719.2115A/99
The Department of State to the Panaman Legation
Memorandum
It appears to the Department, from the conversations which have taken place during the last few weeks with the Ministers of Panama and Colombia by officials of the Department of State, that the only obstacle to the establishment of diplomatic relations between Panama and Colombia consists in the determination of the boundary line from the heights of Aspavé to the Pacific.
The Department of State suggested that the boundary line should be the following: From Cape Tiburón to the headwaters of the Rio de la Miel and following the mountain chain by the ridge of Gandi to the Sierra de Chugargun and that of Mali going down by the ridges of Nigue to the heights of Aspavé and from thence to a point on the Pacific half way between Cocalito and La Ardita. The line has been accepted by the Colombian Government, but the Panaman Government has not yet accepted it. In these circumstances a brief review of the matter may be useful. The question of the boundary between Panama and Colombia was discussed at length in Washington between the Department of State and the Ministers of Panama and Colombia in 1906 and 1907. After a careful consideration of the whole question the Department reached the conclusion that the true frontier between Panama and Colombia was that mentioned in the Law of New Granada of June 9, 1855, and in a letter addressed to Señor Cortes, Minister of Colombia, on August [Page 335] 26, 1907,38 a copy of which was communicated to the Panaman Legation in Secretary Root’s personal note of February 17, 1908,39 Secretary Root stated that “the view of the United States is that the boundary between Colombia and Panama is that described in the above mentioned Law of New Granada of June 9th, 1855. This is the view originally reached by Mr. Buchanan40 and concurred in by me and a careful examination of the various papers which have been adduced during the recent negotiations has not seemed to me to furnish any just ground for a change of this view, which you may regard as the matured and definite position of the Government of the United States”.
In view of the controversy between Panama and Colombia regarding jurisdiction over the Jurado territory, the American Government, in accordance with the expressed wish of the Government of Panama, approached the Colombian Government with a view to arbitration and on January 9, 1909, a treaty was signed between the Colombian Minister and the Panaman Chargé d’Affaires in Washington,41 by which the boundary was established from the Atlantic to the heights of Aspavé and the line from this point to the Pacific was left to be determined by a tribunal of arbitration for which the same treaty made provision. This treaty never came into effect, and the United States Government again opened negotiations with Colombia with a view to securing recognition of Panama’s independence, by reason of the fact that the United States had guaranteed to maintain the independence of the Republic of Panama. Negotiations dragged on without result until 1913, when there appeared to be a better chance for success and they were pursued diligently to a successful conclusion on April 6, 1914.
By the treaty of that date the United States was fortunately able to obtain a recognition by Colombia of the independence of Panama and a copy of that treaty is attached hereto for the information of the Panaman Government.42 In that treaty the boundary was established on the basis of the Law of New Granada of June 9, 1855, and in accordance with the matured and definite opinion of the United States as to the true boundary between Colombia and Panama. It may be stated that during the course of the negotiations the Colombian authorities proposed the seventy-ninth longitude west of Greenwich as the boundary, and other lines somewhat less unfavorable to Panama were from time to time suggested by the Colombian [Page 336] negotiators. This Government however stated that the line fixed by the Law of New Granada above mentioned was the only boundary accepted and recognized by the Government of the United States as the frontier between the Republics of Colombia and Panama, and this Government happily obtained the consent of the Colombian Government to that line.
This Government was not unmindful of the fact that the Panaman Government had for some time maintained that the boundary of the State of Panama should follow the course of the Atrato and Napipí rivers, in accordance with the Executive Decree issued by President Mosquera on the 7th of August 1847. However, this contention was carefully studied by the Department of State and it is evident, on account of the provisions of Article III of the Constitution of the Republic of Panama providing that “the territory of the Republic is composed of all the territory from which the State of Panama was formed by the amendment to the Granada Constitution of 1853, on February 27, 1855, and which was transformed in 1886 into the Department of Panama”, that an Executive Decree of 1847 could obviously have no standing in the matter. The amendment of February 27, 1855, to the Granada Constitution of 1853 states that “a subsequent law will fix those (limits) which should divide it from the rest of the territory of the Republic”. The only subsequent law known to this Government fixing those limits is that of June 9, 1855, Article VII of which the Minister of Foreign Affairs of New Granada officially informed this Government, through the American Minister Resident at Bogota on June 18, 1855, designated the limits of the new federal state of Panama. Article VII of that Law states that the boundaries of the new state of Panama are on the east “from Cape Tiburón to the headwaters of the Rio de la Miel and following the mountain chain by the ridge of Gandi to the Sierra de Chugargun and that of Mali going down by the ridges of Nigue to the heights of Aspavé and from there to the Pacific between Cocalito and La Ardita”.
It thus becomes evident that the boundary line which this Government succeeded in having recognized by the Colombian Government, in the treaty referred to, is that determined by the Panaman Constitution itself. This Government, therefore has felt justified in supposing that this line would be acceptable to the Panaman Government, and it had the more reason to feel that there could be no opposition to the acceptance by the Panaman Government of this line in view of the letter addressed to the Assistant Secretary of State by the present President of Panama on January 10, 1920,43 in which he withdrew his objections to that line and “from any controversy” [Page 337] regarding the matter. It was with great regret, therefore, that this Government learned that the Panaman Government withheld acceptance. The advantages of definitely settling this question concerning territory for the most part wild, little known and apparently valueless, are of such paramount importance that the United States Government most earnestly hopes that the Panaman Government will now inform it of its concurrence in the boundary line agreed to by the Colombian Government, a line in accordance with the boundary described in the Panaman Constitution, and thus pave the way for the establishing of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
- Foreign Relations, 1919, vol. i, p. 77.↩
- Not printed.↩
- William I. Buchanan, Minister in Panama, Dec. 1903 to Feb. 1904.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1909, p. 229.↩
- Ibid., 1914, p. 163.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1919, vol. i, p. 79.↩