The struggle between the Conventionalists headed by Villa and the Constitutionalists under Carranza plunged Mexico into worse discord and misery than ever. Indeed it became a sort of three-cornered contest. The third party was Emiliano Zapata, an Indian bandit, nominally a supporter of Villa but actually favorable to neither of the rivals. Operating near the capital, he plundered Conventionalists and Constitutionalists with equal impartiality, and as a diversion occasionally occupied the city itself. These circumstances gave force to the saying that Mexico was a "land where peace breaks out once in a while!" Early in 1915 Carranza proceeded to issue a number of radical decrees that exasperated foreigners almost beyond endurance. Rather than resort to extreme measures again, however, the United States invoked the cooperation of the Hispanic republics and proposed a conference to devise some solution of the Mexican problem. To give the proposed conference a wider representation, it invited not only the "A B C" powers, but Bolivia, Uruguay, and Guatemala to participate. Meeting at Washington in August, the mediators encountered the same difficulty which had confronted their predecessors at Niagara Falls. Though the other chieftains assented, Carranza, now certain of success, declined to heed any proposal of conciliation. Characterizing efforts of the kind as an unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of a sister nation, he warned the Hispanic republics against setting up so dangerous a precedent. In reply Argentina stated that the conference obeyed a "lofty inspiration of Pan-American solidarity, and, instead of finding any cause for alarm, the Mexican people should see in it a proof of their friendly consideration that her fate evokes in us, and calls forth our good wishes for her pacification and development." However, as the only apparent escape from more watchful waiting or from armed intervention on the part of the United States, in October the seven Governments decided to accept the facts as they stood, and accordingly recognized Carranza as the de facto ruler of Mexico.