The Death of Che Guevara

by Jay Cantor

  WOLFE: But the war you speak of means that many of those miners won’t live till thirty, or twenty-five or even fifteen. And many of their wives and children will die as well.

  GUEVARA: The struggle will be long and difficult. But none of us should hesitate to offer the necessary sacrifice. If we fight here, and in Asia, and in Africa, we will win. The Revolution will be continental. All of Latin America will rise against the United States. And then the Revolution will become worldwide. The people of the Third World do not want to die. But they do want to live freely, and with dignity.

  WOLFE: The War in Vietnam has shown that the United States, too, is willing to make sacrifices. They will not allow the victory of a Communist Revolution. Bad as you say things are here, they could be far worse. Now the people have potatoes and beans. They work. They read the newspapers. You know what I mean: they’re alive!

  GUEVARA: They read the newspapers! I can see that that would seem a supreme pleasure to a journalist. But seventy percent of the Bolivian people can’t read. In any case, the United States can’t kill all of us. They aren’t all-powerful. The world situation, the balance of powers, means that they cannot use their nuclear weapons. People’s war will defeat them. The Vietnamese are teaching us that. We must not abandon Vietnam. We must fight alongside it. The revolution will be on three continents. It isn’t in the interest of the United States to fight all the world’s people. Such a war cannot be won. It would drain them of their sons and their resources. Such a war would barbarize their country. The people of the United States would not accept it. If their rulers demand it, then they will rise against those rulers.

  WOLFE: YOU have great faith in the people of the United States.

  GUEVARA: (No response.)

  WOLFE: But isn’t there some other way, some way of less violence for our continent, less suffering and death?

  GUEVARA: No. The imperialists will not allow any other way.

  WOLFE: But who are you, who is any man, to choose this for our people, this magnitude of suffering?

  GUEVARA: We do not choose it for them. We begin the struggle, and so show the way the fight must be carried out. We offer it to the people. If the people do not join their efforts to ours then we will not win. But they will, and we will win. Right now the people of Bolivia suffer history. We will give them the chance to become agents of history, actors. We perform the actions that history demands of those who would step on to its stage.

  WOLFE: HOW can you say that “history” demands anything? Don’t you interpret “history” as if it were an oracle, a god? Isn’t it you that demands?

  GUEVARA: (NO response.)

  WOLFE: Comandante Guevara, perhaps you would like to explain why, at the last moment, when you were surrounded in the Churo ravine and you asked for volunteers to cover your retreat, and all the men volunteered, you chose, among others, Inti Peredo, whom you thought the best of the Bolivians, destined to lead the war of national liberation here, and Walter Villamil Tulio, captain in the Cuban Army, a very decent fellow, your closest friend, and the man who loved you most in the entire world?

  GUEVARA: (NO response.)

  WOLFE: Isn’t it true that in the terrible violence that you are now engaged in, you do the very things you say you’re fighting against? After all, I’ve been with the Bolivian soldiers. They are just young men who couldn’t get any other work. They are terrified. They don’t want to die. And they aren’t the imperialists.

  GUEVARA: You are right. They are only the unknowing agents of imperialism. But we must first kill the specters of imperialism, so that the United States will then be forced to send its own soldiers, as they have in Vietnam. We will defeat them as well.

  WOLFE: You kill as the army does. And in your book on guerrilla warfare you speak of the necessity of using terror against the countrypeople, to keep them from aiding the opposition.

  GUEVARA: Their terror and our violence are not the same thing. Our violence will help the countrypeople shake off their passivity; it shows them that they might act. The army, on the other hand, mean to terrify the peasantry, to keep them from acting, to turn them to stone.

  And no countryperson would help the army of his own free will. We must at least warn them not to cooperate with their oppressors.

  WOLFE: That is not very clear to me, Comandante. I think it means that you both threaten the peasants.

