THE GULF OF FONSECA: CONFLICTING TERRITORIAL CLAIMS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP08C01297R000400140013-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 14
• Document Creation Date: December 27, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 13
• Publication Date: August 17, 1983
• Content Type: REPORT

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(U) THE GULF OF FONSECA: CONFLICTING
TERRITORIAL CLAIMS
(U) Summary
Patrol boats from Honduras and Nicaragua
exchanged gunfire in the Gulf of Fonseca on July 20,
1983. Both nations claimed that a vessel of the
other had intruded into its territorial waters.
This action, one of many such incidents in recent
years, occurred in a body of water in which seaward .
jurisdiction has been the subject of debate for
70 years (see Appendix). Between 1914 and 1971, the
US maintained a treaty right to establish a naval
base on the Nicaraguan coast of the Gulf.
The Gulf of Fonseca is currently of particular
importance as a result of the rise of the Sandinista
regime in Nicaragua, Nicaraguan use of the Gulf as
a supply route for the Salvadoran insurgency, and
the US-Honduran military exercise planned for
August 1983-January 1934.
Although El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua
border the Gulf, the only agreement on a water bound-
ary between any of these states is a 1900 boundary
agreement between Nicaragua and Honduras. That
boundary was challenged by El Salvador in 1914 when
a "Convention Respecting a Nicaraguan Canal Route"
between the US and Nicaragua gave the US the right
to establish a naval base on Nicaraguan territory
in the Gulf of Fonseca. El Salvador claimed, and
the Central American Court of Justice found in 1917r
that the Gulf was an "historical bay" and a "closed
sea." The Court declared that a naval base would
threaten "the national safety of El Salvador and
violate [the] rights of joint ownership in the
waters of said Gulf" (emphasis supplied).
The US (which was not a party to the case)
never exercised its option to construct a base and
in 1971 terminated the 1914 Convention. Nicaragua
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Report 668-AR
August 17, 1983
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(U) Background
The Gulf of Fonseca is one of the finest natural harbors in
western Latin America. Its greatest length is approximately
50 miles, and its mean width is 30 miles. The entrance, measured
from Amapala Point to Cosiguina Point, is 21 miles wide. The
channel followed by deep-draft vessels runs between Meanguera
Island and the Cosiguina coast. Safe anchorages can be found at
Amapala, Honduras and La Union, El Salvador.
The Gulf is bordered by El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.
It has been addressed by only one treaty--the Gamez-Bonilla agree-
ment of 1894 between Honduras and Nicaragua--and a single boundary
delimitation under the treaty which established a recognized sea-
ward boundary in the Gulf. The 1900 boundary agreement used both
the equidistance method and straight-line segments to create a
division of territory between Honduras and Nicaragua.
The legitimacy of the boundary was placed in question in 1914
when the US, through the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty, obtained a 99-year
lease permitting the construction of a naval base on Nicaraguan
territory. El Salvador and Costa Rica protested the treaty, and
the Central American Court of Justice found against Nicaragua.
The Court ruled on 24 legal points. Its most important findings
were:
--The Gulf was an historic bay possessed of the characteristics
of a closed sea.
--The Gulf was the common property of the three bordering
states, and the waters "which form the entrance to the Gulf
intermingle."
--A marine league (three nautical miles) territorial sea
followed the contours of the respective coasts, and a "zone
of inspection extend(ed] three leagues more in the same
direction."
--The establishment of a naval base would violate the right of
co-ownership possessed by El Salvador and would therefore
compromise the security of El Salvador.
The Central American Court of Justice did not enjoin Nicaragua
to refrain from fulfilling the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty, on the ground
that the US was not subject to the Court's jurisdiction. Nicaragua
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sheet ONC K25, 1:1,000,000, 1979), the depiction of such a bound-
ary is not accurate.
Gulf Incidents: Honduras-Nicaragua
(U) The unresolved sovereignty issues were responsible for
numerous fishery disputes throughout the period 1950-80. In
recent years, the transit of arms from Nicaragua to insurgents in
El Salvador has required both Honduras and El Salvador to increase
their naval patrols in Gulf waters. By 1982, this patrolling had
led to serious clashes. In March of that year, Nicaraguan naval
vessels attacked elements of a Honduran naval patrol.
