312.1722 Sandino/2½: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Mexico ( Morrow )
33. Your 31, February 21, 3 p.m. Persons guilty of political offenses have always found a safe asylum in the United States and the extradition treaties of the United States with many countries specifically provide that persons charged with political crimes shall not be subject to extradition therefor (Moore, International Law Digest, vol. IV, page 332; Malloy, Treaties, index sub voce Political offenses). This principle finds general acceptance among nations. In affording asylum to Sandino, Mexico will thus be entirely within her rights. But my view accords with yours that the proposal to give Mexican asylum to Sandino is a matter primarily affecting Mexico and Nicaragua, rather than Mexico and the United States. The United States is not making war on Sandino; the United States is merely assisting the Government of Nicaragua at its request to establish and maintain in Nicaragua domestic peace which Sandino has been disturbing. The United States, of course, is as deeply interested that peace shall obtain in Nicaragua as it is that peace shall obtain in other nations. It has done and will continue to do all it properly may to promote peace among all peoples, whether under conventional obligations, the rules and principles of international law and comity, or the demands of a good neighborhood.
A situation not essentially dissimilar from the present one arose in 1909 when Zelaya, upon his resignation as President of Nicaragua, sought and was given an asylum in Mexico. This subject is discussed in Foreign Relations, 1909, pages 458, 459, and Foreign Relations, 1910, pp. 739 ff. While it is not printed in Foreign Relations, yet it is a fact that on December 20, 1909, an aide-mémoire from the British Embassy informed the Department that the British Government had sent instructions to the commander of the Shearwater to afford asylum to Zelaya and convey him to a neutral port on condition that His Excellency engaged not to return to Nicaragua and that the protection of British interests did not require the immediate presence of His Majesty’s ship. Sir Edward Grey further added that the President could not be sent for; he had to find his own way to the ship.
It would seem obvious that by affording an asylum to Sandino the Government of Mexico will assume a moral responsibility to make sure that Sandino does not use Mexico as a base for operations against the Government of Nicaragua nor as a safe refuge from which he may direct or foment further revolutionary activities against the Government of Nicaragua.
[Page 584]If, as suggested by President Portes Gil, the Government of Mexico could make an announcement embodying the foregoing principles such as would also make clear to the Nicaraguan rebels that the granting of refuge to Sandino was not to be construed as an expression of sympathy for, or an endorsement or a fostering of, the rebel cause, the resumption of complete domestic tranquillity in Nicaragua would be materially served.
In your discretion you may communicate the substance of the foregoing to President Portes Gil or Subsecretary Estrada, at the same time expressing the appreciation of the Government of the United States for the renewed assurance of friendliness which is shown by their consulting you in regard to this matter.
The Department would much prefer to have Sandino in Mexico under surveillance than in Costa Rica, Guatemala, or Honduras, where he might otherwise go.