724.3415/1193
The Bolivian Minister (Diez de Medina) to the Secretary of State
Mr. Secretary of State: I have the honor to bring to the attention of Your Excellency the circular which the Minister of Foreign Relations of Bolivia, Dr. Daniel Sanchez Bustamante, addressed, under date of April 11, last, to the legations of Bolivia abroad, and which is of the following tenor:
“Ministry of Foreign Relations and Worship. Diplomatic Section. Circular No. 357. La Paz, April 11, 1931. Subject: Message of the President of Paraguay to the Congress of his country. Mr. Minister: His Excellency Mr. José P. Guggiari, President of the Republic of Paraguay, has just made in his message of April 2, addressed to the Congress of his country, certain allegations concerning the Chaco controversy, in which he ascribes to Bolivia attitudes or acts which are at variance with historical truth. Although it is the full intention of this Ministry not to carry on useless disputes which merely impede progress toward prudent, positive and fruitful negotiations, which both nations should endeavor to bring about, it is impossible to ignore the statements of His Excellency Mr. Guggiari, as this would prejudice the good name of Bolivia.
‘The de facto situation existing in the Chaco, created by Bolivia’ it is stated in the message referred to, ‘presents the principal obstacle which prevents negotiations from being carried on with sincerity and intelligence and resulting in just solutions. We must insist on the removal of the cause of this obstacle, in order to develop our relations with that country in the harmony which is necessary for determining the boundary line. Faith in negotiations and in subsequent agreements can be the result only of scrupulous fulfilment of the pacts which are in force.’
The de facto situation existing in the Chaco was not created by Bolivia, but is the result of the persistent refusal of Paraguay to approve the treaties concluded since 1879, and to accept fundamental solutions, disregarding the incidental disputes, as happened in the Buenos Aires conferences,51 the minutes of which are conclusive proof that Paraguay fought only to impose a status quo, in accordance with her own interpretations, refusing to enter into the essential question, in accordance with the Gutierrez-Diaz Leon protocol,52 and going to such an extreme that the representative of the Argentine Government, Dr. Isidoro Ruiz Moreno, in order to end the deadlock, made the [Page 720] following suggestion: ‘that Paraguay agree to proceed directly to arbitration on the basic question.’
The systematic and constant advance of the military forces and civil occupation of territory by Paraguay, within the territory of Bolivia—although that country, like ours, was under the obligation to keep within the possessions of 1907, in conformity with the Pinilla-Soler protocol53—obliged Bolivia to adopt some precautionary measures to safeguard her possessions and sovereignty [dominio eminente], i. e., in defense of her territory. Before 1907, Bolivia was facing the Esteros de Patiño, as shown [que invoco] in the documents referred to in the said conferences, where it was established that the national delegate, Dr. Leocadio Trigo, arrived there before 1907, exercising all the attributes of positive and conclusive Bolivian sovereignty.
At the time of the Pinilla-Soler protocol, Paraguay began to construct railways, grant concessions lavishly, and establish military posts, beyond the limits of the possessions which, in conformity with the statics quo, she was bound to respect, and which are very different from the lines drawn under the arbitral award in the same factum. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Asuncion, tried to confuse those lines, which were cancelled in 1913, by the Ayala-Mujía Protocol,54 with the possessions which were maintained by the status quo of 1907 in the Chaco, i. e., to the south of Bahia Negra. All this was fully discussed in the Buenos Aires conferences the failure of which was the result of the determination of Paraguay to protect with her theory of status quo a mobile and progressive system of taking possession of territory and to confirm it by invoking ‘pacts in force’.
Now His Excellency Mr. Guggiari again invites Bolivia to remove the causes of the obstacle, i. e., he returns to the incidental proposition, as a preliminary, knowing that it will never bring us to an agreement, and that the only feasible and effective step would be resolutely to seek a clear program for discussion, within which Bolivia will proceed to a basic solution, either by direct agreement or by arbitration, and, finally, by the good offices of friendly and neutral governments.
Bolivia once more declares that she is not willing to admit the Paraguayan interpretation which confuses the status quo line of the Protocol of 1907, with the lines of the arbitration zone laid down in the same agreement, whose caducary was declared in 1913. The ‘pact in force’ between the two countries, together with the Gutierrez-Diaz Leon Protocol and the Washington Act of Conciliation55 would be the status quo of 1907, if Paraguay had not nullified it from that date, obliging Bolivia to take precautions for the legitimate defense of her possessions.
