Who Killed Che? by Michael Ratner and Michael Steven

[EFerrari]

Che and the CIA in Bolivia

Why did Che choose Bolivia? Landlocked, Bolivia was Latin America’s poorest, most illiterate, most rural and most Indian country. It was also the most unstable country in Latin America, having gone through more than 190 changes in government since it became an independent republic in 1825. Like Mexico in the years 1910 to 1920, and Cuba more recently, Bolivia was a Latin American country whose revolution in 1952 was based on popular participation. And, of course, Bolivia is a neighbor to Che’s home country of Argentina.

Constantio Apasa, a Bolivian tin miner, summed up the political situation in his country in the year that Che arrived: “When the MNR (Revolutionary Nationalist Movement) came to power in 1952, we felt it was a workers’ party and things would be different. But then the MNR politicians organized a secret police and filled their pockets. They rebuilt the army which we had destroyed, and when it got big enough, the army threw them out. Now the army has new weapons which we cannot match.” The 1964 military coup ended the MNR’s twelve-year reign. The military officers who now ran Bolivia were all U.S.-trained.

Che arrived in Bolivia via Uruguay in early November of 1966 disguised as a Uruguayan businessman. So deceptive was his appearance—shaved beard, horn-rimmed glasses, tailored bank suit—that Phil Agee, the CIA agent in Uruguay charged with finding Che and who would later quit the agency and become a supporter of the Cuban Revolution, wrote that Che easily avoided Uruguayan officials despite a warning leaflet Agee had prepared and passed out at the airport in Montevideo. In fact, Fidel told author Ignacio Ramonet that even Raul Castro failed to recognize Che upon meeting him before he left Cuba for Bolivia.

Che’s plan was to set up a camp for his guerrillas and, once they were trained, move his troops north to engage the weak Bolivian Army. On November 7, 1966, Che arrived at the guerrilla base on the Nacahuazu River in Bolivia. It is the first date in Che’s Bolivian Diary, and opens with: “Today begins a new phase. We arrived at the farm at night. The trip went quite well.” They were to train for approximately four months before engaging in battle. We have no U.S. government documents from roughly the day Che arrived in Bolivia until some four months later. It seems probable that the U.S. did not know his whereabouts during this time. We have used Che’s diary to fill in this gap.

http://www.guernicamag.com/features/3164/ratner_smith_10_15_11/

[Judi Lynn]

1. Extraordinary information, EFerrari. Thanks, so much for sharing this.

Saved it for future reference as soon as I finished reading it.

It was interesting hearing George H. W. Bush's personal "exile" pal, Felix Rodriguez, of Miami, came from an entire family of highly placed officials in Batista's government. It could make a maggot gag realizing how many of these Batista clowns picked up and moved only 90 miles away to continue exerting far more influence than appropriate in our own society.

How fortunate the Bolivian people are that the U.S. Embassy reconsidered the idea of transporting shipments of napalm to Bolivia to use against them as the 1965 U.S. golpista President Barriente struggled to keep all opposition among them against his fascist government suppressed.

Escuela de golpistas. It's time they all got out of town.

Thank you, very much.

[EFerrari]

2. It's a long slog but it looked too good to pass up. n/t

[dipsydoodle]

3. Ernesto in disguise

[CJvR]

4. This is a mystery?

The guy who pulled the trigger have spoken quite openly about it IIRC.