ORDERS CAME DOWN...TO EXECUTE CHE"
[The following extracts are from an article about the death of Che Guevara which appeared in the October 20 issue of the reactionary Luce publication, Time magazine. ]
* * *
The Quebrada del Yuro, deep in the stifling Bolivian jungle seventy-five miles north of Camiri, is a steep and narrow ravine that is covered with dense foliage. There, early last week, two companies of Bolivian Rangers totaling more than 180 men split into two columns and quietly stalked a handful of guerrillas. Shortly after noon, the troops spotted their men, and both sides opened up with their rifles and automatic weapons at a withering point-blank range of 150 feet. After a lengthy fight, four Rangers and three guerrillas lay dead, and four other guerrillas had been captured.
One of the prisoners was no ordinary guerrilla. He was Ernesto ("Che") Guevara, thirty-nine, the elusive Marxist firebrand, guerrilla expert and former second in command to Fidel Castro whose name had become a legend after his disappearance from Cuba two and one-half years ago. Since that time, much of the world had thought Che dead (perhaps even at Castro's hands) until his presence in Bolivia was dramatically confirmed a short time ago....
Dressed in a dusty fatigue shirt, faded green trousers and lightweight high-top sandals, Che caught a bullet in his left thigh as he advanced toward the government troops; another bullet knocked his M-1 semiautomatic carbine right out of his hands. In Che's rucksack, the Rangers found a book entitled Essays on Contemporary Capitalism, several codes, two war diaries, some messages of support from "Ariel" -- apparently Castro -- and a personal notebook. "It seems," read one recent notebook entry in Che's tight, crisp handwriting, "that this is reaching the end."
At Quebrada del Yuro, Che was loaded onto a stretcher and carried five miles to the town of Higueras Informed of his capture, army leaders in La Paz, the capital, pondered what to do with hin. Since Bolivia has no death penalty, Che at worst, would go off to prison -- perhaps only after a long, noisy trial, a propaganda outcry from the whole Communist bloc and the threat that other guerrillas might streak into Bolivia and make a cause of him. The next day, orders came down to Higueras to execute Che. He was shot two hours later.
Strapped to the runner of a heli-
copter, Che's body was then flown to
Valle Grande, a dirt-poor, two-century-
old town of 7,000 people set in rolling
hills some 3,000-feet high. At the air-
port, it was loaded into a truck and
whisked down the narrow dirt and cobble-
stone streets to the town's Sefior de
Malta Hospital, run by German Dominican
sisters. There four men in white and a
nun went to work on Che, opening an in-
cision in his neck for embalming fluid
and washing his body. A man in civilian
clothes took his fingerprints. A medical
examination by Drs. Moisés Abraham and
José Martinez revealed that Che's body
had seven bullet wounds, including one
through the heart that killed him in-
stantly. "An interesting fact," said
Abraham, "is that his feet were very well
cared for."
.-With the body prepared, the
army permitted newsmen and thousands of
curious townfolk to file past for a
glimpse of the mysterious foreigner, laid
out atop a long concrete sink. into
the night, the quiet, stone-faced peas-—
ants continued past the body, shining
flashlights eerily into the dark, bearded,
open-eyed countenance. Even soldiers who
moved through the line stood and gaped
until a guard barked at them to move
along. Two days after his death, Che's
fingers were cut off for further finger-
printing, and his body was cremated -- an
unusual step in a Catholic country. The
ashes were then secretly disposed of.
As it had been with Che in life,
there was an air of mystery and confusion
about him in death. The army denied re-
ports of the execution; yet the doctors
who examined him claimed that Che had
died twenty-four hours after his capture.
With a bullet in his heart, he could never
have lived that long. Flying into Valle
Grande from La Paz, Armed Forces Chief
General Alfredo Ovando added to the con-
fusion by claiming that Che had said after
his capture: "I am Che. I have failed."
More likely, the cocky Che would have spit
defiance or, if too weak from the wounds,
simply remained silent.
Despite the army's clumsy handling
of the situation, few doubted that the
dead man was Che, and the sigh of relief
throughout Latin America was almost as
audible as a breeze whistling down from
the Andes. "Guevara's death," said Rio's
Jornal do Brasil, "is a dramatic warning
to the planners of systematic subversion
among us." In Camiri, where he is on
trial as a member of Che's guerrilla
band, French Marxist Régis Debray wept at
the news of Che's death. "I would like to
be at his side," he said, "and die with
hin.