The CIA against Che E-Book

Adys Cupull

• Herausgeber: RUTH
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 516

Beschreibung

Testimonials, documents, accounts and analyses that reveal the role of the CIA in the assassination of Commander Ernesto Guevara and his guerrilla comrades in Bolivia, as well as the role of the US Embassy and the United States. With amazing accuracy they reconstruct the combat at Quebrada del Yuro, Che's last hours, the possible burial sites and the repercussions of his death, the hazardous journey of his diary until it reached diary, and the legacy of this extraordinary man.

Leseprobe

Original title: The CIA against Che

Translation: Germán Piniella Sardiñas

Editing: Jacinto Valdés-Dapena 

Cover design: Eugenio Sagués Díaz 

Composition: Zoe Cesar Cardoso 

© Adys Cupull y Froilán González, 2013

© On the present edition: Editorial Capitán San Luis, 2013

ISBN: 978-959-211-432-6

No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means,electronic, reprographic, or otherwise, or transmitted through either public borrowing or rental, without the prior written permission of the Copyright owners. Details of licenses for reproduction may be; obtained from CEDRO (Centro Español de Derechos Reprográficos, www.cedro.org) or www.conlicencia.com.

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To Commanders Ernesto Che Guevara,

Inti and Coco Peredo and to the Bolivians, Peruvians and Cubans of the Ñacahuasú Guerrilla.

To Tania, Imilla and Maya.

To Jenny Koeller and Elmo Catalán, whose lives were cut short as the work that was dreamed and begun.

To Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.

To Benjo Cruz and the Teoponte guerrillas.

To Fathers Luis Espinal and Mauricio Lefebre, priests that were murdered for practicing true Christianism in the service of Bolivia’s dispossessed.

To the young Bolivians massacred in 10, Harrington St, La Paz.

THE CIA AND THE US EMBASSY TAKE ACTION AGAINST THE GUERRILLA MOVEMENT IN BOLIVIA

The CIA and the US embassy take action against the guerrilla movement in Bolivia

The National Liberation Army of Bolivia is born

The National Liberation Army of Bolivia is born

On November 3, 1966, Commander Ernesto Che Guevara de la Serna arrived in La Paz, the capital city of Bolivia, with a passport issued in Montevideo in the name of Adolfo Mena González, a Uruguayan national. He was also carrying credentials signed and stamped by the head of the Office of the Presidency of Bolivia’s National Information Department, Gonzalo López Muñoz, identifying the bearer as a special envoy of the Organization of American States (OAS) commissioned to perform a study and to gather information on the economic and social relations that prevailed in the Bolivian countryside.

Next day he met with Iván, codename for a member of the urban network whose true identity has not yet been revealed. Acting on Che’s instructions, Iván had settled in Bolivia as a prosperous businessman, using the ID of a person who had agreed to stay underground so long as the mission lasted. Iván had been trained in surveillance and countersurveillance techniques, data collection and reporting methods, counterintelligence, visual surveillance, security measures, radio communications, coding and decoding, and invisible ink.

In La Paz, Iván started carrying out underground and compartmentalized activities and on November 4, 1966, he established secret contacts with Alberto Fernández Montes de Oca, codename Pacho, at El Prado Restaurant, located on El Prado Boulevard, half a block from the centric Copacabana Hotel. Through Pacho, Che scheduled a meeting with Iván for 8 p.m. at a safe house where he debriefed him regarding the work he had done so far and gave him new instructions.

On the night of the 5th, Che left for Ñacahuasú where he arrived late on the night of the 7th. Iván was to remain in La Paz pending the arrival of other comrades whom he had to take to safe houses. After that, other members of the urban network would take care of them, ensuring their protection and transportation to the guerrilla area. Each traveled along previously established routes using specific means of transportation with utmost secrecy.

The last guerrillas to arrive in La Paz were Jesús Suárez Gayol, codenameEl Rubio,(Blond) and Antonio Sánchez Díaz, codenameMarcos,who were taken to Ñacahuasú by Iván himself. At the guerrilla camp, Che met with Iván, gave him new instructions and agreed to his request to marry a Bolivian girl he had fallen for. She was the daughter of a renowned politician, a member of the National Parliament and a close friend of President René Barrientos Ortuño, who was his business partner and a frequent visitor. The girl’s father wanted Iván to establish links with the Bolivian president with the aim of developing an agricultural project in the department of Beni, an important area where Che was planning to open a guerrilla center. Ivan’s relations with the family would allow him to make friends in military circles and visit various barracks.

The group of Cubans and most of the Bolivians finally got together on December 31. During that period, Che met with members of the urban support network: Rodolfo Saldaña, Loyola Guzmán, Julio Dagnino Pacheco, Sánchez, Iván, and Tamara Bunke Bider (Tania). He also held a meeting with Juan Pablo Chang-Navarro, a Peruvian known as El Chino (the Chinaman); Moisés Guevara, leader of the miners, and Mario Monje, Secretary General of the Bolivian Communist Party (PCB).

Meanwhile, the members of the guerrilla group went on treks, explorations, and reconnaissance trips to get acquainted with the terrain. They set up and organized camps, built tunnels and conditioned caves, set up the radio equipment, opened an observatory, dug trenches, assigned operators to the different posts, studied Quechua and carried out defense drills. These preparations took up all their time until January 31, 1967.

On February 1st, they began exploring up to the Grande, Masicuri and Rosita Rivers and the Tatareada area with the purpose of familiarizing themselves with the terrain. This gave them a chance to get more rigorous training, and also to analyze the possibilities of organizing peasants into groups and of establishing contact with them.

During the period when Che and the guerrilla group went exploring, two members deserted. On March 11, Vicente Rocabado Terrazas and Pastor Barrera Quintana, two of the men who had arrived on February 14, abandoned the group. They went to the 4th Army Division, stationed at the town of Camiri and provided the Bolivian army and its intelligence services with detailed information, the first indication of Che’s presence in Ñacahuasú along with Bolivian, Cuban and Peruvian guerrillas. They also mentioned Tania, Frenchman Regis Debray, Argentine Ciro Roberto Bustos and Peruvian Juan Pablo Chang-Navarro. They led the army, first by air and then by land, to the camps that had been set up. Some time later, it became known that Vicente Rocabado had worked for the secret police and for army intelligence.

Right after the army was tipped off by the deserters, President René Barrientos Ortuño immediately called on the US for assistance and coordinated with the intelligence services of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Paraguay.

On March 17, guerrilla Salustio Choque Choque was taken prisoner while carrying a message. Several days later, the US military attaché in Bolivia, Colonel Milton Buls, CIA Station Chief John Tilton, officer Edward N. Fogler, and a Cuban-born agent known as Eduardo González, traveled to Camiri to question the two deserters and the prisoner.