  GUEVARA: We didn’t construct this situation, Mr. Wolfe, but we must all live in it. We are none of us bad enough for this world. Our movement thinks this: If we are to win our liberation we must make ourselves into killing machines. Effective, violent, selective, and cold killing machines.

  WOLFE: My God, that’s monstrous! Can you hear what you’re saying?

  GUEVARA: It is the image of what’s necessary. We are trying to become what History calls for. It has been very good speaking with you, Mr. Wolfe. Here is the communique you promised to distribute for us, and the two colleagues, fellow journalists like yourself, who are most anxious to leave with you. Good-bye, and you may leave whatever way seems best to you. We must continue our march.

  STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY OF BOLIVIA

  Our national resources have served, and are still serving, to make foreigners rich, leaving us Bolivians a terrible wound in our side, and the worm of hunger gnawing at our guts. This is why we fight, and why we ask you to join us. Our country or death!

  I found my talk with Wolfe—empty though it was—enjoyable. As for the content of the thing:

  GUEVARA: Exploited masses Class struggle Imperialism Armed struggle Historical conditions Liberation Violence

  WOLFE: Conscience Sadness The Cruelty of the World The Vale of Tears Pity The Human Condition Misery Horror

  It wasn’t much! But I cannot argue with my comrades, cannot talk even that freely with them. I can only listen and give orders. (The distance between me and the men is, of course, now a tool of my work.) And the peasants evade and look down; they cannot really talk to us yet. When they have sometimes spoken it has been, so far, shameful nonsense. In time, of course, our victories will change them, and they will have the courage to argue with us. But for now I am surrounded by silence.

  Wolfe reported that Muyupampa, too, has soldiers in it. Debray was informed—for it may increase the risk to him—but he insisted on making his departure. Very well!

  I am left with one troubling thought: how had Wolfe known, several months ago, before we were established, long before a battle where I carefully did not show myself, that I was the commander of the guerrillas, a celebrity worth the trip to speak with? Even Monje would not have known. I must interrogate Tania when we rejoin Joaquin.

  We will move back north, towards Joaquin’s group and the rendezvous.

  • • •

  5/10/67: The scouts report troops in almost every direction. We cannot remain in the appointed area.

  5/12/67: The army, without knowing the trouble it causes us, has pushed us north, towards Ticucha and El Meson.

  5/13/67: Shortly after we set up camp near El Meson, a column of sixty-five soldiers was spotted, and I ordered an ambush put near the river. The advance column of the army was led by a man with two bloodhounds. I shot at the first and missed. Inti fired and killed the guard and a dog. I immediately ordered a retreat, and as we withdrew the army exchanged fire with us. Rolando was fatally wounded.

  Poem for Rolando? Rolando, carrying his father’s table on his back, fleeing Batista’s army. “Between them and you,” he had said, “things can’t get any worse.”

  From My Journal

  5/13/67: A story about Rolando? His small slim body reminds me of children’s stories. Once upon a time …

  From Coco’s Journal

  5/13/67: Rolando, wounded in the neck, died. I liked him best of the Cubans. Besides Che, of course. But I admire Che rather than like him. It’s a different feeling.

  From Guevara’s Journal

  5/14/67: The smell of the soldier’s blood marks our location. We
will have to leave completely the area where we were to rejoin Joaquin. We will move back towards the Nancahuazu camp. The army patrols and staging areas will force Joaquin back in that direction as well.

  5/15/67: We have continued moving north, looking for signs of Joaquin’s group, but without success. It has been slow going. For the last two days we have been short of water. Game in the area is scant. Today Inti killed a big black bird: thereby we shall save supplies. There is a reserve now for two days: dehydrated soup and canned meat.

  I recorded a message from Fidel and have laboriously replayed the tape for decoding. The message: “Kolle, speaking for the Bolivian Party, said that Monje had confused the Party’s Central Committee by saying that the operation was only on a national scale. I made clear the continental dimensions of the struggle, and the strategic place of Bolivia. Kolle asked to speak with you, to discuss their participation in the operation. He seemed staggered by the idea of a continental movement. He leaves immediately for the zone. I think something can be done. He wants economic aid to pay for training for his cadres.”