(U) Such incidents, together with the increased infiltration of
arms through Honduras to El Salvador, led to a meeting of Nicaraguan
and Honduran military representatives in May 1982. In an effort to
reduce tensions along its sea and land boundaries, Honduras called
for the formation of joint border patrols. It also proposed that the
Gulf of Fonseca be made a "Zone of Peace" in order to reduce tension.
(C) In a second meeting in July 1983, the commanders of the
Nicaraguan and Honduran navies ostensibly agreed to establish a
"Zone of Tolerance" in the Gulf. The agreement was to have been
submitted to the respective governments, but such provisions as
the demarcation of the maritime boundary with clearly visible
buoys have not been acted upon. In March 1983, following another
serious incident, Nicaragua claimed that its proposals for joint
patrols had been "ignored by Honduras."
(U) A month later, Honduras and Nicaragua brought charge and
countercharge before the UN SeCurity Council. Both claimed the
other was responsible for a clash on April 14. A Honduran note
submitted to the UN stated that:
...the main purpose of the meeting held last year between
the Commanders of the Naval Forces...was to seek appropriate
means of avoiding this type of incident. The Honduran
delegation made specific proposals to that end, while the
Nicaraguan Government has never expressed its views on them.
Moreover, the latter Government has not proposed the
convening of the follow-up meeting that was agreed upon...."
The incidents have continued. The most recent occurred on July 20
when once again Honduran and Nicaraguan naval vessels exchanged
fire southeast of Tigre Island.
Incidents: El Salvador-Nicaragua
(U) For years prior to the overthrow of the Somoza govern-
ment, relations between El Salvador and Nicaragua suffered strains
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rejected-ihe Court's decision but the legacy of the judgment
remains, even though the Court itself has ceased to exist. The
Bryan-Chamorro Treaty was terminated by the US and Nicaragua in
1971. To date, the three Central American nations have been unable
to determine their respective boundaries in the Gulf. One result
has been an increase in the number of maritime incidents since the
Sandinista government assumed power in Nicaragua in 1979.
(U) Gulf of Fonseca Mapping
A review of the large-scale map accompanying the Honduras-
Nicaragua Boundary Commission Report, which was prepared in July
1901, indicates that:
--The Commission used the method of equidistance between oppo-
site coasts in delimiting the Honduras-Nicaragua boundary in
the Gulf of Fonseca. The final segment of the Gulf boundary
is not a straight line--a depiction which often appears on
small-scale maps.
--The Commission's boundary terminus in the Gulf was located
very near what could now be considered a hypothetical equi-
distance tripoint--assuming El Salvador's sovereignty over
the adjacent islands. This junction could be used in the
future as a starting point for a division of Gulf waters (see
map).
A review of more modern maps produced by the three govern-
ments shows that:
--El Salvador and Honduras generally make no attempt to depict
a water boundary within the Gulf.
--Nicaragua depicts a boundary at variance with the map attached
to the July 1901 work of the Honduras-Nicaragua Boundary
Commission.
In the latter case, Nicaraguan maps depict a boundary that bends
around San Jose Point and prolongs to the west. A particularly
egregious example of the boundary extension can be found in a map
prepared in 1969 (1:1,000,000) by Nicaragua's Ministry of Natural
Resources which depicts a boundary continuing nearly to the
entrance of the Gulf of Fonseca. A justification for such depic-
tions has not been found. Given El Salvador's occupation of
islands proximate to the boundary itself, such a boundary would
require an agreement with the Government of El Salvador.
US Government maps occasionally have depicted a tripartite
boundary in the Gulf of Fonseca. Regardless of the notation that
it is a "boundary in dispute" (viz., US Defense Mapping Agency
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Nicaraguan waters west of Cosiguina Point. Simultaneously, Nicar-
agua claimed that the warship's presence in the Gulf of Fonseca
violated Nicaraguan sovereignty and constituted a threat. The
Nicaraguans on April 8 delivered a note to the US Embassy in
Managua protesting the patrol. The Embassy responded that the US
could not accept Nicaragua's claim to a 200-nautical-mile terri-
torial sea--promulgated by a Sandinista decree of December 1979--
but that the US "invariably respected limits out to 12 miles." No
attempt was made to refute the statement about US presence in the
Gulf. There have been further Nicaraguan protests concerning US
patrols in Pacific Ocean waters, the most recent on July 19, 1983.
