Bolivia v. Paraguay

How diplomats can make a war was shown last week after Bolivian and Paraguayan troops had exchanged shots across a wild, densely forested area which both countries have claimed for over a century.

Soon official statements were made by the respective foreign offices in such terms that undoubtedly one or the other set of diplomats was lying. The Bolivians said that their troops were sound asleep at six a. m. in Fort Vanguardia on unquestionably Bolivian territory when they were stealthily attacked by Paraguayan soldiers. The diplomats of Paraguay said that their troops had discovered a Bolivian fort on unquestionably Paraguayan territory, had requested the Bolivian garrison to withdraw and had been fired upon for their pains. At approximately the same hour last week both governments claimed that their victorious forces held the fort.

Pacifists were hopeful, since in the Gondra Convention of May, 3, 1923, signed between Bolivia and Paraguay, there was contained a procedure of conciliation designed to prevent war between them. There was actually in existence at the neutral capital of Montevideo, Uruguay, last week a conciliation commission as provided in the Gondra Convention, presided over by the Mexican Minister to Uruguay, Senor Fortunato Vega. Nonetheless, the position of the Bolivian Government as expounded by the newspaper El Norte was: "The sovereign Congress of Bolivia has never approved the Gondra Convention; and even if it had the convention tends to prevent armed conflicts, not to suppress them once they have begun, as in the present case."

Soon the Government of Bolivia officially stated that this was a dispute which could not possibly be submitted to the "improvised commission" at neutral Montevideo, headed by the Mexican Minister.

While the above monkey wrench was being thrown into the machinery of poly-national conciliation, the diplomats were even busier achieving a direct break between Bolivia and Paraguay. At the Bolivian seat of Government, La Paz, the Paraguayan Charge d'Affaires, Senor Elias Ayala, presented a request that there be no "repetition of the violation of Paraguayan territory by a Bolivian force." Thereupon the Bolivian Foreign Office replied that "in view of this insolent attitude" on the part of Paraguay, "you (the Paraguayan Minister) must leave this capital on the train which leaves Viachi Station at four p. m." Within a few hours the Paraguayan Government similarly kicked the Bolivian Minister out of Asuncion with the statement that "in the face of such an attitude" as Bolivia's, there was no choice but "to proceed in the same manner." The diplomatic negotiations were severed before any common sense steps had been taken and probably before the governments themselves really knew exactly what had happened at remote Fort Vanguardia. The significance of such diplomatic procedure--senseless and mischievous, though perfectly "correct" and "usual"--is of greater importance to the world than any additional blood which may be spilled between 2,155,000 Bolivians and 853,000 Paraguayans--scarcely as numerous as the denizens of Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens (3,219,414).

From despatches it appeared that the citizens of La Paz, Bolivia, were whooping war last week while those of Asuncion, Paraguay, were silent, scared. Consoling was the fact that neither government had issued a general order of mobilization. The fact of importance continued to be that although Bolivia and Paraguay are members of the League of Nations and consider themselves enlightened states, they employed last week the worst form of stupid pernicious pre-War diplomacy.