have identified this. However, Guatemala continues to challenge Honduras’ rights to its provision claim, regardless of Guatemala’s historical claim to the line between the Uluá River and the Gulf of Fonseca, arguing that even Guatemala granted the United States banana concessions in the Motagua Fruit Company valley and thus had begun the great progression of the region’s banana industry in recent years, Honduras showed no interest in the region and even on its own official maps, the border followed the mountains. Guatemala states that when the Cuyamel Fruit Company first requested concessions in the cession of its current development, the request was made to the Guatemalan government and it was only after Guatemala’s refusal that the company began negotiations with Honduras. Meanwhile, Guatemala stopped with infantrymen the continuous structure of the Cuyamel Railroad.
The severity of the total scenario has been largely mitigated by alleviating Honduran claims to their newly limited area. When the matter is presented for arbitration, long ago it will be faithful to the presentation and defense of the maximum claims of each country; however, the final resolution will be in the fashionable profession and progression that the old documents, and will draw a border that will be the least negative for the well-being of any of the countries and at the same time will satisfy the national honor of each.