Despite all the information in the hands of the army and the CIA, the first military clash took place on March 23 with catastrophic results for the Bolivian army: the guerrillas occupied the enemy 3 mortars with 64 shells, 2 bazookas, 16 Mauser rifles with 2,000 rounds, 3 Uzi submachine guns with 2 clips each, a .30 caliber machine gun with two ammunition belts and the operations plan; in addition, the army sustained 7 dead and 14 were taken prisoner, among the latter, Major Hernán Plata Ríos and Captain Augusto Silva Bogado, commanders of the military units.

Alarmed by the guerrilla victory, Colonel Milton Buls traveled to the United States to request urgent assistance. The answer was immediate. Advisors, intelligence officers, Rangers-2 equipment, ammo and food rations were hastily dispatched while the Bolivian Army Chief of Staff, General Leon Kolle Cueto, set out on a tour to Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay to ask for aid of the local military commands.

On March 25, 1967, Che met with all his men and they all agreed to give their guerrilla the name of National Liberation Army of Bolivia.

The government immediately unleashed an all-out campaign of repression, which resulted initially in the detention of Ernesto Guzmán, Moisés Arenas, Lidio Carrillo, Antonio Cejas, Mariano Huerta, Humberto Ramírez and other citizens who were considered suspects.

A disinformation campaign is orchestrated

A disinformation campaign is orchestrated

A communiqué released by the Bolivian army on March 27, aimed at manipulating the events of the 23rd, portrayed the actions as follows:

“While units of the Armed Forces were performing a survey of a section of the Vallegrande-Lagunillas road in the Ñacahuasú-Lagunillas sector, soldiers working on the road under Sub-Lieutenant Rubén Amézaga Faure, were the object of a surprise attack by a group of unknown individuals bearing automatic weapons. Sub-Lieutenant Amézaga, 6 soldiers, and Epifanio Vargas, a civilian guide who worked for YPFB (Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos, the government’s oil company), were wounded and then cowardly shot dead.

“This preposterous and merciless action, perpetrated while members of the Armed Forces were working to turn into a reality the long-cherished dream of linking the central and southern regions of the country, is further compounded by the pain and the mourning the relatives of the soldiers, workers and peasantsare now suffering.

“The timely alert of the survivors helped counteract the attack through the rapid deployment of the troops of the 4th Army Division, with the support of Air Force planes. The aggressors were forced to flee, leaving behind several casualties and some prisoners. In their flight, they abandoned cases containing clothing, various items, pamphlets on guerrilla warfare and Castro-communist propaganda of Cuban origin, as well as a recorder, a portable high-frequency radio and a vehicle (jeep).

“The prisoners, people from the area and the surviving soldiers informed that the attackers were a large group of individuals of different nationalities, among them Cuban, Peruvian, Chinese, Argentine, European and also Bolivian communists. They also said that they were armed with modern automatic weapons and bazookas, unlike those used by our army.

“The Commander in Chief of the National Armed Forces, in fulfillment of the mission enshrined in the political Constitution of the State and of the duty to safeguard national sovereignty and the peaceful existence of the people, has ordered the drastic and immediate eradication of this pocket of insurgency described as a Castro-communist guerrilla.

“The National Armed Forces, in making these events known to the Bolivian people, call upon their sense of patriotism and their lofty democratic and Christian convictions, and request their cooperation in wiping out these international communist groups, wherever they may appear, as the residents of Monteagudo and Muyupampa are already doing.”

As of that moment, the Bolivian government unleashed an all-out disinformation campaign, issuing official releases with little, if any, connection with reality. The first army communiqué contained several misrepresentations, regarding the fact that:

•The military were not building roads in the area where the clash had taken place;

•The prisoners had been given humane and respectful treatment;

•The prisoners were set free in safe places, so that they could be picked up easily;

•None had been shot.

•The wounded had received medical attention;

•The guerrillas remained in their positions;

•The Bolivian army had inflicted no casualties nor had they taken any prisoners;

•They had not seized any items or documents;

•The townspeople of Muyupampa and Monteagudo were too distant from the scene of the combat to be able to inform the army.

The anti-guerrilla press campaign saturated all radio stations. In order to make the truth known, Che prepared Communiqué No. 1.

“To the Bolivian people: in the face of reactionary lies, the revolutionary truth.

“Communiqué No. 1

“The group of usurping gorillas, after murdering workers and preparing the conditions for a total handover of our wealth to US imperialism, mocked the people through an electoral farce. When the hour of truth comes and the people take up arms, responding to armed usurpation with armed struggle, they are bent on continuing with their fabrications.

“In the early hours of March 23, forces of the 4thDivision, stationed in Camiri, some 35 strong under Major Hernán Plata Ríos, penetrated guerrilla territory along the banks of the Ñacahuasú river. The whole group fell into an ambush prepared by our forces. As a result of this action, our forces seized 25 weapons of all types, including three 60-mm mortars with their corresponding shells, abundant ammo and equipment. Enemy casualties included 7 dead —among them a lieutenant— and 14 prisoners, 5 of them wounded in the clash and later attended to by our health assistants who afforded them the best care our means would allow.

“All prisoners were set free once they were given an explanation of the ideals of our movement.

“The list of enemy casualties is the following: Dead: Pedro Romero, Rubén Amézaga, Juan Alvarado, Cecilio Márquez, Amador Almazán, Santiago Gallardo and the informer and army guide whose second name was Vargas.

“Prisoners: Major Hernán Plata Ríos, Captain Augusto Silva, Privates Edgar Torrico Panoso, Lido Machicado Toledo, Gabriel Durán Escobar, Armando Martínez, Eduardo Ribera and Guido Terceros. The last five were wounded.

“On making known our first action of war, we are laying down what will the norm of our Army: the revolutionary truth. Our deeds proved the veracity of our words. We regret the innocent blood that was spilt by the fallen soldiers, but it is not with mortars and machine guns that peaceful roads are built, as the puppets in gold-tasseled uniforms affirm, in an effort to fabricate the legendpurporting usto be a bunch of murderers.There was not —nor will there ever be— a single peasant that can complain about our treatment or the way we get supplies, save those who, betraying their class, agree to serve as guides or informers.

“Hostilities have begun. In future communiqués we will clearly spell out our revolutionary position. Today we are calling on workers, peasants, intellectuals, on all who believe that the time has come to respond to violence with violence and to rescue a country that has been carved up and sold, slice by slice, to Yankee monopolies, and to raise the living standards of our people, who grow increasingly hungry with each passing day.

