THE GRAN CHACO

Hokitika Guardian, 21 December 1933, Page 5

THE GRAN CHACO

WARFARE CEASES

BOLIVIA-PARAGUAY ARMISTICE.

i United Press Association—-By Electriw luiegrapn—L op>n£iu,.j MONTEVIDEO, December 19. Along a tnree hundred mile front in tile sub-equatorial wilderness of Gran Chaco wliich Bolivia and Paraguay have been in dispute for more tiian fifty years, the bring ceased at midnight on Tuesday as the result of an armistice, which will be effective until the end of the year. At the Pan-American Congress here, the Paraguayan delegation proposed the armistice to refer the dispute- to arbitration, to which Bolivia agreed.

In tile last seventeen months one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers have batfled in the Gran Chaco. Tjhirtiy thomUn-d have died, )niuJ twenty thousand have been taken prisoners, while there were unnumbered thousands of casualties from bullets, dysentery, scurvy an dtyphoid.

As the truce is being arranged by the'League of Nations a Commission is being named to effect peace with the backing of President Gabriel At« erra, of Uruguay, and those PanAmerican Republics whose delegates are now in session here, Expressions of the deepest joy are voiced on all sides. Bolivia and Paraguay, through their representatives, have agreed with the Pan-American nations in the major objective that peace must be the permanent termination of the dispute.