Other Latin American Viewpoints
(U) The resolution of Gulf sovereignty problems has been of
interest to other Latin American states. Peruvian President
Belaunde Terry, at a dinner celebrating the signing of the
El Salvador-Honduras Peace Treaty of 1980, stated:
"I ask the international organizations to cast their eyes
over the Central American map and see in the Gulf of Fonseca
where El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua converge a great
opportunity to draw up a master development plan which is
tripartite.... It is an excellent geographic opportunity to
reach solutions which once and for all can put an end to the
troubles that those nations are stoically experiencing."
(C) Colombia's Vice Minister of Foreign Relations, speaking
in May 1983 about the Contadora initiative, said that it would be
important to send observers to the Gulf of Fonseca, as had been
done with regard to the Costa,Rica-Nicaragua frontier. A regional
effort, he felt, "would constitute the initial step towards con-
trolling Nicaraguan arms shipments into El Salvador." In January
1983 in Managua, Peru's Ambassador to Nicaragua reiterated his
government's view of the need for economic cooperation and the
joint use of the Gulf of Fonseca by the three states.
(C) Tangential to the historic waters argument, it is pos-
sible that a Latin American state, including Nicaragua itself,
could raise the issue that US naval vessels bearing nuclear arms
are located within the claimed territorial sea of either
El Salvador or Nicaragua. This, it could be argued, is in con-
travention of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in
Latin America (1967). Specifically:
"Article 1: The contracting parties hereby...prohibit
and prevent in their respective territories...
(b) The receipt, storage, installation, deployment and
any form of possession of any nuclear weapon, directly or
indirectly, by the Parties themselves, by anyone on their
behalf or in any other way. [Emphasis supplied.]
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over fishing rights in the Gulf of Fonseca. The most serious
incidents occurred in 1967-68, when Nicaraguan aircraft strafed
Salvadoran fishing vessels in the Gulf on numerous occasions.
(U) Since the Sandinista. takeover in 1979, the number of
incidents in the Gulf has increased dramatically. In November
1982 El Salvador charged that one of its patrol boats had been
attacked by a Nicaraguan Navy vessel near Meanguera Island. In
March 1983 Managua claimed that a Salvadoran naval vessel had
attacked a Nicaraguan fishing vessel within its territorial
waters. Most recently, in July 1983, Nicaragua claimed that a
Salvadoran coast guard ship had attacked a Nicaraguan fishing
vessel southwest of the hypothetical equidistance tripoint in
the Gulf (see map).
(C) Fishing vessels and canoes (especially from the small
Nicaraguan port of Potosi) have been used by Nicaragua to ferry
arms to the El Salvador insurgents. Without constant surveillance
such incidents are likely to continue. In May 1983, El Salvador
asked the US to assist it in augmenting its patrol force in the
Gulf in order to interdict arms shipments to the insurgents.
There have been indications that increased electronic surveillance
and naval patrolling have helped curtail this movement of arms.
Nevertheless, the potential for conflict remains.
The Sandinista Government and the US
(U) The presence (whether actual or imagined) of US Navy
vessels in the Gulf of Fonseca has been the cause of recent
Nicaraguan concern. In August 1981, Managua's Nuevo Diario claimed
that the US was building a naval base in the Gulf, at Amapala,
Honduras, which eventually would become "an imperialist enclave."
It also claimed: "The building of a naval base would turn the
waters of the Gulf into a focus of provocations, increasing the
danger of war or intervention throughout the isthmus." The
Honduran Defense and Public Security Minister was quick to reply:
"There is a base in Amapala, but it belongs to our navy." He
denied that an agreement had been reached to establish a US naval
base in the Gulf of Fonseca or elsewhere on Honduran territory.
