24 July 1997 Edition
Bloody career of Che's captor
The last photograph taken of Ernesto `Che' Guevara while he was still alive shows him surrounded by a number of his Bolivian army captors. The picture was taken on October 9, 1967, a matter of hours before Guevara was executed.
Che Guevara and a number of other guerrillas had been captured the previous day by the Bolivian army. The decision to execute him was taken early on October 9 and it appears his would-be executioners were anxious that their successful apprehension of Latin America's most celebrated guerrilla leader be recorded for posterity. Hence the photograph. Hours later, Che Guevara - and three Cubans captured with him - was executed by a Bolivian army officer, after lots had been drawn among the captors. The bodies were then secreted in a clandestine grave. In order to frustrate future identification Guevara's hands were amputated. However earlier this year, thirty years of persistent searching finally yielded the location of Guevara's secret grave and his remains were flown home to Cuba.
However Guevara was not the only individual of note pictured in that last, famous photograph. Also captured on film was one Felix Rodriguez, a Cuban exile in the employ of the CIA. In fact, Mr Rodriguez had a rather unhappy talent for turning up in some of Washington' most squalid little plots, before and after 1967.
Eight years previously, in 1959, at about the same time as the Cuban revolutionary forces under the command of Fidel Castro, Camillo Cienfuegos and Ernesto `Che' Guevara were entering Havana, the entire extended family of Felix Rodriguez was beating its own hasty exit. As Rodriguez' uncle had been the Minister for Public Works in the Batista regime, it was considered politic for the family to abandon Cuba. In exile in the United States, Felix Rodriguez sought revenge by joining forces with the coalition of right-wing Cubans and CIA operatives then planning the overthrow of the Revolution.
In 1961, the coalition's plot bore fruit in the Bay of Pigs invasion. As the invasion commenced Rodriguez was in Havana (at the behest of the CIA) directing a campaign of sabotage, and laying plans for an expected popular uprising. However the only uprising that materialised was that directed against the invasion forces.
After 72 hours, the offensive collapsed in ignominious defeat. Rodriguez was forced to seek refuge in the Venezuelan Embassy. His safe passage was only secured after four months of diplomatic negotiations. Rodriguez then moved to Nicaragua, where the Somoza regime was only too happy to provide support and cover for the CIA's extensive campaign of economic sabotage against Cuba. With his aid and direction, the CIA sought to cripple the Cuban economy. Civilian ships carrying supplies to and from Cuba were sunk; crops and livestock destroyed by the introduction of diseases and poisons; factories blown up and power supplies cut.
In 1967, Rodriguez was dispatched to Bolivia when it was discovered that Che Guevara had chosen it as the base for his attempt to foment a guerrilla movement that would spread throughout Latin America and wrest the region from the neo-colonial control of the United States. Rodriguez was thus present at Guevara's execution and would have given that decision the imprimatur of the CIA. In addition he helped create and maintain, for many years afterwards, the fiction that Guevara had, quite legitimately, been killed in a gunbattle. In the aftermath of Che Guevara's murder, Washington's quite blatant but officially covert war against Cuba, was largely wound down in favour of a comprehensive economic blockade, which continues to this day. Felix, presumably, busied himself with propping up disreputable regimes elsewhere in Latin America.
However, in 1986, he was once again deeply enmeshed in another of Washington's sordid little schemes. This particular plot was later to become publicly infamous as the Iran-Contra Affair. According to the testimony of a former `accountant' and money-launderer for Colombia's Medellin cartel, Felix was the bagman for $10 million `donated' by the cartel to Washington's proxy army in Nicaragua, the Contras. The Medellin money-man (currently serving a 43 year sentence in a US jail) says that Felix approached the cartel for finance. Felix reputedly told him that he was working directly for then vice-president, George Bush. Following (half-hearted) attempts to frustrate their efforts to undermine Nicaragua's democratically-elected government, various powers within the Washington establishment embarked on their own scheme to finance the Contras by other means.
This resulted in drug money being filtered to the Contras and, it is repeatedly claimed, drugs being sold on their behalf in the US. The proceeds were then used to buy arms.
Indeed, one journalist who investigated the Medellin cartel has suggested that the US helped the cartel cultivate and process heroin in Colombia, for export to the US and elsewhere, in order to finance their private war. Heroin is a far more lucrative drug than cocaine. Felix Rodriguez, says the Medellin informant, acted as George Bush's linkman in the process. It is also claimed that Rodriguez was simultaneously organising illegal arms shipments for the Contras, from a base in El Salvador, with the help of Mike Harari, a former Israeli intelligence officer who was then a key aide to Panamanian leader, General Noriega.
In 1986, the cover on Washington's dirty war in Nicaragua was partially blown following the shooting down of a plane carrying supplies to the Contras, by the Nicaraguan army. The plane contained a wealth of incriminating documents and a US pilot, Eugene Hasenfus. According to evidence later unearthed by US investigators, Felix Rodriguez reacted to the news by telephoning a senior member of George Bush's staff. The vice-president later admitted to three meetings between Rodriguez and himself. George Bush went on become president of the US. Felix Rodriguez is believed to have retired following the Iran-Contra scandal. Meanwhile, in Cuba earlier this month Guevara's remains and those of the three Cubans murdered with him were officially brought home. In October of this year, on the thirtieth anniversary of his death, the remains of Ernesto Che Guevara will be officially interred in a specially-constructed mausoleum in the city of Santa Clara, 200 miles from Havana.