National Liberation Army of Bolivia”.

On May 1st, International Workers´ Day, when the town of Cochabamba was getting ready for the traditional parade, Communiqué No.1 issued by the National Liberation Army of Bolivia was published in the Prensa Libre daily.

International news agencies rapidly reproduced the news and mining radio stations re-broadcast it throughout the country. In a fury, Barrientos ordered the Mayor of Cochabamba, Eduardo Soriano Badani, to arrest the editor of the paper, Carlos Beccar, who was placed in solitary confinement, questioned, tried and sentenced to five years in prison. The government was forced to set him free because of pressure by the solidarity of groups of Bolivian journalists and intellectuals, who were joined by other sectors of the country. Pressure was also exerted through demonstrations of the University Federation of Cochabamba, headed by its executive secretary, Alfonso Ferrufino, son of the city’s prosecutor, Filiberto Ferrufino, who, at his son’s request, filed a writ of habeascorpus,stating that the law enshrines and protects press sources.

In response, Barrientos enacted the State Security Bill, which provided that the entire national territory be placed under a state of exception, legally allowing the repressive forces to act freely under the mantle of said bill.

Americans send weapons, food rations and CIA agents

Americans send weapons, food rations and CIA agents

Lieutenant Colonel Redmond E. Weber, commanding officer of the US Army 7thSpecial Forces Group, reached the town of Santa Cruz on March 27, 1967, accompanied by Major Ralph W. Shelton. On the following day, a US plane landed in the city carrying 15 instructors specialized in anti-guerrilla warfare in Vietnam. On March 28, 1967, Che wrote in his diary that “radio stations are still saturated with news about the guerrillas. We are surrounded by 2,000 men in a radius of 120 kilometers, the siege is growing tighter and, in addition, we are being bombed with napalm [[...]]”. The news was denied by the Americans through the State Department, which noted that such an assertion was totally unfounded; however, soon afterwards, the Commander of the Bolivian Air Force, Jorge Belmonte Ardiles, declared that “AT-6 Air Force planes have started to use napalm” with the aim of getting the same excellent results the US Air Force had achieved in Vietnam.

On March 30, several Mustang airplanes stepped up the bombings that had begun on March 24 over the entire area where the guerrillas operated.Barrientos´ statements and the aid requests addressed to neighboring countries gave rise to a wave of comments.

The Chilean morning paper El Mercurio, printed in great detail on April 2 a statement by Víctor Paz Estenssoro, the former Bolivian president exiled in Lima: “There is no justification for the international hullabaloo that is going on, or for the shameful request for military assistance. What is actually happening is that in my country there is growing discontent [[...]] The inability of the regime to solve the most pressing problems, the constant persecution of the opposition parties, the system of forced labor, the periodic massacres, the handing over of our national wealth and the sustained increase in the cost of living have made for a state of latent insurrection.”.

By April 4, military missions sent as “observers” by the governments of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay had already arrived in Bolivia. On that day, Argentine journalist Héctor Ricardo García, a correspondent for his country’s weeklyCrónica,reported that on Saturday April 1,a huge C-130 US cargo plane from Panama had landed at the Santa Cruz military airport carrying military materiel and food rations for the troops involved in anti-guerrilla actions. The cargo was stored until the following day, when they started shuttling it to Camiri on DC-3 planes. Several hours later, a DC-6 of the Argentine Air Force arrived with weapons and other materiel. This was the first of a series of shuttle flights between the Palomar Airport in Buenos Aires, and Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Majors De Lió and Lauría arrived on that plane, as well as the Argentine military and air attachés in Bolivia, Colonel Saúl García Truñón and Commodore Raúl Lartigue, who traveled from La Paz with the aim of establishing an office to coordinate assistance. In the meantime, US intelligence services had been sending several of their agents to Bolivia.

On April 10, there were two more clashes. The first, at 10:20 a.m., was a setback for the army: 3 of its members were killed, 1 was wounded and 7 soldiers were taken prisoners. In addition, the guerrillas seized 6 Garand rifles, 1 M-1 carbine and 4 Mauser rifles. The second clash occurred at 17:00 hours and resulted in the guerrillas seizing 1 Browning, 1 mortar, 15 hand grenades, 4 M-3s, 2 M-1s, 5 Mauser rifles and many other weapons. The army had 7 dead, 6 wounded and 13 of its members were taken prisoners, among them the column commander Major Rubén Sánchez Valdivia. The Bolivian government prohibited all papers from circulating and censored all radio stations.

On April 12, the press reported the arrival of 5 military experts from the US Command in the Panama Canal Zone. They had been sent to set up a jungle warfare and anti-guerrilla training center. The following day, 2 more planes arrived from the Panama Canal, both carrying supplies and weapons. Milton Buls flew in on one of them. He had been entrusted with setting up an office for coordination and advisory services. A press release estimated that some 100 US military were already in Santa Cruz and in the areas of guerrilla operations.

That same day, shortly after noon, the guerrillas started out for the Camiri-Sucre road with the purpose of getting Debray and Bustos out.

The United States, on its part, continued to provide immediate assistance: a Hercules C-130 plane of the US Air Force, fully loaded with weapons, equipment, food supplies and all kinds of military implements, landed in Santa Cruz on April 14 on a direct flight from Panama.

Two days later, a special envoy of the Buenos Aires paper La Razón reported that he had been able to detect in Santa Cruz, Camiri and Lagunillas, the presence of US experts well seasoned in actions in Vietnam who formed a hand-picked group whose mission was to serve as advisors to the Bolivian armed forces.

The US Ambassador to Bolivia reports to Washington

The US Ambassador to Bolivia reports to Washington

The clashes on March 23 and April 10 caused the army 18 dead, 9 wounded, 40 captured and abundant losses in terms of ammunition, food supplies and weapons. Bolivian intelligence service reports recognized the army’s weaknesses in terms of operations on the ground as well as in their command. They noted that the morale of the troops was extremely low and comments made by officers, NCOs and soldiers, all former prisoners in the hands of the guerrilla, conveyed despondency and a sense of defeat and impotence that generated a generalized feeling of psychotic fear. Annihilating the guerrillas, they added, would not be easy, since they were well organized, disciplined, with fighting experience, and would receive support from domestic intellectuals, known as movimientistas — members of the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement Party in the opposition — teachers, peasants, students and miners, sectors animated by revolutionary effervescence. These reports reflected open distrust for the military with a professional and ethical behavior who questioned the active participation of the Americans, considering it an affront against the dignity of the military institution.