(U) In June 1982 a Nicaraguan naval vessel fired on a US
helicopter, which Managua claimed was flying three miles from the
Nicaraguan coast in the Gulf and had approached the Nicaraguan
vessel "in a bellicose manner." The US responded that both the
helicopter and its mother ship were located more than 12 miles
from the Nicaraguan coast, and that the action clearly had
occurred off the Pacific Coast and not in the Gulf of Fonseca.
(C) In April 1983 Nicaragua claimed that for more than a
month a US Navy vessel had "openly" engaged in espionage in
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"Article 3: For the purposes of this Treaty, the term
'territory' shall include the territorial sea, air space and
any other space over which the State exercises sovereignty in
accordance with its own legislation."
The US could counter that it does not recognize the 200-mile ter-
ritorial sea claimed by both El Salvador and Nicaragua, because
such claims contravene accepted practice which calls for inter-
national recognition of a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea.
Gulf Sovereignty: The Salvadoran Viewpoint
(U) The Government of El Salvador since 1914 has consist-
ently maintained that the Gulf's waters are indivisible. Various
protests with respect to illegal presence in its "internal waters"
or its "territorial sea" within the Gulf suggest that El Salvador
claims a three-nautical-mile territorial sea within the Gulf; how-
ever, no map or document can be found which depicts such a claim.
(U) The question of El Salvador's water boundary is com-
plicated by its century-old land boundary dispute with Honduras.
One of the points in question is the exact terminus of the land
boundary where the Goascoran River flows into the Gulf of Fonseca.
Under the General Peace Treaty of October 1980, Honduras and
El Salvador are committed to the resolution of their boundary
dispute, including "the juridical status of islands and maritime
areas after updating cartographic documents and reconnoitering
areas if needed."
(U) Thus far, the two governments have made no progress in
the resolution of land boundary issues; and seaward boundaries
apparently will await the successful delimitation of a land bound-
ary. Under Article 31 of the treaty, if the two sides cannot
reach agreement at the end of five years, "in the subsequent six
months they will proceed to negotiate and sign a pledge to jointly
submit the existing conflict or conflicts to the International
Court of Justice for decision." The pace at which the present
negotiations are being carried out almost ensures that the case
will go to the ICJ--despite the pressing need of both countries to
resolve the issue.
(C) At present, the Salvadoran Constituent Assembly is in
the process of preparing for the adoption of a new constitution.
(El Salvador's 1962 Constitution, in Article 8, notes only that
the "Gulf of Fonseca is an historic bay subject to a special
regime.") One article of the new constitution will deal with
sovereignty issues. Embassy San Salvador noted in March 1983:
"Several areas of controversy, including the regime which
will govern the Gulf of Fonseca, have yet to be considered.
Once negotiations are completed, the provisions will be
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inco-rporated into the Constitution as part of the same arti-
cle establishing maritime sovereignty. The Assembly will
then have to ratify the article as part of the Constitution.
El Salvador is a very small nation that considers its ter-
ritory as 'irreducible.' Any Constitutional provision which
conceptually reduces that territory is politically extremely
sensitive."
(U) Should El Salvador and Honduras come to an agreement on
a water boundary in the Gulf, El Salvador will have to determine
its water boundary with Nicaragua.
Sovereignty: The Honduran Viewpoint
(U) Honduras has never rejected its 1900 boundary with
Nicaragua, even though the boundary does not appear on domesti-
cally produced maps. Article 10 of the 1982 Honduran Constitution
notes: "The territories located on the mainland within its ter-
ritorial limits, its inland waters and its islands, islets, and
the cays in the Gulf of Fonseca which historically, geographically
and legally belong to it, are part of Honduras."
(U) The disposition of Gulf waters other than as outlined
in the 1900 delimitation are not clear. Honduras claims that
El Salvador illegally occupies certain islands in the Gulf of
Fonseca, the most important being Martin Perez, Meanguera, and
Meanguerita. It would not be surprising if a final agreement on a
Honduras-El Salvador boundary were paralyzed by this claim. It
also would not be surprising if Honduras were to hold up a bound-
ary agreement on this point in the hope that the ICJ might hold in
its favor.
