BOLIVIA- PARAGUAY: Greedy! v. Liars!

BOLIVIA-PARAGUAY

Wrathful charges and irate denials continued to characterize the warlike relations of Bolivia and Paraguay, last week, despite the fact that both Governments had declared a truce (TIME, Dec. 31) and accepted mediation by the Pan-American Parley at Washington. President José P. Guggiari of Paraguay (a Swiss by birth) observed that “Bolivia has always been greedy.” He specifically charged in a cable to the U.S. State Department that, last week, Bolivian troops were still advancing into Paraguayan territory. Intimations from President Hernando Siles of Bolivia were in the sense that this charge was a dastardly lie.

Meanwhile officials of the Pan-American Parley cabled to both Governments for acceptance or comment upon the text of a protocol which, if signed between them, would set up an arbitral board to investigate the original clash between Bolivian and Paraguayan troops in the disputed region called Gran Chaco (TIME, Dec. 24).

First to reply was Dr. Juan Y. Ramirez, Charge d’Affaires at the Paraguayan legation, who said the pact was acceptable to his country, conditional upon the insertion of certain slight changes, to be made known in the event of a meeting of the involved parties.