Bewilderment and fear gripped Barrientos and his closest henchmen. Douglas Henderson, the Ambassador of the United States to La Paz, personally confirmed to President Lyndon B. Johnson that “communist guerrillas had become established in the Bolivian jungle”. His concerns were not taken lightly.

Henderson was born in Massachusetts on October 15, 1914. He got a B. Sc. from the University of Boston in 1940 and two years later he embarked on a diplomatic career as vice consul in the city of Nogales, México, and later in Arica, Chile, and in Cochabamba, Bolivia, a position he occupied from 1943 to 1947, when he returned home to perform other jobs. He was Assistant Economic Head of the Defense Division in the Department of State and economic advisor in Lima; in 1963 he was appointed ambassador to Bolivia.

From the very beginning his relations with Barrientos were strained, for he opposed the latter’s scheme to stage a coup against President Víctor Paz Estenssoro. Henderson followed State Department policy, but at the US Embassy in Bolivia other powers brought pressure to bear —namely Air Force Attaché Edward Fox and the CIA Station, which prevailed.

Initial CIA actions against the Ñacahuasú guerrilla

Initial CIA actions against the Ñacahuasú guerrilla

Che’s presence in Bolivia forced the CIA to put an end to the campaign it had launched against the top leaders of the Cuban Revolution regarding Che’s disappearance.

In its slanderous campaign, the CIA resorted to its agents and collaborators. It paid journalists, blackmailed others and took advantage of the monopoly over the media to further its own ends: newspapers, magazines, TV newscasts and counterrevolutionary radio stations based in Miami made public a number of interviews with people who, for different reasons, had left the country, some paid off by the Agency and others induced by it. All, however, confirmed that Che had been murdered in Cuba.

Such profuseness of falsehoods on the topic managed to attract the ignorant, some unprofessional individuals and even confuse people of good will. While the campaign raged, the information monopoly silenced all news from Cuba.

The CIA covered up the presence of Che in Ñacahuasú until it managed to create the conditions to counteract the setback its espionage apparatus had suffered when it failed to detect Che’s trip and his entry into the country, despite the enormous resources they had used to locate him. The guerrilla group had become established in front of their very noses. A new disinformation campaign had to be orchestrated to replace the old.

In April 1967, US intelligence agencies sent significant groups of officers and agents into La Paz and the guerrilla area, among them experts in disinformation and psychological warfare, while at the same time it took steps to isolate the guerrilla movement in the cities. To this end, they carried out mass arrests, implemented migration controls, performed raids against foreigners, and also set in motion a plan to dismantle urban support and establish prison camps.

The control by US intelligence service increased. On one hand, they hastily trained Bolivian officers, and on the other they took direct command of special operations. They sent other agents to Bolivia, some of them Cuban-born with false identities, whom they introduced into US institutions and firms as auditors and financial experts. Many of them were placed with the Military Intelligence Service and the Ministry of the Interior of Bolivia, among them José Hinojosa, Eduardo González, Miguel Nápoles Infante, Félix Ramos Medina, Julio Gabriel García, Aurelio Hernández, Luis Suárez and Mario González.

The CIA Station in La Paz was reinforced with Charles Langalis, Robert Stevens, William Culleghan, Hugo Murray, William Walter, John Mills, Burdell Merrel, John H. Corr, Stanley Shepard and others. John Tilton was Chief of station. Thomas Dickson, Timothy Towell and John Maisto were under the cover of the US Consulate in Cochabamba,

CIA agents Félix Ramos Medina and Eduardo González were sent to the military operations zones. Aurelio Hernández was put in charge of interrogations and records; Julio Gabriel García was appointed head of the technical department, located in the home of Mrs. Albertina del Castillo, at 2904 Gregorio Reynolds St., in La Paz, leased to a metallurgical engineer, Dimitri Metaxas Gales, and his wife, Mrs. Aghati Soulioti, with an alien registration card number 20385, issued in Sparta, Greece. The house rent was paid monthly by Max Jaldin, a Bolivian born CIA agent. CIA agent Miguel Nápoles Infante worked in press processing and counterintelligence tasks.

The CIA established strict control over the passenger lists of the various airlines, as well as over all foreigners registered in luxury and in less expensive hotels, hostels, rooming houses and inns known as tambos that catered mostly to people of scant resources. All suspects were detained and questioned. At the La Paz international airport and in the various border checkpoints, all travelers were questioned by CIA agents.

After the guerrilla events, Miguel Nápoles Infante remained in Bolivia at the service of the CIA. He bought an optical shop on 1156 Potosí St., telephone number 342855. He also married a Bolivian born in Beni by the name of Leonor Elena Calle, with whom he resided at 329 Bueno St., telephone number 366198. In 1988 he moved to the United States and at present lives at 2655 Carolina Avenue, apartment 1005, Miami Beach, Florida. He is known as El Manco (One-Arm) due to the fact that he lost an arm in a traffic accident in Cuba.

CIA officers and agents travel to Camiri

CIA officers and agents travel to Camiri

At Camiri, CIA officers questioned Majors Hernán Plata Ríos and Rubén Sánchez Valdivia, Captain Augusto Silva Bogado and others who had been taken prisoners by the guerrillas. They showed them a bulky album containing photos of the people who, according to the CIA, might be involved in the guerrilla movement. One of the interrogators was an advisor to Barrientos, Klaus Barbie, a former head of the Nazi-Fascist Gestapo in Lyon, France, responsible for numerous crimes and assassinations during the Nazi occupation, who had brutally tortured detainees linked to the antifascist resistance and sent thousands of French and Jews to mass extermination camps. He had personally tortured and murdered Jean Moulin, Charles de Gaulle’s delegate in France under German occupation. Barbie was internationally known as the “Butcher of Lyon”. Among his most unconscionable crimes was the extermination in the gas chamber of 44 Jewish children, aged four to sixteen.

In their book A Criminal to the End: Klaus Barbie in Bolivia, Bolivian journalist Gustavo Sánchez Salazar, and Elizabeth Reimann, a Czech-Chilean, wrote:

“When the war ended, US Intelligence Services were concerned over the political space occupied by the USSR. Without the least compunction, the Americans resorted to the services of German Gestapo officers; a new enemy had to be countered, ‘communism’.

“Another recruit was Klaus Barbie, a war criminal and former SS captain. The murderer of Lyon had not been punished for his war crimes. Far from that, the victors rewarded him. In the spring of 1948 —after thousands of people were killed in an orgy ofassassinations— courtesy of the United States Army’sCounterintelligence Corps (CIC), Barbie was given a house in theBavarian city of Augsburg, as well as food supplies, cigarettes and an expense allowance. His job: organizing spy networks for the Americans.