(C) Honduras may be unaware that even if it were to gain
possession of the islands, and even if the waters of the Gulf were
delimited by the equidistance method, it would still not have a
"corridor" to the high seas. Nicaraguan and Salvadoran possession
of the headlands at the mouth of the Gulf would, through the
convergence of equidistance lines, truncate any Honduran ter-
ritorial water claim. Honduras eventually may drop its island
claims, but in return it likely would demand some sort of
co-dominion to Gulf waters which would permit "unimpeded" access
to the high seas.
(U) Sovereignty: The Nicaraguan Viewpoint
Until recently the Nicaraguan Government has held that the
waters of the Gulf of Fonseca were divisible and that its bound-
ary with Honduras was valid. The territorial provisions of
Nicaragua's 1974 Constitution make no mention of the Gulf of
Fonseca.
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Under the Sandinista regime, however, the Nicaraguan attitude
toward Gulf sovereignty apparently has undergone a change. Managua
now holds that:
--Foreign military bases in the Gulf of Fonseca should be
prohibited. ?
--"The presence" of US warships in the Gulf of Fonseca
'violates Nicaraguan sovereignty and constitutes a threat to
[Nicaragua]"--in effect, the same argument used by El Salvador
in its protest against the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty and rejected
by Nicaragua in 1914.
--The Gulf of Fonseca is under the jurisdiction of
El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, and the former two
cannot overrule the desires of the latter.'
In sum, Nicaragua seems to have reversed a traditional policy and
to be coming down on the side of the 1917 decisions of the Central
American Court of Justice in an effort to eliminate US naval or
military presence in the Gulf.
(S/NF) . Sovereignty: The US Viewpoint
Since February 1982, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff has
restricted US activities in the Gulf, "until the legal and
political issues are resolved," to the area encompassing the
El Salvador portion of the Gulf of Fonseca." The area itself was
determined by use of the equidistance method or "median line."
The "standoff" distance from the Nicaraguan Pacific Coast was set
at a 12-nautical-mile minimum.
A combined US-Honduran Armed Forces exercise is scheduled for
the period August 1983-January 1984. The JCS has not announced
the guidance that will govern US military presence in Honduran
waters. Nevertheless, given the unusual juridical status of the
Gulf of Fonseca, and the slim hope for an early tripartite agree-
ment on the delimitation of its waters, the US can expect a spate
of legal "second-guessing" should an incident occur within the
Gulf during the joint military exercise.
Prepared by J. Millard Burr
632-2021
Approved by C. Thomas Thorne
632-1038
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Appendix
CHRONOLOGY OF SOVEREIGNTY QUESTIONS IN THE GULF OF FONSECA
1. 1821: Central American states accepted the general limits of
Spanish colonial administrative units as their national fron-
tier (the uti possidetis 'uris of 1821).
2. 1839: Federal Republic of Central America was dissolved.
El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua became independent
republics.
3. 1850: Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (US-UK) provided for the possi-
ble construction of an interoceanic canal through Nicaragua.
Article VI noted that other states would be invited to share
in the canal's construction.
4. 1854: Guatemala, Costa Rica, and El Salvador lodged a formal
complaint with Honduras protesting the proposed sale of Tigre
Island in the Gulf of Fonseca to a US citizen.
5. 1854: Author Antonio Vallejo in Limites de Honduras (1926)
claimed that Honduras held all islands in the Gulf of Fonseca
without contradiction (sin contradiccion ninguna) through 1854.
6. 1864: Article XIV of the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and
Navigation between the US and Honduras provided for the pres-
ervation of the neutrality of the Interoceanic Railway of
Honduras. The Pacific terminus of that railway was to have
been on the Gulf of Fonseca.
7. 1884: In a note of October 21, 1913, from the Salvadoran
Minister at Washington to the US Secretary of State, the Min-
ister referred to a boundary convention of April 10, 1884,
between El Salvador and Honduras. He noted that under
Article 2, their maritime boundary began in the Pacific and
terminated at the Goascoran River. This divided the maritime
sovereignty of the Meanguera, Conchaguita, Martin Perez, and
Punta Zacate islands of El Salvador and the Tigre, Zacate
Grande, Inglesa, and Exposition islands of Honduras. The
treaty was rejected by Honduras and cannot be found. Thus,
references to this agreement are often misleading.
