Chronicle EditorNancy Scheper-Hughes Correspondent
Fifty years ago “Che” Guevara was captured and brutally executed in the jungles of Bolivia by Bolivian recruits who were trained, equipped and guided by US Green Beret and CIA operatives. Almost immediately afterwards Che was drafted into the canon of post-Catholic sainthood. The Bolivian army’s official photograph of Che, taken after he was executed — his head raised, eyes open, a faint smile on his lips — became an icon of saintly rebellion.
Che’s death not only gave meaning to his life, but to multitudes of ordinary people around the world. His Christ-like image had immediate resonance among the poor and oppressed of Latin America who believed that their popular saint, “Querido Che” would some day rise again. What was less anticipated was the impact of his death on generations of young people around the world. The spiritual and political afterlife of Che, like the afterlife of Jesus of Nazareth, begins with their brutal torture and deaths at the hands of sadistic soldiers, colonising forces (Rome and the US CIA) and local collaborators.
Both men faced their capture and deaths with equanimity and graceful acceptance of their fate and left this world with words of consolation and , yes, of love. Both men were given opportunities to surrender and save themselves, but both acquiesced to their fate, remained true to their beliefs, and faced their executioners with words of comfort and of love.
Che: “I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, you are only going to kill a man . . . please, tell my wife to remarry and try to be happy.” Jesus: “Father forgive them for they know not what they do”. The gospel narratives described a man whose death shook the earth and left his own executioners fear and regret that they had killed a son of God. Jorge Castaneda’s biography, Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara (Knopf) and Michael Casey’s Che’s Afterlife: the Legacy of an Image refer to an iconic photo of the dead Che that ignited a fierce political and spiritual loyalty to the memory of the revolutionary hero. Freddy Alborta’s photo of Che’s lacerated body, laid out on a concrete slab surrounded by gloating Bolivian soldiers and CIA operatives, one callously pointing to a mortal wound, became a global symbol of a spiritual socialist revolution.
Che’s restful body, his gentle eyes and peaceful countenance radiated forgiveness and love. John Berger noted the resemblance of the photo to Andrea Mantegna’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ. (John Berger, 1975). Alborta’s photo, sometimes referred to as “The Passion of the Che” ensured that the Argentine revolutionary would live on forever as a symbol of the spiritual socialist cause. Displayed at meetings or rallies the image is often accompanied by cries of “Che está Presente” — Che is here with us, a real existential presence’ similar to the “Real Presence” of Jesus, here, present in our own bodies, minds and spirits.
It took 20 years before a Cuban forensic expedition went to the small community of La Higuera in Bolivia to locate, exhume and repatriate Che’s remains and those of his colleagues in 1997. The Cuban expedition was led by Dr Jorge González, then Director of the Cuban Forensic Institute in Havana, and assisted by key members of the Argentine Forensic Team (Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense, or “EAAF”).
In January 2000 I met and interviewed Dr González following a lecture I gave with Dr Hernan Reyes (Medical Director,ICRC) at the Cuban Forensic Institute on emerging international networks of organ and tissue trafficking.
Dr González did not seem to be too interested in the topic and cut out quickly. But when I heard that he was the leader of the Bolivian forensic expedition I asked for an interview. González guardedly agreed to an interview but only because I was introduced by a close colleague of his. He reminded me quite bluntly that the CIA had a hand in the execution of a Cuban hero and sharing his story with a North American was something of a political and ethical dilemma. For the first 45 minutes González explained with scientific precision the methods used to locate the site where Che’s body was haphazardly buried. The search for Che’s remains and those of his colleagues took exactly 600 days in Bolivia. During that time González’s equipe worked without the cooperation of the Bolivian military or police. He made it clear that the discovery was a huge scientific endeavour that included Cuban geologists, soil experts, seismologists, archeologists, geographers, sociologist-anthropologists, and bone and teeth specialists.
When I asked González to describe that moment when he first touched the skull and had first sense of recognition, he said rather stiffly: ‘As a scientist I was trained to be totally objective in retrieving the first remains to emerge from the pit… As a scientist you feel one thing but as a revolutionary you feel another, for we were uncovering the bodies of our heroes.’ Throughout the doctor’s story, not all of which was transcribed in the followed tape transcription, were intimate details of the touching, holding close, cradling, protecting and carefully examining the remains of Che’s disintegrating body that was still recognizable by his army fatigues, and his tobacco pouch. The story was replete with Biblical references – the sacred numbers 7,14, 40, the mysteries, the references to Che’s suffering, The Passion of Che, one could say. The tender care in identifying his fractures, his prominent brow, the references to the Bolivian soldiers washing Che’s body and his face to present for viewing, their constant fears that the body would be stolen, and their staying up by night and day, trying not to fall asleep, to protect Che’s body. The identification of the body included imagining the wounds that were inflicted, the fractures, the missing hands, the missing molar, and the pieces of recognizable cloth. “They have pierced my hands and feet. They have numbered all my bones.”
And finally, the right of González as the chief of the forensic team, to personally guard the box that contained Che’s remains refusing to pass the box along to the honor guards as they passed along all the boxes, step by step, up the stairs of a military plane at the small landing strip in southern Bolivia. ” I held the box to my chest and would not let it out of my sight”, he said.
-Counterpunch
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