Accordingly, the United States Government proposes that the two Governments immediately enter into discussions regarding the use of accepted methods for the peaceful settlement of disputes, such as negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other mutually acceptable peaceful means. Without prejudice to such discussions, the United States Government wishes to state at this time that it is prepared to agree to submit the issue immediately to the International Court of Justice, which is an appropriate forum for considering the questions involved on an immediate basis, and urges the Bahamian Government to give this proposal urgent and favorable consideration.

Finally, the United States Government must request the Bahamian Government to ensure that its authorities use all restraint necessary to avoid further complications in this matter.

Dept. of State File L/OES. For a discussion of U.S. proposals advanced at the Nassau talks, see ante, Ch. 7, § 4, pp. 404-406; Dept. of State Bulletin, Vol. LXXIII, No. 1890, Sept. 15, 1975, pp. 414-415.

Caribbean Reefs

On September 16, 1975, Assistant Secretary of State William D. Rogers testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urging that the Senate give its advice and consent to the treaty between the United States and Colombia concerning the status of Quita Sueño, Roncador and Serrana, signed September 8, 1972. He reaffirmed the Department's view that the subject of the treaty involved no "dispute" on the part of the United States suitable for submission to the International Court of Justice.

Under the treaty the United States would renounce all claims to sovereignty over three uninhabited outcroppings of coral reefs in the Caribbean, and the two Governments would agree upon fishing rights of their nationals and vessels in the area. The Government of Colombia ratified the treaty in March 1974.

On November 6, 1973, Senator J. W. Fulbright, then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee informed Secretary Kissinger by letter that the Committee questioned the wisdom of using a bilateral treaty with Colombia as the vehicle for abandoning U.S. claims. He noted that the areas in question were also the subject of claims by Nicaragua and stated that the Committee thought the matter could be more appropriately settled by the World Court.

At the Foreign Relations Committee hearings on September 16,

1975, Assistant Secretary Rogers explained the background of the treaty and its purpose as follows:

The three outcroppings covered by the treaty are located between 380 and 460 miles from the mainland of Colombia. The United States claim to sovereignty dated only from the latter part of the nineteenth century. The Guano Islands Act of 1856 automatically asserted our sovereignty following the discovery of the reefs by an American citizen in 1869. They had-and have-no military significance, but commercial interests did extract some guano. In 1890, Colombia protested the extraction of guano by United States nationals, claiming that Colombia had inherited sovereign title to them from Spain. In 1928, the United States and Colombia recognized the existence of their dual claims and agreed to maintain the status quo.

The present treaty is an effort to settle the issue definitively: Colombia desires to perfect its claim to sovereignty. The interests of the United States are narrow but distinct to establish permanently the rights of American nationals and vessels to continue fishing there, and to continue the maintenance of the navigational aids.

The treaty amicably settles a long standing difference between the United States and Colombia over these three small Caribbean reefs. The settlement was sought and reached in a spirit of cooperation and good will on both sides. Its terms accord with the interests and desires of both parties.

The three areas covered by the treaty are 140 and 210 miles from Nicaragua. In 1928, Colombia and Nicaragua concluded a treaty recognizing Colombia's sovereignty over islands in the San Andres Archipelago but not including Quita Sueño, Roncador and Serrana. That treaty recognized that sovereignty over these three was in dispute between Colombia and the United States. As a consequence, Colombia considers that Nicaragua implicitly denied having any claim to those areas. We understand that Nicaragua, for its part, rejects this view and maintains that it has a claim to the three outcroppings based upon their relationship to the Nicaraguan Continental Shelf.

The U.S.-Colombian treaty does not refer to, nor does it affect, nor is it intended to affect the merits of any Nicaraguan claim or difficulty with Colombia. We have so stated formally to the Nicaraguan Government. To the extent that a dispute may lie between Colombia and Nicaragua, it is for them not us-to determine the best manner of laying it to rest. We desire only to relinquish any rights we may have gained under the earlier 1928 agreement with Colombia and to withdraw from any quarrel about the islets.

Senate Resolution 74 [93d Congress], the Cranston Resolution, expresses the sense of the Congress that the United States

should submit to the World Court those outstanding territorial disputes involving the United States "where such disputes cannot be resolved by negotiation." After its introduction, it was amended to include these islets in the list of "disputes." The Resolution's author, Senator Cranston, took exception on the floor to the inclusion. He said he agreed with the self-evident proposition that there was in this case no "dispute" to which the United States was a party. It would clearly seem that the areas here in question are not within the intent of the Resolution. Our differences with Colombia have been resolved. We have settled our interest in the outcroppings by negotiation. This is the course of action which the Resolution commends. We have nothing to submit to the World Court here. Surely, we are not called upon to expand the Court's business by artificially keeping alive a controversy which in fact we have settled.