“In 1950 it became obvious that France was searching for Barbie to try him for his crimes against humanity. The CIC decided to give the Nazi criminal a new identity and send him with his family to a distant country where he could start a new life. Klaus Altmann Hansen, a mechanic born in Kronstadt —a non-existing town—, left Europe by the “Rat Route,” organized by a Croatian Catholic priest.

“With his wife and two children, ‘Altmann’ arrived in La Paz, Bolivia, on April 23, 1951 [...]

“In 1964 General René Barrientos, a CIA man, seized power. He appointed Barbie advisor to the Army in the field of counterinsurgency. The German was assigned offices in the Civilian Intelligence Service and in the airport of La Paz [...]”

In 1983, the government of Hernán Siles Suazo deported him to France to be tried for his war crimes.

Another agent sent by the CIA to Camiri was one known as George Andrew Roth, who traveled to Bolivia from Santiago de Chile, where he was temporarily staying. On March 30, 1967, while in Buenos Aires, he contacted South America Time-Life correspondent Moisés García. They met two officials of the US Embassy in Argentina. Later Roth got together with the press attaché of the London embassy in that country.

On April 5, Roth arrived in Santa Cruz de la Sierra and met with a member of the US Peace Corps. The following day, he traveled to Camiri and registered at the London Hotel. He was given a safe conduct and a special permit by the head of the Bolivian intelligence services to visit the guerrilla camp, and accompanied the army on trips to various locations in the periphery of the guerrilla zone.

On April 10 he traveled to La Paz. There he held several meetings with CIA officers. The pictures taken by Roth were published in the local newspaper El Diario. Six days later he returned to Camiri on a new mission.

He then left for Lagunillas with two CBS-New York cameramen, Argentines Hugo López and Hermes Muñoz. Next day, a guide provided by the military led him to the guerrilla area. On April 19 he reached the place where the guerrillas were camping. His unexpected arrival spurred well-founded suspicion: on his passport his occupation as student had been crossed out and replaced by that of journalist. He said he was a professional photographer free-lancing for some foreign publications. He was carrying documents representing him as an instructor with the Peace Corps and a Puerto Rican visa. In his notebook, they found a questionnaire aimed at verifying whether Che was there under the name of Ramón, and if Tania and Regis Debray were also present. Another mission Roth was to accomplish was to drop chemical substances on the guerrillas’ belongings so that trained German shepherd dogs that had been secretly taken to Camiri could trace them. The application of these chemicals was an innovation in the struggle against the revolutionaries on our continent and their use was therefore unknown.

The presence of the dogs was reported by some journalists. Mexican Luis Suárez wrote in Siempre magazine (No. 750, of 8 November 1967): “The discovery of this canine reserve by journalists caused great irritation among military intelligence members, since it implied revealing a secret [...].”

The guerrillas allowed Roth to leave the area on April 20. Regis Debray and Ciro Roberto Bustos decide to leave with him. On their arrival to the little town of Muyupampa, all three were arrested and taken to Camiri.

Advised by the CIA, the Bolivian Intelligence Services released a report announcing the death in combat of 7 guerrillas, including Debray, Bustos and Roth. The plan was to have Debray and Bustos given up for dead, then to torture them, make them talk, kill them and do away with the bodies. This was the scheme revealed by CIA agent Eduardo González to Bolivian military collaborators, but the plan misfired when Hugo Delgadillo, a correspondent for Presencia, who was in Muyupampa, published several pictures of the detainees.

Colonels Eladio Sánchez Suárez and Alberto Libera Cortez took part in the initial interrogations. They were joined by another two American experts, Theodore Kirsch and Joseph Keller, accompanied by CIA agent Eduardo González, who continued the questioning with Colonel Federico Arana Cerrudo, Chief of Army Intelligence, and Lieutenant Colonel RobertoToto Quintanilla, Ministry of the Interior’s Chief of Intelligence.

In May, Kirsch returned, accompanied this time by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Price and by James Evett.

An American journalist, Lee Hall, stated that Regis Debray’smother had told him that“within 48 hours after his son’s arrest, President Barrientos had a dossier on his desk provided by the CIA”.

Following instructions from the CIA, Roth, Debray and Bustos were kept under arrest. Each day a male nurse would visit Roth under the pretext of giving him shots against a venereal disease he had contracted in a brothel in Santiago de Chile. His job was to gather all the information Roth had obtained from the detainees. He was also visited by Federico Arana, who gave him food and money, and by a priest from the US Embassy, Andrew Kennedy, who acted as chaplain of the Bolivian army and who was identified as a CIA agent.

On April 25, six days after Roth’s visit to the guerrilla camp, there was another confrontation. This time German shepherds were used.

“Shortly after,” Che wrote in his diary, “the vanguard appeared and, much to our surprise, it was made up of 3 German shepherds with their guide. The animals were restless but it did not seem to me that they had given away our position; however, they forged ahead and I took a shot at the first dog.”

Roth was kept in prison from April 20 to July 8. According to CIA agent Eduardo González, he was released through the intercession of UK Ambassador in La Paz Ronald Bailey at the request of the Embassy of the United States.

Bolivian intelligence sources noted that George Andrew Roth was thought to be an alias, sinceno relatives had been identified as had been the case with the family members of Regis Debray and Ciro Roberto Bustos.

The United States sends Vietnam war experts to train Bolivian soldiers

The United States sends Vietnam war experts to train Bolivian soldiers

Major Ralph W.“Pappy”Shelton, returned to Bolivia on April 23, 1967 to head the Green Beret training center at La Esperanza sugar mill, near Santa Cruz. He was to train soldiers in the use of the same techniques the US had implemented in Vietnam. Shelton had headed similar centers in the Dominican Republic and Laos. He was accompanied by his aide, Captain Michel Leroy, just back from Saigon.

Other arrivals in Bolivia were Captains Edmond Fricke, William Trimble, Margarito Cruz and other advisors in different fields —weapons, communications, medical care, explosives, intelligence and political doctrine. This center trained 650 soldiers in counterinsurgency.

While the fighting went on, in Santa Cruz several US 4- and 12-seat helicopters were being equipped with gun emplacements to be sent into battle immediately.

On May 8, another combat resulted in the capture of 7 M-1 carbines and 4 Mauser rifles from the army. Ten soldiers were taken prisoners, 2 of them wounded. There was 1 death, that of Lieutenant Henry Laredo, on whom a diary was found where he described Bolivian workers as bone-idle and other insults. Regarding the troops, he commented on the lack of fighting spirit and on how the soldiers cried when they learned of the presence of guerrillas near by. Also he had on him a letter from his wife asking him for a guerrilla’s scalp to hang in their living room.