  I talked over this latest development with the men. Our victories, I said, are having an effect. But it is deeds that matter from the Party, not words.

  Inti is skeptical that there will ever be deeds. He thinks the Party is only interested in Fidel’s money, and that they will never make contact with us, blaming circumstances.

  Time will tell.

  5/17/67: Today Monje was interviewed on Chilean radio. Coexistence, he said, is for the United States and the Soviet Union. Thermonuclear powers must avoid war. But Communists must not give up on the war against imperialism within our countries. That is why the Bolivian Party gives its wholehearted support to the guerrilla movement in Bolivia.

  Inti now doubts his own skepticism. And Coco thinks we should choose someone to return to the city, contact the Party, and arrange for incorporating their cadres.

  That, I said, is impossible. It would be certain death for the messenger, and too great a risk for the rest of us if he fell into the enemy’s unkind hands.

  I cannot have the men dreaming of a possible escape into the cities for any of us. They must realize that we stand or fall together now; here; there is no life for any of us outside the Revolution. Victory or death.

  From Coco’s Journal

  5/18/67: There was nothing to eat today except some lard-flavored water. We sat in the darkness of the forest, listening to the radio and drinking the stuff. Barrientos admitted that there are Yanqui advisers. The Chilean station said that the guerrillas are forcing the cities to take defensive measures. The U.S. has sent more helicopters, napalm, planes, arms, and another contingent of Green Beret advisers.

  Che was pleased by this, and of course I am too. I guess we are doing very well. But all those weapons! I saw the forest in flames and helicopters landing on the road near here, and I was scared.

  From Guevara’s Journal

  5/9/67: The men showed me—by their slow pace, slumped shoulders—their reluctance about walking today. There hasn’t been enough food for the machete wielders, and none at all for the rest of us. The solution is to set a better example.

  René Doré has been arrested. The radio said that Doré was a mastermind of the revolution, a bloodthirsty guerrilla who led many ambushes against the Bolivian Army. A thoroughly bad character, Doré, in Cuba, had feasted on delicacies while Guevara directed mass executions in the Havana city square—for Doré’s amusement, presumably.

  “A movie villain,” Inti said.

  “No,” Ponco said, “more like a comic book.” As an illiterate Walter loved cartoons. They were his only stories.

  “I can’t go any farther,” Benigno said, indifferent to the proper medium for my portrayal. He has to carry one of the heavy guns.

  Doré, the radio said, was captured in the woods as he hid trembling behind a tree. Bustos, too, was arrested, and Wolfe. As it turned out, then, it was the army that no longer believed in Wolfe’s credentials. But he at least will soon be released.

  How did they know about Bustos and Debray so immediately?

  5/20/67: Nothing to eat today but more lard soup—without the additional beans. We are nearing one of the food caches. The situation will indeed be desperate if the army has discovered our supply caves.

  5/21/67: Doré became Debray today. In the last two days he has been transformed from co-leader to political commissar to intellectual author of the guerrilla movement—to mere combatant. Today, along with his proper name, he assumed his real position: courier. It is easy to imagine that each of these demotions represented many hours of the torturer’s work, beatings, bullets fired in the dark, electrodes on Regis’s genitals, etc. I heard Ricardo elaborating some of these educational methods to his group, to add emphasis to my points about the necessity for cohesion and the dangers of falling into army hands.

  In Debray’s case the torturers failed, for they must have begun with the grand story they wanted, and revised only very reluctantly, marking the revisions on Debray’s body. The admission they desired was that he, and we, are Castro’s agents. Debray denies all still, and says that he was a reporter. By now he is probably in a coma from his beatings.

  Our messages to Fidel, about the Bolivian Party—and the ways, under his supervision, that they must show their good faith by resupplying us—are lost.

