PARAGUAY-BOLIVIA: Gran Chaco

Where Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina join on the map of South America lies the Gran Chaco, a steaming, insect-swarming triangle 600 miles by 300 between the Paraguay and Pilcomayo rivers. British Explorer Julian Duguid has described the Pilcomayo as “a vast, foul-smelling, oozy stretch of bog with as much movement as an unsqueezed sponge. … An Englishman may obtain some slight insight into the discomfort of penetration into the Chaco if he locks himself into a hothouse, waters the flowers, closes all the windows, and allows a blazing sun to shine through the glass while he rides a stationary bicycle. Even then he will not be bothered by insects.” The worst insects are ihenni, vicious black flies that hang in dark clouds in the air. There are also poisonous snakes, jaguars, piranhas (carnivorous fish). Despite the dampness, water holes are 15 to 40 miles apart.

This is the land over which Bolivia and Paraguay have squabbled since 1879. Soldiers were fighting for it last week. Cannon crashed in the hot jungle. Men were dying, but there was no war.

Bolivia and Paraguay have different economic reasons for wanting the Chaco. To landlocked Bolivia it means a possible outlet to the sea. On the west Bolivia is only 75 miles from the Pacific but those 75 mountainous miles are owned by powerful, militaristic Chile. Bolivians think that they might be able to push ships through the unsqueezed sponge of the Pilcomayo down to the Paraguay and on to Buenos Aires and the Atlantic.

Paraguay wants the Chaco because the district is larger than the rest of their country and its jungles contain great growths of the quebracho tree, whose bark yields 30% tannin.

Two months ago the first clash occurred. Last week Bolivian forces, sweating through the jungle, attacked and captured a fortified Paraguayan hut proudly known as Fort Boqueron. Little Paraguay has a regular army of only 3,000 men, but no bantams crowed more fiercely than the pugnacious Paraguayans last week. Pudgy, pop-eyed President Jose P. Guggiari sent a strong protest to the League of Nations against Bolivian aggression, then mobilized the army and published a clarion to his people:

“The hour has sounded when Paraguay must definitely withstand the invader. Our superior race will throw the invader back across the frontier and reconquer that which is ours. … As before, when Paraguay gave the world an example of astonishing vigor and valor, so now we must demonstrate that our race retains these virtues of our fighting forefathers. We must repeat history.”

In Geneva, Delegate Caballero de Bedoya offered to arbitrate, said: “Paraguay will never declare war!” Pacific observers were surprised and hurt because no one had bothered yet to ask the League Council to meet and intervene.

History. U. S. citizens who do not remember what Paraguay did in the War, should. To Paraguayans, the War was 1865-70. Paraguay’s Dictator Francisco Solano Lopez declared war on Brazil and marched through Argentine territory to invade her. This resulted in an alliance between Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina against little Paraguay. It took the allies five years to defeat her in one of the bloodiest campaigns of modern history. Almost every male Paraguayan was enlisted. Boys of 12 and young women fought in the ranks. Old women turned themselves into pack animals and were left to die by the roadside. When the war ended Dictator Lopez was dead, and so was nearly every male in Paraguay. Her population had dropped in five years from 1,337,000 to 221,000, of which 86,000 were children under 15.

Hysteria. Paraguayans were more than willing last week to try it again. First detachment to leave for the front were 500 soldiers loaded on a river steamer. So many volunteers attempted to gowith them that they nearly swamped the ship, had to be driven off at the bayonet point. At Conception hundreds of women assembled in the market place, swore to use no powder, paint or perfume on their determined faces until the last Bolivian had left the Chaco. Volunteers piled into Asuncion, the capital, day & night. All night long hysterical crowds tramped up & down the streets chanting “PARA-GUIA! PARA-GUIA! PARA-GUIA!” at the news, none too well substantiated, that a regiment of 600 Bolivian mountaineers had deserted, broken by Chaco heat and fevers, that three truckloads of Bolivian reinforcements had fallen in a ravine.

Note. The rest of the Americas took Paraguay’s preparations with great seriousness. At the State Department in Washington representatives of 19 nations assembled and signed a joint protest which some correspondents rated with the Mon roe Doctrine in importance. Paraphrasing the Kellogg Pact (which Bolivia did not sign) they warned both Bolivia and Para guay that they would never recognize the acquisition of any territory seized by force of arms. Bolivia continued to mobilize. In London, a large number of British Fascists decided to join in.