The following day, the guerrillas released the soldiers after tending to the wounded and continued on their way while planes bombed the area.

This new defeat suffered by the army and its manifest incompetence riled the American advisors, who demanded the removal of Colonel Humberto Rocha Urquieta as commander of the 4th Division in Camiri.

Repression against mining, union and political leaders

Repression against mining, union and political leaders

While in the guerrilla zone the army suffered one defeat after another, in La Paz Barrientos ordered the immediate arrest of the main leaders of the Trade Union Federation of Mine Workers Víctor López, Simón Reyes, Arturo Crespo, Alberto Jara, and of political party leaders Mario Monje, Jorge Kolle Cueto, Guillermo Lora, Oscar Zamora Medinacellis, Carlos Serrate Reich, David Añez and Walter Vázquez Michel. The order also included Juan Lechín Oquendo, secretary general of the powerful Bolivian Workers´ Central (COB) and topmost leader of the National Leftwing Revolutionary Party (PRIN). Lechín, then in Chile, instructed the members of his party to integrate and to support the guerrillas. On May 1, 1967 he sent a message to all Bolivian workers:

“We are once again firm, manning our battle stations in the struggle for the working class and the liberation of our nation from the imperialist yoke.

“The only option is to defend democracy with guns in the hands of the workers and the unemployed. Guerrillas are struggling to free our homeland from the nefarious foreign yoke that has taken over the Presidential Palace and Miraflores Military Headquarters.”

After delivering this message, Lechín went to Arica planning to cross the Bolivian border and to make a clandestine entry into his country. He traveled with two Chileans: Luis Valente Rossi, a Communist Party Member of Parliament, and Luis Hederman, a businessman. On reaching the Chilean control point, he was detained and questioned, despite the fact that he was carrying a valid passport in the name of Eduardo Manosera, No. 255717, issued in Buenos Aires in 1962 and renewed on October 31, 1966. The police reported that Lechín had undergone a physical transformation and was carrying a valid document, but that he had not succeeded in hiding his large teeth and two-colored eyes, which led to his detection. However, the Arica dailyLa Defensa revealed that the police was awaiting his arrival after receiving a phone tip that Lechín was on his way to the city accompanied by two individuals.

Lechín was taken to Santiago de Chile, where Senator Salvador Allende took steps to obtain political asylum for him. Barrientos protested irately and issued vulgar statements against Lechín and Chilean leaders. Allende did not deign to give an official response to the insults but, according to media sources, someone had tried to ridicule the Bolivian president by sending him five parrots in a cage, which, on arriving at the border, were confiscated for lacking the necessary health certificates. Three of the birds had been trained and incessantly squawked, “We are guerrillas! Long live Lechín! Long live Fidel! Down with Barrientos!”

Speaking about the guerrilla movement at Santiago, Lechín stated that it was the only path open to the workers for conquering their freedom.

The PRIN issued a document signed by leaders Lidia Gueiler Tejada and Carlos Daza, a blueprint for the establishment of a front in support of the guerrillas as the only way out for Bolivia.

Barrientos retaliated with further violence and repression and ordered that everything be done to capture Lechín Oquendo, Lidia Gueiler Tejada, Carlos Daza, Simón Reyes, René Chacón, Cirilo Valle and Rosendo García Maisman. García Maisman had been shot during the Night of St. John’s massacre on June 24, 1967 and bled to death for lack of medical care denied to him by the authorities.

The prisoners in the concentration camps located in the jungles in eastern Bolivia, —named Pekín, Alto Madidi, Ixiamas and Puerto Rico— staged strong protests, denouncing the torture and abuse to which they were subjected. What they got in response was greater cruelty and repression, particularly against Alberto Jara, Reinaldo Veizaga, José Ordóñez, Luis Ninavia, Filemón Escóbar, Oscar Salas, Jorge Echazú, Sinforoso Cabrera, Nelson Capelino, Casiano Amurrio Rocha, Modesto Reinaga, Rudy Cuéllar, Mario Ortuño, Aníbal Vargas, Víctor Reinaga, René Olivares, Oscar Sanjinés, Walter Vázquez Michel and Luis Zaral. Barrientos was bent on wiping out the opposition at any price.

In the face of stepped-up repression and the mass transfer of union and political leaders to the concentration camps, university students immediately showed their fighting solidarity and, as a gesture of public support, agreed to have Ramiro Barrenechea, vicepresident de University Confederation of Bolivia, together with Raúl Ibarguen and Osvaldo Trigo, of the University Federation of La Paz, go to the concentration camps carrying letters, news and other requirements. When the young men came to Riberalta, the last village before reaching those isolated spots, they were questioned by the Army Intelligence Service.

For lack of roads, travel in the Bolivian Amazon jungle is done only by air or by river. The concentration camps were natural prisons. Nobody could get out. The jungle saw to that. Consequently, all the intelligence services had to do was control airports and landing strips. The student leaders learned that, in addition to Ixiamas, Alto Madidi, Puerto Rico and Pekín, there were detention centers in the jungle named after cities or countries: Vienna, London, Argentina, Moscow and Paris, a curious paradox considering those dismal, isolated, godforsaken places. The horrors of the concentration camps were described at that time in several chronicles by journalists and many of them have been assembled in a book, Alto Madidi.

The young men also learned of the existence in the jungle of a secret US base, with landing strips, boasting 18-20 comfortable houses with air conditioning and intercoms. The base was off limits for Bolivians. According to Riberalta locals, the authorities claimed that the premises were the seat of a Language Summer School, but the residents were somewhat puzzled by the fact that during the night they heard planes flying overhead and that the people in the facilities even came to pick up bread in their light aircraft. Several sources noted that it was a radio communications base to spy on the guerrillas; others indicated that it was a geological exploration center whose task was to search the region for precious stones that were secretly transferred to the United States. Journalist Andrew Saint George —a confirmed CIA agent— revealed that the Americans followed the movements of the guerrillas with sophisticated equipment and instruments that measured body heat and the smoke from guerrilla cooking fires. Some time later it became known that this method had been used in Vietnam.

Other sources believe that the CIA got wind of potential guerrilla operations in the area of the department of Beni and that they started taking steps in preparation for that contingency. Obvious signs led them to fear the uprising of the indigenous groups. In the town of Ascensión de Guarayos, community leader Salvador Iraipí and his followers raided the office of the Criminal Investigation Division (DIC) and the police headquarters.

After the guerrilla-related events, there were statements claiming that the secret base or Language Summer Institute was located on the shores of Lake Tumichucua, which means “beautiful lake” in the Moxeña tongue.

