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.
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