The Death of Che Guevara Read Free Page A

leading his army of CIA-trained mercenaries (their symbol: the cross and the sword), overthrows the nationalist government of Guatemala. 1955 Batista, hoping to increase his popularity, establish some legitimacy, declares a general amnesty for political prisoners. Fidel Castro, a free man, goes to Mexico, Costa Rica, and the United States, to organize Cuban exiles and prepare an armed landing. In a suburban house near Mexico City, he meets an asthmatic Argentine doctor, Ernesto Guevara. They talk through the night. Peron bars Catholic education in the schools. He is excommunicated by the Pope. Peron signs an agreement with Standard Oil. Eva gone, and his economic programs in shambles, enthusiasm for Peron wanes in working-class quarters. They wish him well, but they do not wish to die for him. He is overthrown by the air force and the navy. Demonstrators for Peron in the public squares of Buenos Aires are bombed by air force planes. The Geneva Accords are signed, ending the fighting in Vietnam. The United States does not sign. Elections called for by the accords are never held. The United States establishes a puppet regime in Saigon. 1956 Fidel Castro, a bold man, announces in Mexico, “This year we will be free or else martyrs.” His boat, the
Granma
, leaves Mexico for Cuba, with eighty-two rebels aboard. To coincide with their landing, an armed rising is to be led by Frank Pais in Santiago. But the
Granma
is delayed by choppy seas. The rising in Santiago is put down. (“Put down”? And if one could find the words that would make so much death palpable? And to what end?) The rebels land, but they are betrayed by a guide and are surprised by the army in a sugar-cane field near Alegria de Pio. They are strafed from the air and the ground. Twelve men (or was it twenty? Mythology—or is it propaganda?—here has needs that long ago overwhelmed history) survive. The men, isolated, in small groups, lost, are helped by peasants, and make their way to the Sierra Maestra Mountains. There they are reunited with Castro. A few men, most of their weapons lost, wander in land barely known to them. “The days of the dictatorship,” Castro says, “arenumbered.” An uprising in the city of Budapest is crushed by the Soviet Army. 1957 Duvalier, a juju man, seizes power in Haiti. The Cuban guerrillas make successful attacks on the army barracks at La Plata, and at El Uvero. The army, the police, the militia arrest any suspected rebels throughout the island. The police shoot down Frank Pais on the streets of Santiago. A spontaneous strike is sparked by Pais’s death, paralyzing the western provinces of the island. Demonstrators and mourners at Pais’s funeral are machine-gunned by the army. Radicals leave the cities and make their way to join Castro in the mountains. Castro forms a second rebel column in the Sierras, under the command of Ernesto Guevara. The guerrillas declare El Hombrito, in the Sierras, a “free territory.” They decree a land reform for the region, set up a shoe “factory” to make boots for the peasants and soldiers, and they establish a radio station, a rebel newspaper, and a hospital. The urban resistance organizes a series of attacks on power plants and government buildings in Havana and Santiago. These urban rebels suffer heavy losses to the army and the police. More than twenty thousand will die during the Revolution. (In the Cuban Revolution death is in the cities.) 1958 The urban movement blows up the electric plant and the water works in Havana. Airport runways are cratered by rebel bombs. Raul Castro, with sixty-seven men, opens a second front in the northern provinces. Fidel Castro, an inspired leader, calls for a general strike in Havana. But the plans for the strike fall into government hands, and it is crushed, its leaders arrested and shot. Street battles break out in several towns throughout the island. The army begins a major offensive against the Sierra strongholds. (In a guerrilla war, one