8. 1894: Gamez-Bonilla Treaty between Honduras and Nicaragua
provided for commissioners to arbitrate the boundary
dispute. A mixed boundary commission was appointed.
9. 1900: By March, the Honduras-Nicaragua Boundary Commission
had completed the demarcation of the boundary between the
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Gulf of Fonseca and El Paraiso. (See INR/GE International
Boundary Study No. 36, "Honduras-Nicaragua," October 12,
1964.)
10. 1901: Hay-Pauncefote Treaty (US-UK), "to facilitate the
construction of a ship canal" in Central America, superseded
the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850. The US thereby would be
granted "the exclusive right of providing for the regulation
and management of the canal."
11. 1913: US Navy Department Memorandum of December 3 stated,
inter alia: "In view of the possibility of a canal being dug
across Nicaragua at some future day, I beg leave to suggest
the desirability of securing rights to use the Corn Islands
and part of the Gulf of Fonseca as naval bases."
12. 1913: In a note of October 21, El Salvador officially pro-
tested to the US the possible Nicaraguan grant which would
permit the United States to construct a naval base on
Nicaraguan territory bordering the Gulf of Fonseca.
13. 1914: "The Convention Respecting a Nicaraguan Canal Route"
(Bryan-Chamorro Treaty) was signed at Washington on August 5.
Ratification occurred on June 24, 1916. Article II stated:
"The Government of Nicaragua further grants to the
Government of the United States for a...period of
ninety-nine years the right to establish, operate and
maintain a naval base at such place on the territory of
Nicaragua bordering upon the Gulf of Fonseca as the Gov-
ernment of the United States may select.... It being
expressly agreed that the...naval base which may be
maintained under the grant aforesaid shall be subject
exclusively to the laws and sovereign authority of the
United States during the terms of such...grant and of
any renewal or renewals thereof."
14. 1916: Note from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Honduras
to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of El Salvador, dated
September 30, claimed:
"My Government declares that the boundary made in the
year nineteen hundred...by the Mixed Commission of
Boundaries of Nicaragua and Honduras, to determine
clearly the boundaries of their maritime frontiers, has
from the moment that it was made been effective and
valid, in the same manner as is the other of the bound-
ary which was fixed by the above commission on land
between the two Republics, and that at no time since
the fixing of the above boundary has the Government of
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to Central American governments rejecting the findings of the
Central American Court of Justice.
19. 1917: Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador offered the US
their cooperation in the war with Germany. Honduras offered
to cooperate win every way"; Nicaragua offered the US, "for
the use of the present war, the ports and territorial waters
of Nicaragua"; El Salvador permitted entrance into and use of
El Salvador's ports and allowed that "American naval vessels
would be treated in the same way as naval vessels of Salvador
itself."
20. 1917: Decision of the Central American Court of Justice,
March 9: The judges unanimously held that the Gulf of
Fonseca was an historic bay possessed of the characteristics
of a closed sea, and that the waters which form the entrance
to the Gulf "intermingle." The judges also held, 4 to 1,
that the establishment of a naval base would violate the right
of coownership possessed by El Salvador in the Gulf of Fonseca
and Article IX of the General Treaty of Peace and Amity of
Central American States concluded at Washington in 1907.
21. 1920: US Navy Department Communication of February 28: "The
General Board does not recommend that a naval base be con-
structed on Fonseca Bay in the near future."
22. 1926: US Department of State memorandum of conversation
dated October 29: "It was the opinion of the Navy Department
and of the General Board that the building of a naval base at
this time was unnecessary and impracticable."
23. 1927: President Coolidge stated that conditions in Nicaragua
"seriously threaten American lives and property, endanger the
stability of all Central America, and put in jeopardy the
rights granted by Nicaragua to the United States for the con-
struction of a canal."
24. 1930: Statements of Latin American expert R. M. de Lambert,
US Department of State, concerning the Gulf of Fonseca:
"...the Government of Honduras has never taken a
definite stand as to whether [Gulf] waters were divided
or undivided although it has refused to join El Salvador
in its protest against the division of the waters and
the granting of the naval base. We have no indication
as to where the line ends between Nicaragua and
Honduras." (Emphasis supplied.)
