724.3415/2341: Telegram
The Bolivian Minister for Foreign Affairs (Gutiérrez) to the Chairman of the Commission of Neutrals (White)
[Received 9:30 p.m.]
198. My Government replies to the cabled notes of the Commission of Neutrals dated the 22nd and 23rd of this month in the following explanatory terms: in view of the urgency with which the neutrals requested the cessation of hostilities Bolivia agreed to suspend them on the following day at a set hour provided that Paraguay also agreed and that the said agreement be communicated to her on the same day. The neutrals observed that such suspension should be in the whole Chaco and not only in the Boquerón sector and that moreover it should be integrated with the immediate initiation of negotiations by means of an arbitration without reservations. Bolivia spoke of the Boquerón sector and its vicinity because that is where a combat is now taking place, understanding that in the rest of the Chaco there were no hostilities to suspend. In the explanation which she formulated on the same date, the 23rd, through her Minister in Washington68 she stated that the suspension would naturally include the whole Chaco, an explanation of which the neutrals had cognizance. As to the delegation which the neutrals would send to the Chaco to verify the actual termination of hostilities my Government has already stated its opinion in note dated 18th. Bolivia calls attention to the fact that at no time has she demanded impossible conditions for the cessation of hostilities showing herself always disposed, once hostilities were suspended, to take steps for a basic arrangement or an arbitration. The conditions previous that have stood in the way of the armistice have not come from her. Thus it is that in the latest cablegrams the requirement to submit beforehand to an arbitration without reservations is one of those requirements which hinder agreement and which therefore favor the prolongation of hostilities.