The student and university movement, organized workers, peasants and intellectuals and community organizations incessantly criticized the local presence of the United States and publicly accused the CIA of using the institution to study native ethnic groups, their customs, languages and traditions. What generated utmost indignation was the revelation that in the indigenous communities the Americans were sterilizing women of reproductive age. This had such an enormous repercussions that the people went as far as to attack and kidnap several Americans. Bolivian filmmaker Jorge Sanjinés reflected these events in the film,Yawar Mallcu,which in Quechua means “blood of the condor”.

In the wake of this scandal and pressured by the people, the facilities of the Language Summer Institute were placed under the Ministry of Education and Culture in 1982. Minister Alfonso Camacho Peña immediately legalized ownership by the Ministry and established the Rural Teachers’ Training School.

The functions of the US secret base that operated all the time that the guerrilla movement existed in the Bolivian jungle have so far remained shrouded in mystery.

Barrientos orders the destruction of Crítica

Barrientos orders the destruction of Crítica

Crítica, a magazine edited by Bolivian journalist Juan José Capriles, featured an article decrying the various crimes committed by the authorities and the internment of people in the concentration camps. The magazine later published that Che Guevara was in Bolivia.

These reports incensed Barrientos, who told journalists that Critica was an infamous libel, an indecent and sensationalist rag, and its editor an immoral and unethical liar who, in order to boost sales, had resorted to fabrications by raising a dead body from the grave, for “Che Guevara has been dead for a long time”.

From that moment on, Juan José Capriles was the butt of his enemies’ jokes and derision. The magazine’s premises were raided on more than one occasion, the editor received several death threats and his property was destroyed.

Some time later, when Capriles found out that Paraguayan Dr. Francisco Silva, had been arrested, charged with transporting weapons and organizing guerrillas in his country, Capriles considered that Silva might be connected with Che and decided to interview him. To that end, he negotiated with Colonel Fernando Pastrana, warden of the La Paz prison, a visit to that institution. Accompanied by photographer Antonio Equino, he toured the whole establishment and saw the inhuman conditions in which the Bolivian inmates lived. He managed to get into the concealed section, called Guanay, where there was practically no sunlight but where humidity was so great that, more often than not, if the prisoners did not die they left with pneumonia or tuberculosis. Capriles also visited other prisons in the country until he finally found Dr. Silva in an institution in Santa Cruz. Silva, however did not provide him with the information he was seeking. When Capriles learned about clashes with the guerrillas in Ñacahuasú, he set out for Camiri to report on the events.

In his article, Capriles described the terrible conditions the Bolivian soldiers had to put up with, their blistered feet, their bodies covered with rags, the lack of food and medical care. He also revealed that the two officers killed in combat on April 10 —Lieutenants Luis Saavedra Arambel and Jorge Ayala Chávez— had been sent to the theater of operations as punishment, because they were young officers who criticized the atmosphere of repression that pervaded the army. In his story, Capriles asserted that Che was with the guerrillas and published an anthem dedicated to him.

Barrientos, disgruntled once again, ordered that Capriles be detained and the all the issues of the magazine be seized. Capriles was taken to Santa Cruz for questioning. He was then brought before Barrientos, who said to him: “This time you told the truth —I wish it would have been a lie— but it will cost you more than all the lies you’ve ever told.”

Capriles was sent to La Paz under arrest, charged with having links with Che and with serving as liaison with the guerrillas. CIA agent Julio Gabriel García questioned him. Crítica was dismantled and all its properties stolen. Capriles had two daughters in La Paz, aged five and seven, who were left helpless and destitute. In the end, after many efforts and complaints from all quarters, the girls were sent to their mother, then residing in Brazil.

All those in the opposition were branded as “guerrillas”. For example, if someone wanted to ruin or destroy a rival businessman or small industrialist, it would suffice to report that person as a guerrilla collaborator and all the weight of the repression would fall on him, without any further investigation or inquiry into the charge. When a top official, politician, military or policeman coveted someone’s wife or girlfriend, the man was immediately accused of being a guerrilla and was terrorized to such a point as to force him to leave town. If the interested party had enough leverage, he would pressure the individual into flying to exile. Houses were raided and normally ransacked, and all belongings and valuables were stolen.

The order came that Capriles was to be shot in the back while allegedly attempting to escape. The order was not executed because the military officer who was to do the shooting was acquainted with Capriles when they had been previously exiled together: He helped him escape and Capriles made it to the Uruguayan embassy, where he applied for political asylum.

The guerrillas arrive in Caraguatarenda

The guerrillas arrive in Caraguatarenda

On May 28, 1967 the guerrillas captured the hamlet of Caraguatarenda. This event had great political and military significance because of the village’s location, right on the road connecting Camiri and Santa Cruz. A short time later, two trucks and two jeeps carrying passengers and oil workers arrived; it was they who talked about what had happened. The army and the guerrillas clashed again on May 30, with a balance of two soldiers killed and several wounded. War correspondent José Luis Alcázar noted that all efforts and commands on the part of the military leaders failed to stop the panic-stricken soldiers, who fled in disarray. The following day they clashed once again. Several soldiers were wounded and a civilian guide was killed. A sense of defeat spread like wildfire among the military ranks.

Diego Martínez Estévez, a Bolivian military, wrote in his bookÑancahuazú. Notes for the Military History of Boliviathat a soldier cried out from a wrecked vehicle: “I’m a believer, for God’s sake, don’t kill me.” An officer stopped firing and started kicking him to force him to take cover. Far from obeying, the soldier turned on his “protector” and attempted to hit him with the butt of his rifle while the other man was firing from a different angle. Observing the hysterical attitude of the soldier, the man jumped him and knocked him down. “For the next three days,” he added, “this unit suffered from hunger and thirst; officers and troops, in an effortto survive, were obliged to hunt and to get water from the carahuatas; some tried to assuage their hunger with coca leaves and most of them, unable to control themselves, wrested the caramañolas from the Trinidad Company, which was late in arrivingat El Espino due to lack of transportation”.

All throughout May, repression was rampant in the countryside: numerous groups of humble peasants put in prison, their livestock and crops stolen, their properties burned down. Owners of trucks and jeeps were forced to place them at the service of the army; farmhands and peasants had to march before the troops as guides. Terror reigned everywhere.

Several peasants from Masicuri and surrounding areas were arrested and taken to Vallegrande, where they were savagely tortured. CIA agent Julio Gabriel García took part in the questioning. Military control posts were established in all the accesses to cities and towns, as well as in the various highways and roads that led to the guerrilla zone. Bolivian journalist Jorge Rossa narrated that 18 military control barriers were set up on the Santa Cruz Cochabamba road, where passengers were subjected to a brutal search, particularly their documents.