The Washington Act, while one of conciliation, recognizes, however, the provocation on the part of Paraguay in the deplorable events of 1928, in the following paragraphs:
‘Whereas: the historical statement of the facts shows that the Vanguardia incident preceded the events which took place in the Boquerón sector.
‘Whereas: the use of coercive means on the part of Paraguay at Vanguardia caused the reaction of Bolivia.’
[Page 721]These points [considerandos], accepted and subscribed to by the plenipotentiaries of Paraguay, eloquently express that it was not Bolivia that ‘introduced innovations in the status of the peaceful relations of the two countries.’
If the conciliation resolution of Washington does not properly constitute an agreement of status quo, it indicates on the other hand the only situation confirmed by the agreement of the two parties, and by the guarantee of five neutral governments, which can at present be invoked and maintained in the Chaco, pending possible legal solutions. The protection (amparo) of the positions of 1928, established at Washington, undoubtedly does not define the basic question or the legal aspects, as expressly declared by the Chairman of the Commission, at the time the Protocol was signed, but maintains a positive position which must be respected pending the adjustment of the controversy, and which none of the interested parties can arbitrarily change. Neither does the said Act refer to any ‘pact in force’.
The Government of Bolivia accepted the good offices again offered at the close of 1929 by the five neutral governments represented at Washington,56 in case the direct negotiations should not succeed, and is willing not to neglect any procedure in order to reach an amicable adjustment of the Chaco question. Nevertheless, it states categorically, that it will not enter into new, fruitless and irregular discussions such as occurred at Buenos Aires, and would occur if Paraguay should again insist in pleading [plantear] previous incidents with regard to the unsolved points of the conferences of 1927 and 1928, points which form an insuperable obstacle for the adjustment. It also once more declares that it cannot compromise as to the pledge to submit to arbitration its southeast territory, in an indeterminate and indefinite form, contrary to all precedent and against every principle of sovereignty, as it stated at Buenos Aires and Washington, through its delegates.
The only thing which can put us on the road to solution of problems and to definitive peace, matters which are so complex and difficult in this dispute, would be to take up with good will between the chancelleries, a preliminary plan for attempting, before everything else, the supreme effort of direct negotiation and of arbitration, and to guarantee, in the meantime, non-aggression, increasing harmony and the security of legal solutions.
Please be good enough, Mr. Minister, to bring to the attention of the chancellery near which you are accredited, the tenor of the present circular, and give it the publicity which the case requires.
I renew to you, Mr. Minister, on this occasion, the sentiments of my most distinguished consideration, (signed) D. S. Bustamante. To Mr. Eduardo Diez de Medina, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Bolivia, Washington, D. C.”
In carrying out the instructions received by me from the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of my country, I have the honor and pleasure to renew [etc.].
- See “Minutes and documents of the conferences of Paraguayan and Bolivian plenipotentiaries held in Buenos Aires under the auspices of the Argentine Government” in Proceedings of the Commission of Inquiry and Conciliation, Bolivia and Paraguay, March 18, 1929–September 18, 1929 (Washington [1929]), pp. 265 ff.; also, Foreign Relations, 1927, vol. i, pp. 315 ff., and ibid., 1928, vol. i, 673–678.↩
- Signed April 22, 1927; for text, see despatch No. 275, April 29, 1927, from the Chargé in Argentina, ibid., 1927, vol. i, p. 316.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1907, pt. 1, p. 87.↩
- Ibid., 1915, p. 33.↩
- See telegram No. 50, September 12, 1929, to the Chargé in Bolivia, ibid., 1929, vol. i, p. 860.↩
- For text of note of October 1, 1929, offering good offices to Bolivia and Paraguay, see circular telegram of September 23, 1929, 6 p.m., to the American diplomatic representatives in Bolivia and Paraguay, ibid., p. 903, and telegram No. 57, September 30, 1929, 10 a.m., to the Chargé in Bolivia, ibid., p. 905. For Bolivian reply of November 13, 1929, see telegram No. 85, November 15, 1929, 6 p.m., from the Chargé in Bolivia, ibid., p. 920.↩