INTERNATIONAL: Bolivia and Paraguay

President Hernando Siles of Bolivia took step after step toward war, last week, while his Foreign Minister, Tomas Manuel Elio, kept the cables hot with peace talk.

Señor Elio found innumerable polite reasons why Bolivia should not avail herself of offers of mediation made by 1) the Pan-American conference on arbitration and conciliation at Washington; 2) the council of the League of Nations sitting at Lugano, Switzerland; 3) the permanent Pan-American conciliation commission at Montevideo; 4) King Alfonso XIII of Spain; 5) Pope Pius XI; 6) President Irigoyen of Argentine; 7) President Machado of Cuba.

Finally, however, Bolivia did accept the “good offices” of the Pan-American Conference for an investigation of the origin of the conflict.

But this was after Paraguay had cabled to the League Council:

“Paraguay does not refuse any conciliation procedure for the settlement of her dispute with Bolivia.”

It was also after President Hernando Siles of Bolivia had harangued:

“Citizens—I do not wish war. But if war must come, I swear to march to the front myself.”

When the President learned that—although war had not been declared—Bolivian soldiers had captured Paraguayan Fort Boqueron, he cried from a balcony of the presidential palace, “in taking the fort our soldiers gave a splendid example of Bolivian patriotism. Viva the army; viva the commander of our forces in the Chaco; viva Bolivia.”

The President of Paraguay, Dr. Jose P. Guggiari, was born in Lugano, Switzerland, where the council of the League of Nations was in session last week. President Guggiari harangued no mobs. With Swiss calm he called Congress into extraordinary session, proceeded quietly with mobilization. The excited members of his cabinet urged that every able bodied man or boy between 18 and 28 be called to the colors. The President said, “Not yet.”

The highly technical position taken by the Bolivian foreign office is that the HONOR OF BOLIVIA demands that Paraguayan blood be spilled, because Paraguayan TROOPS ATTACKED BOLIVIANS (TIME, Dec. 17) in the disputed area of Gran Chaco, a wild and wooded region of over 100,000 square miles.

From the first the Paraguayans have contended that it was their troops who were attacked by Bolivians; and the Paraguay chargé d’ affaires at La Paz, Bolivia, immediately suggested neutral investigation of whatever had occurred in Gran Chaco. The reply of the Bolivian government was to break off relations with Paraguay last fortnight, and to send more Bolivian soldiers last week into Gran Chaco, where at least 200 humans met death in circumstances impossible to ascertain.

Colorful and significant was a sidelight cast upon the whole situation by famed Fight Tycoon Tex Rickard. “In 1913,” said he last week, “I came up through the Argentine with twenty cowboys, 50,000 head of cattle and a train of about fifty wagons, with the idea of crossing into Paraguay across the Pilcomayo River, the boundary between Paraguay and the Argentine. Well, as soon as we got into Paraguay we came across a lot of forts, all filled with Bolivians. And these Bolivians—soldiers they were—said that if we didn’t turn back they’d shoot us. So, you see, as far back as 1913 Bolivia had just quietly annexed a good piece of Paraguay as far down as the twenty-fourth parallel.

“Well, we thought we’d better go round, so we came out again and went south through the Argentine to Asuncion and into Paraguay across the eastern boundary, the Paraguay River. When we got there we told them how there were a lot of Bolivians sitting in forts in the middle of Paraguay, and that vexed them a bit. It was the first they’d heard of it, I guess.

“Paraguay contains the best pasture land in the world. You could grow anything there—lemons, cotton, corn, oats, everything. We’d have done great things there if it hadn’t been for the War. That put a stop to everything. The outfit I was working for sold out, but I kept 325,000 acres for myself. It may come in useful someday.”