“A young French ethnologist, a globetrotter,” he wrote, “was detained as he sailed alone on his canoe on the Mamoré River, simply because he had a beard and was a foreigner [...].” “You were in mortal danger then if you grew a beard.”

“A 14-year-old boy,” he added, “was beaten in his own home by the thugs of the DIC simply because they had found a pair of Japanese rubber boots on the premises. What more evidence of the fact that he was planning to join the guerrilla and not simply that he was going fishing in the Yapacaní River?”

Despite the vicious repression, the peasants did not hide their sympathy for the guerrillas. In his summary of the month of May, Che wrote that the peasants were gradually growing less afraid and being won over. “It is a slow and patient endeavor.”

Inti Peredo in his bookMy Campaign with Chestated that during the three months of fighting they caused the army more than 50 casualties, counting dead, wounded and prisoners, including three high-ranking officers. A large amount of weapons, ammunition, uniforms and food supplies had been seized. But the most noticeable achievement had been the demoralization and loss of fighting spirit on the part of the soldiers, which contrasted significantly with the aggressiveness and bravery of the guerrillas.

Meanwhile, the trial against Debray was commented throughout the world. Journalists, intellectuals, members of religious orders and government leaders manifested their concern for his life. A solidarity committee was established in Paris, according to a UPI news report dated May 9. The report indicated that a group of intellectuals made up by 38 scholars, three Nobel Prize winners, various academicians, writers, Catholic priests and Protestant pastors had sent a message to the Bolivian authorities in favor of Debray. Che wrote in his diary that the clamor around the Regis Debray case had contributed more to the prestige of the guerrilla movement than ten victorious battles.

The CIA devises a plan to interrogate Bolivian revolutionary Jorge Vázquez Viaña

The CIA devises a plan to interrogate Bolivian revolutionary Jorge Vázquez Viaña

On May 27, 1967 radio stations reported that guerrilla Jorge Vázquez Viaña had escaped from Camiri prison. He was wounded in a leg at the time he was captured on April 27. Subsequently he was taken to the barracks and tortured. Since the guerrilla refused to talk, the CIA devised a plan through a Cuban born agent to obtain information of the brave young man.

Bolivian war correspondent José Luis Alcázar wrote on the matter: “Radio Sararenda broadcast a ‘protest’ from a foreign journalist who said that Camiri military authorities had not authorized him to interview Vázquez Viaña.”

Alcázar said that the alleged journalist was CIA agent Eduardo González and that the guards allowed Vázquez Viaña to overhear his protest. Thus, when the military authorized González to enter the prison, he “began the interview asking him about his health. Vázquez answered in monosyllables. Suddenly there was a change in the interview… In a whisper González tells the guerrilla: ‘I am not a journalist. I am Fidel’s envoy. I have come from Havana to find out what has happened to Che. We haven’t heard from him’.”

According to Alcázar, Vázquez Viaña was surprised, and although initially he did not believe González, the Cuban accent finally convinced him and he fell for the CIA’s ruse.

On May 27, with the recording of the interview, Roberto Toto Quintanilla told Vázquez Viaña that the journalist was really a CIA agent and tried to blackmail him. Quintanilla suggested an escape plan and a later trip to the Federal Republic of Germany, where the guerrilla’s wife and children were, in exchange for information on the urban support network and the location of safe houses. Outraged, Vázquez Viaña jumped on him, but Quintanilla and his assistants beat him and fractured both of his arms. Then he ordered his death.

His body was thrown in the jungle from a helicopter piloted by Jaime Niño de Guzmán and Carlos Rafael Estívariz.

The news about the escape was a cover for the murder.

THE CIA AND ITS INTROMISSION IN THE ARMED FORCES AND OTHER BOLIVIAN SECTORS

The CIA and its Intromission in the Armed Forces and Other Bolivian sectors

Chaos, disorder, demoralization and murders in the army

Chaos, disorder, demoralization and murders in the army

On January, 1967, troops of the army’s 4th Division with its seat at Camiri, included 10 commanding officers, 21 officers, 54 non-commissioned officers and 244 soldiers. The military command was the following:

Colonel Humberto Rocha Urquieta, Division Commander; Colonel Juan Fernández Cálzaga, Chief of Staff; Major Armando Reyes Villa, Operations; Lt. Col. Carlos Romero Arévalo, Intelligence; Lt. Col. Vicente Antezana Negrete, Personnel; Lt. Col. Carlos Klagges Strinford, Logistics.

All were appointed by General Alfredo Ovando Candia, Chief of the Bolivian Armed Forces. On discovering the guerrillas, troops of the 4thDivision were increased significantly. In late March the division included 12 commanding officers, 42 officers, 93 non commissioned officers and 1,619 soldiers, for a total of 1,770 men. In May troops were increased to 2,500 men.

After the combat on March 23, the 4th Division’s military command was seriously challenged because the guerrillas had been organized and set up in the area unnoticed, and in the first combat the division was definitely trounced.

Disorganization, chaos and demoralization were rampant in the army in an impressive manner; incompetence of the leaders was increasingly obvious. Yet, loyalty to Ovando was more important than military leadership, and for that reason they kept their posts with the exception of the chief of intelligence, who became the scapegoat and was blamed for all the errors. He was substituted by Capt. Hugo Padilla, also a trusted Ovando man.

When soldiers arrived at Camiri they found there were no barracks, dormitories nor the proper place to keep their belongings. When they returned for some reason, almost everything was missing, a fact that sparked serious conflicts.

The number of casualties due to sickness increased month after month. There were only three medics in the division. After the combat on April 10 there were more than 40 casualties due to diarrhea, intestinal disorders or dysentery. There were neither doctors nor supplies to treat the wounded and sick; according to military reports there was only iodine and ointments. The combat casualties were transported in makeshift stretchers through places where there were no roads.

General Gary Prado Salmón wrote: “These details undoubtedly affected the troops’ morale, for a soldier that knows that he will be treated promptly and efficiently if he is wounded feels more at ease that the one that sees his comrades bleed to death without a dressing to staunch the blood.”

Desertions, neglect of missions and mutinies reached dangerous levels, a fact that forced the military high command to open an investigation. According to intelligence reports the result was the following: alarming news about the number of guerrillas that were rumored to be 1,000 armed with modern weapons that included amphibious airplanes; their courage, daring and bravery that made them a disciplined, well organized troop; the number of dead and wounded in the army; the feelings of defeat and impotence communicated by officers and soldiers who had been prisoners of the guerrillas, saying that they were huge men immune to bullets because they were armored. Food was scarce because units usually were supplied by air due to lack of roads in the area.

When operations began, the army’s 4th