724.3415/3489: Telegram
The Consul at Geneva (Gilbert) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received January 13—3:50 p.m.]
7. Consulate’s 4, January 10, 5 p.m.16 The following is an unofficial translation of a telegram from the Chaco Commission to the Secretary General under date of January 12 signed by Del Vayo and Buero.
“On the eve of the session of the Council the Commission believes it useful to set out the broad lines of the situation. In order to fulfill its mandate the Commission, after conversations at Asunción, a visit to the Chaco and interviews at La Paz, communicated to the two [Page 42] governments the principles of a plan which, taking very carefully into account the points of view set forth by the representatives of Paraguay before the Council and during the negotiations between the limitrophe states and later before the Commission, appeared (the Government of Bolivia being in agreement) susceptible of putting an end to hostilities and of procuring a fundamental settlement.
The armistice proposed on December 18 by Paraguay who invited the Commission to preside over negotiations for security and peace, was utilized for attempting at Montevideo, in an atmosphere of peace and collaboration created by the Pan American Conference and with the active sympathy of the President of Uruguay acting as mandatory of the special committee constituted by that Conference, to put into operation the principles of the Commission’s plan, to wit (1) the adoption of a procedure for a fundamental legal settlement each party submitting its claims to the Permanent Court of International Justice; (2) a regime of security comprising the withdrawal of the armies to the borders of the Chaco, their demobilization within a fixed period, limitation of armaments for a period of time sufficient to permit not only a fundamental settlement but a durable abatement of public feeling, and an international control of the foregoing measures of security; (3) the seeking of measures, leaving aside all considerations of a territorial order, destined to improve communications with the exterior not only of Bolivia but of Paraguay. To further this end the Commission beginning with December 24, 1933, was able to utilize the resolution adopted by the International American Conference on the proposal of Argentina envisaging the convocation of a conference of the limitrophe states under the auspices of the Pan American Union.17
Conversations between the Commission and the Paraguayan military plenipotentiary and assessor who arrived at Montevideo on December 29, then information gathered by a delegation of the Commission which proceeded to Asunción by airplane on January 1, showed that Paraguay was not ready to accept this plan as a whole. Representatives of Paraguay desired as a first step the seeking of a fundamental solution from which the Hayes Zone, the Rio Paraguay littoral and the hinterland to be determined should be excluded; the organization of a regime of security being designed to permit the abatement of public feeling, they deemed that this regime should carry with it the occupation by Paraguayan troops of a security zone in the Chaco which would be entirely evacuated by Bolivian troops. During the 2 days which followed the return of the Commission’s delegation from Asunción all efforts to conciliate the points of view of the two countries and prevent the renewal of hostilities by examining the chances of success of a security formula were rendered futile by the expiration of the armistice which the Commission had requested be prolonged until January 14 but which Paraguay accepted to prolong only until January 6.
The Commission which in the atmosphere created by the armistice could hope to bring the parties nearer together feel that a continuation [Page 43] of the negotiations was incompatible with the renewal of hostilities and made this known to the two Governments. As mandatory of the Council, the Commission leaves it to the latter to appraise a situation of which it has indicated the essential elements and awaits on the spot the result of the Council’s deliberations.”
For the present this telegram is being communicated only to the members of the Council.