Dept. of State File L/ARA.

For the text of the treaty, see S. Ex. A, 93d Cong., 1st Sess.; Dept. of State Bulletin, Vol. LXVII, No. 1736, Oct. 2, 1972, p. 387. For a discussion of the Cranston Resolution, see the 1973 Digest, p. 458.

The Government of the United States in a note dated January 11, 1975, made public by the Department of State on January 13, 1975, charged the North Vietnamese and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Viet-Nam authorities with "flagrant violation" of the Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Viet-Nam, signed at Paris on January 27, 1973 (TIAS 7542; 24 UST 1; entered into force January 27, 1973), and the Act of the International Conference on Viet-Nam, signed at Paris on March 2, 1973 (TIAS 7568; 24 UST 485; entered into force March 2, 1973). The note, which was addressed by the Department of State to the non-Vietnamese participants in the International Conference on Viet-Nam, the members of the International Commission of Control and Supervision, and Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim of the United Nations, deplored "the Democratic Republic of VietNam's turning from the path of negotiation to that of war" and added that the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam "must accept the full consequences of its actions." In addition the note reiterated support for the Republic of Viet-Nam's call to the Hanoi-Provisional Revolutionary Government side to reopen the talks in Paris and Saigon which are mandated by the Agreement.

The text of the Department's note reads in principal part as follows:

When the Agreement was concluded nearly two years ago, our hope was that it would provide a framework under which the Vietnamese people could make their own political choices and resolve their own problems in an atmosphere of peace. Unfortunately this hope, which was clearly shared by the Republic of Viet-Nam and the South Vietnamese people, has been frustrated by the persistent refusal of the Democratic Republic of VietNam to abide by the Agreement's most fundamental provisions. Specifically, in flagrant violation of the Agreement, the North

Vietnamese and "Provisional Revolutionary Government" authorities have:

-built up the North Vietnamese main-force army in the South through the illegal infiltration of over 160,000 troops;

-tripled the strength of their armor in the South by sending in over 400 new vehicles, as well as greatly increased their artillery and antiaircraft weaponry;

-improved their military logistics system running through Laos, Cambodia and the Demilitarized Zone as well as within South Viet-Nam, and expanded their armament stockpiles;

-refused to deploy the teams which under the Agreement were to oversee the cease-fire;

-refused to pay their prescribed share of the expenses of the International Commission of Control and Supervision;

-failed to honor their commitment to cooperate in resolving the status of American and other personnel missing in action, even breaking off all discussions on this matter by refusing for the past seven months to meet with U.S. and Republic of VietNam representatives in the Four-Party Joint Military Team;

-broken off all negotiations with the Republic of Viet-Nam including the political negotiations in Paris and the Two Party Joint Military Commission talks in Saigon, answering the Republic of Viet-Nam's repeated calls for unconditional resumption of the negotiations with demands for the overthrow of the government as a precondition for any renewed talks; and

-gradually increased their military pressure, overrunning several areas, including 11 district towns, which were clearly and unequivocally held by the Republic of Viet-Nam at the time of the cease-fire. Their latest and most serious escalation of the fighting began in early December with offensives in the southern half of South Viet-Nam which have brought the level of casualties and destruction back up to what it was before the Agreement. These attacks-which included for the first time since the massive North Vietnamese 1972 offensive the overrunning of a province capital (Song Be in Phuoc Long Province)—– appear to reflect a decision by Hanoi to seek once again to impose a military solution in Viet-Nam. Coming just before the second anniversary of the Agreement, this dramatically belies Hanoi's claims that it is the United States and the Republic of Viet-Nam who are violating the Agreement and standing in the way of peace.

The United States deplores the Democratic Republic of VietNam's turning from the path of negotiation to that of war, not only because it is a grave violation of a solemn international agreement, but also because of the cruel price it is imposing on the people of South Viet-Nam. The Democratic Republic of VietNam must accept the full consequences of its actions. We are deeply concerned about the threat posed to international peace and security, to the political stability of Southeast Asia, to the progress which has been made in removing Viet-Nam as a major issue of great-power contention, and to the hopes of mankind for the building of structures of peace and the strengthening of mechanisms to avert war. We therefore reiterate our strong