EARLY BELGIAN COLONIAL EFFORTS - The University of Texas at ...

There is no way to know if Leopold reviewed these reports, but it is highly
likely he was made aware of this situation. The continuing ambiguity of the status of the
Belgian treaty in view of the later French and British treaty and the consistently
negative medical opinions seems to have doomed this attempted projection of Belgian
sovereignty, especially on these legal and medical grounds. The increasingly hostile
attitude of the chambers and the constitutional crisis 373 over the power to fund increased
the complexity of any resolution in favor of colonization or any government backed
colonial adventure.
The continued presence during this period of the one or the other of the two
ships of the Belgian navy underscored the earlier observation of Cohen, Serigiers, and
Bols that a military presence and army or police force would be necessary to
accomplish a permanent presence in the Nunez. The necessity of the same two ships
constantly voyaging to both Guatemala and the Rio Nunez underscored the warning of
Palmerston and the British cabinet 374 that Belgium simply did not have the ability to
monitor and protect a colony, let alone in another context, take a country (Nicaragua)
under a protectorate or control a transoceanic canal.
Once again Belgium, and to a lesser extent Leopold, were denied its colonial
aspirations. Why did the Rio Nunez effort fail when there were two treaties giving it
sovereignty? Several reasons have been advanced as to why Leopold did not take
advantage of this obviously overly generous grant by the African King Ali Manso and
373 The foreign minister and the king had the power to sign treaties and make foreign policy but
the power to fund was strictly with the chambers. At the minimum the shifting of funds between
departments without parliamentary approval was a violation of the Article 68 of the Constitution.
176