  5/22/67: Bear Camp, Nancahuazu. The army had been to the camp, which gave us some bad moments. Their footprints were everywhere. The board for the latrine had been smashed, and the cooking site covered with dirt. As I walked through the camp I could feel the emptiness form in my stomach.

  But the caches were untouched! We had eight cans of milk—a stunningly good breakfast. And we ate the last of the dehydrated soup, and the canned meats. We have still more lard in the caves.

  Tuma, our scout, reports that the soldiers have occupied the little farm and trampled the corn.

  From Coco’s Journal

  5/23/67: A small patrol of about twelve soldiers came down the river, picking their way among the rocks, and fell into our ambush. Marcos shot the lieutenant, and we all called for their surrender, but they went on firing. I shot one of the soldiers, who fell on the rocks, and then rolled into the river. Most of the soldiers ran away, but six were captured by the rear guard of the ambush, as they ran directly towards our guns. One of them fell on the rocks as he tried to escape, and he broke his leg.

  We assembled our prisoners near the river. “Let’s not fuck around with them this time,” Ricardo said. “Let’s just kill them.” I don’t think he was serious. He asked the major what his last wish was. The major spat near Ricardo’s foot. I thought Ricardo would hit him, but he just laughed and touched the spit with his boot, rubbing it along the gray-and-brown rock.

  “I want my body to be given to my men to bury,” the major said. The major had a broad face. His nose looked out of joint, like a brawler’s. “So that it can be taken back for a Christian burial.”

  Ricardo stopped smiling. He doesn’t like to talk about Christianity. “Why do you say that’s all you want? Are you an idiot? You look like an idiot.”

  “I don’t want the same thing to happen to my body that happened to my dead comrades.” The major seemed very angry. I suppose that was what he did with his fear.

  Ricardo was too furious to speak, so I told the major that he was wrong, that the unburied bodies weren’t our fault. We had made it very clear to the officers that they could come back the next day, unmolested, to get the men’s bodies. But the officers had left their men to rot.

  I said this loudly so the other prisoners would hear.

  “You are savages,” the major said, just as if I hadn’t spoken. He was making me angry, too. I saw how he must have gotten into a lot of fights.

  “You’re a lucky man,” Marcos said. Marcos was covered with sweat from the battle. He perspires more than the rest of us, and he has to wipe himself dry or he breaks out into a bright rash. “In the Congo, when the gue
rrillas kill an enemy, they rip open the skin of the dead man’s chest with their long knives. And they pluck out the nut, the man’s heart. Then they eat it. Perhaps, if you aren’t more polite, we’ll let our Congolese friend work on you.” He gestured towards Ponco, who stood on one of the rocks by the river, smiling in the sunlight. “Do you have your long knife, Ponco?”

  “You betcha Ponco have long knife,” Ponco said, dancing from foot to foot gleefully. “Man look very good. Very good fruit for Mponco. He skin and eat mighty quick now!”

  “You disgust me,” the major said to Marcos. But his voice had the jitters. It was obviously a joke—or so I thought—but Ponco’s performance had scared him. I think it must have been that very strange sound Ponco makes.

  “You not disgust Mr. Ponco,” Ponco said, smiling with delight. “Delicious Thing You Are.” He walked across the rocks to the major, batting his eyelashes. This was too much for the major, who took a step backward, and started to fall from his rock. Marcos grabbed him by the shoulder, and the major screamed at his touch—a little high-pitched sound. Everyone laughed at him. Ponco then talked to the other prisoners in an ordinary way, about troop locations, and began collecting the food from their knapsacks. I think they liked the way we had made a fool of their major.

  Later I asked Ponco whether what Marcos had said about the Congo was true. He said yes, that the Congolese soldiers did sometimes eat the dead mercenaries’ hearts. Che had been horrified, of course, and tried to teach them better manners—to show more respect for the dead. But the Congo people said that their way showed the most respect. They didn’t waste anything—they acquired the soldier’s courage by eating his heart. If you ate a lot of hearts you were sure to become a great warrior.