25. 1941: Office of the Geographer, US Department of State,
noted that "El Salvador and Honduras have entered into no
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El Salvador ever given any objection to the validity of
the same. The circumstances of not having made a bound-
ary line between Honduras and Salvador in this Bay does
not constitute a codomination and cosovereignty in the
waters of Fonseca."
15. 1916: Note from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of
El Salvador to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Honduras,
October 7, stated that with regard to the Salvadoran Govern-
ment's objection to the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty:
"The arguments of which it treats, are relative to the
codomination which Salvador considers that she has in
the waters of the Gulf of Fonseca in community with
Honduras and Nicaragua, and the reasons for her opposi-
tion to the giving of any portion or section of these
waters for the establishing of a naval base which a
foreign nation has the intention of establishing.
"My Government has no objection as to the validity of
the [1900] treaty, nor to the marking of the boundaries
fixing jurisdictions, between Honduras and Nicaragua, on
the waters of the Gulf of Fonseca, in so far as it
affects only the jurisdictions of those two Republics.
For this reason we have had no reason for opposing any
of these acts up until now. But it is not admissible,
in any way, that our silence can be interpreted as a
renunciation of our rights of coownership in an inher-
itance which, from time immemorial we have possessed
and possess in this form, in union with Honduras and
Nicaragua; and neither does that treaty and act of par-
tition of this inheritance produce the effect of
nullifying the rights of codomination which belong to
Salvador in the waters of that Gulf, nor to impede the
opposition to the stipulations which do not recognize ,
these rights and which place in peril the national
security."
16. 1916: El Salvador and Costa Rica presented the International
Court of Justice with protests to the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty.
17. 1916: The Government of Honduras in December protested to
El Salvador the latter's contention that the Gulf was indi-
visibly and jointly owned by the three republics. At the time
it was considered that this protest indicated that Honduras
shared Nicaragua's view that proprietorship of the territorial
waters of the Gulf was held severally and not jointly.
18. 1917: The Government of Nicaragua in December notified the
US Department of State that it had sent a circular letter
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- VI -
at Managua, July 14, 1970. It was ratified by the US Senate
on February 17, 1971. Noted therein: All the rights and
options that the 1914 Convention accorded to the United
States of America shall cease to have effect as of the date
this convention enters into force."
35. 1974: Constitution of the Republic of Nicaragua, Chapter I,
Article 3:
"The national territory extends...from the Atlantic to
the Pacific Ocean and from the Republic of Honduras to
the Republic of Costa Rica. It also includes within the
same status the adjacent islands, keys, headlands, banks,
the submerged lands, the territorial sea and the conti-
nental shelf, as well as the air space, the stratosphere,
and the entire undersea area of its sovereign domain
according to international law."
36. 1979: By decree of December 19, 1979, Nicaragua declared a
200-nautical-mile territorial sea.
37.
1980: El Salvador-Honduras General Peace Treaty, Article 18,
point 4, noted that the Joint Boundary Commission was "to
determine the juridical status of islands and maritime
areas." It must (Article 21, point 4) "determine the juridi-
cal status of islands and maritime areas after updating
cartographic documents and reconnoitering areas if needed."
Article 31 noted that, if no agreement was reached at the end
of the five-year period covered by the treaty: "In the sub-
sequent six months [El Salvador and Honduras] will proceed to
negotiate and sign a pledge to jointly submit the existing
conflict or conflicts to the International Court of Justice
for decision."
38. 1981: Managua's El Nuevo Diario of August 26:
"The building of a US naval base in the Gulf of Fonseca
is one more instance in a long list of aggressions by US
imperialism against our sovereignty. ...As that promi-
nent figure Luis Pasos Arguello affirms, the Gulf of
Fonseca is under the jurisdiction of El Salvador,
Honduras and Nicaragua, and the former cannot overrule
the desires of the latter."
39. 1982: Constitution of the Republic of Honduras, Chapter I,
Article 10: "The territories located on the mainland within
its territorial limits, its inland waters and its islands,
islets, and the cays in the Gulf of Fonseca which historically
belong to it, are part of Honduras. ...The Gulf of Fonseca
may be put under a special regime." (Emphasis supplied.)
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J.,