Thirty years on, the decision to murder him appears to have backfired badly.
Che Guevara and a number of other guerrillas had been captured the previous day by the Bolivian army. The decision to execute him was taken early on October 9 and it appears his would-be executioners were anxious that their successful apprehension of Latin America's most celebrated guerrilla leader be recorded for posterity. Hence the photograph. Hours later, Che Guevara - and three Cubans captured with him - was executed by a Bolivian army officer, after lots had been drawn among the captors. The bodies were then secreted in a clandestine grave. In order to frustrate future identification Guevara's hands were amputated. However earlier this year, thirty years of persistent searching finally yielded the location of Guevara's secret grave and his remains were flown home to Cuba.
However Guevara was not the only individual of note pictured in that last, famous photograph. Also captured on film was one Felix Rodriguez, a Cuban exile in the employ of the CIA. In fact, Mr Rodriguez had a rather unhappy talent for turning up in some of Washington' most squalid little plots, before and after 1967.
Eight years previously, in 1959, at about the same time as the Cuban revolutionary forces under the command of Fidel Castro, Camillo Cienfuegos and Ernesto `Che' Guevara were entering Havana, the entire extended family of Felix Rodriguez was beating its own hasty exit. As Rodriguez' uncle had been the Minister for Public Works in the Batista regime, it was considered politic for the family to abandon Cuba. In exile in the United States, Felix Rodriguez sought revenge by joining forces with the coalition of right-wing Cubans and CIA operatives then planning the overthrow of the Revolution.
In 1961, the coalition's plot bore fruit in the Bay of Pigs invasion. As the invasion commenced Rodriguez was in Havana (at the behest of the CIA) directing a campaign of sabotage, and laying plans for an expected popular uprising. However the only uprising that materialised was that directed against the invasion forces.
After 72 hours, the offensive collapsed in ignominious defeat. Rodriguez was forced to seek refuge in the Venezuelan Embassy. His safe passage was only secured after four months of diplomatic negotiations. Rodriguez then moved to Nicaragua, where the Somoza regime was only too happy to provide support and cover for the CIA's extensive campaign of economic sabotage against Cuba. With his aid and direction, the CIA sought to cripple the Cuban economy. Civilian ships carrying supplies to and from Cuba were sunk; crops and livestock destroyed by the introduction of diseases and poisons; factories blown up and power supplies cut.
In 1967, Rodriguez was dispatched to Bolivia when it was discovered that Che Guevara had chosen it as the base for his attempt to foment a guerrilla movement that would spread throughout Latin America and wrest the region from the neo-colonial control of the United States. Rodriguez was thus present at Guevara's execution and would have given that decision the imprimatur of the CIA. In addition he helped create and maintain, for many years afterwards, the fiction that Guevara had, quite legitimately, been killed in a gunbattle. In the aftermath of Che Guevara's murder, Washington's quite blatant but officially covert war against Cuba, was largely wound down in favour of a comprehensive economic blockade, which continues to this day. Felix, presumably, busied himself with propping up disreputable regimes elsewhere in Latin America.
However, in 1986, he was once again deeply enmeshed in another of Washington's sordid little schemes. This particular plot was later to become publicly infamous as the Iran-Contra Affair. According to the testimony of a former `accountant' and money-launderer for Colombia's Medellin cartel, Felix was the bagman for $10 million `donated' by the cartel to Washington's proxy army in Nicaragua, the Contras. The Medellin money-man (currently serving a 43 year sentence in a US jail) says that Felix approached the cartel for finance. Felix reputedly told him that he was working directly for then vice-president, George Bush. Following (half-hearted) attempts to frustrate their efforts to undermine Nicaragua's democratically-elected government, various powers within the Washington establishment embarked on their own scheme to finance the Contras by other means.
This resulted in drug money being filtered to the Contras and, it is repeatedly claimed, drugs being sold on their behalf in the US. The proceeds were then used to buy arms.
Indeed, one journalist who investigated the Medellin cartel has suggested that the US helped the cartel cultivate and process heroin in Colombia, for export to the US and elsewhere, in order to finance their private war. Heroin is a far more lucrative drug than cocaine. Felix Rodriguez, says the Medellin informant, acted as George Bush's linkman in the process. It is also claimed that Rodriguez was simultaneously organising illegal arms shipments for the Contras, from a base in El Salvador, with the help of Mike Harari, a former Israeli intelligence officer who was then a key aide to Panamanian leader, General Noriega.
In 1986, the cover on Washington's dirty war in Nicaragua was partially blown following the shooting down of a plane carrying supplies to the Contras, by the Nicaraguan army. The plane contained a wealth of incriminating documents and a US pilot, Eugene Hasenfus. According to evidence later unearthed by US investigators, Felix Rodriguez reacted to the news by telephoning a senior member of George Bush's staff. The vice-president later admitted to three meetings between Rodriguez and himself. George Bush went on become president of the US. Felix Rodriguez is believed to have retired following the Iran-Contra scandal. Meanwhile, in Cuba earlier this month Guevara's remains and those of the three Cubans murdered with him were officially brought home. In October of this year, on the thirtieth anniversary of his death, the remains of Ernesto Che Guevara will be officially interred in a specially-constructed mausoleum in the city of Santa Clara, 200 miles from Havana.
Thirty years on, the decision to murder him appears to have backfired badly.