Latin America Diaries (22 page)
Read Latin America Diaries Online
Authors: Ernesto Che Guevara
So much time has passed since I last wrote to you that I have lost the confidence that came from our regular communication. (I'm certain you won't understand much of my letter. I'll explain everything to you little by little).
First, my little Indian girl is now nine months old. She's quite cute, full of life, etc.
Second and most important: A while back some Cuban guys, revolutionaries, invited me to help the movement with my medical “knowledge,” and I accepted, because you probably know that this is the kind of work which
me piace
[ I like]. I went to a ranch in the mountains to direct the training, vaccinate the troops, etc., but I got unlucky (a Cubanism) and the police nabbed us all. And because my papers were suspect (a Mexicanism) I had to swallow two months in jail, and besides that, they stole my typewriter and some other stuff, hence this handwritten missive. Then the government committed the grave error of believing my word as a gentleman, and they freed me on the proviso that I would leave the country within 10 days. Three
months later I'm still hanging around, even though I'm underground and with no prospects in Mexico. I'm just waiting to see what happens with the revolution: if it works out well, I'll head for Cuba; if not, I'll start to look for a country where I can set up camp. This year my life could change drastically, but this has already happened so many times that I'm not too scared or bothered by it.
Of course, all my scientific jobs fell through and now I'm just an assiduous reader of Charlie and Freddie
105
and others like them. I forgot to tell you that when I was arrested they found several little books in Russian and a card from the Institute for Mexican-Russian Exchange, where I was studying the language in connection with the problem of conditioned reflexes.
It might interest you to know that my marriage has almost completely broken down, and will be definitely next month. My wife is going to Peru to see her family, from whom she has been separated for eight years. There is a certain bitterness in the break-up, as she was a loyal compañera and her revolutionary conduct was irreproachable during my enforced vacation. Our spiritual discord was too great, however, and I live with this anarchic spirit that leads me to dream of new horizons the moment I feel “the cross of your arms and the earth of your soul,” as Pablito [Neruda] said.
106
I'll sign off now. Don't write to me until after the next letter, which will have more news or at least a fixed address.
An ever affectionate hug from your friend,
Ernesto
______________
1.
Northern Argentina, near the border with Bolivia.
2.
In English in the original.
3.
Alberto Granado accompanied Ernesto on his first trip around Latin America; Carlos Ferrer (Calica) was his companion on this second trip that began on July 7, 1953.
4.
Land reform and the nationalization of the tin mines were the key demands of the Bolivian people after the revolution of April 9, 1952, led by the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR) under the presidency of VÃctor Paz Estenssoro.
5.
Pedro Domingo Murillo was a Bolivian national hero (from La Paz) and signatory to the Declaration of Independence on July 16, 1809; Melchor Guzmán was a national hero from Cochabamba who launched the cry for liberty on September 14, 1810; and Gualberto Villarroel was the nationalist president of Bolivia (1943-46) who was assassinated.
6.
IsaÃas Nougués was an anti-Peronist exile and one of the most outstanding figures in the Argentine colony in Bolivia. Contact was made with him through his son José MarÃa whom Ernesto met on a train during this trip.
7.
Ernesto later wrote a poem, “To the Bolivian Miners” (see Appendices).
8.
Ernesto's stay in Bolivia lasted more than a month, although the dates do not appear in his passport. A letter to his mother from Cuzco, dated August 22, 1953 (reproduced below), indicates that he left La Paz on August 7.
9.
The De Guia Leprosy Colony. Both Dr. Pesce and his assistant Zoraida Boluarte had offered support during Ernesto's first trip around Latin America with Alberto Granado, so he visited them when he returned to Lima.
10.
Berta Gilda (Tita) Infante was a fellow medical student at the University of Buenos Aires and an active member of the Argentine Communist Youth as well as a close friend.
11.
They arrived in Ecuador on September 27, 1953, and passed through immigration on September 28.
12.
The Argentine students were Andro Herrero, Eduardo (Gualo) GarcÃa and Ãscar Valdovinos.
13.
Dr. Jorge Maldonado Reinilla.
14.
Dr. Fortunato Safadi.
15.
Velasco Ibarra was elected president of Ecuador several times.
16.
See the letter to his mother from Guayaquil, dated October 21, 1953.
17.
The boat on which Ernesto enrolled while still a medical student as a medical orderly on a trip round the Caribbean in 1950.
18.
The trio now consisted of Gaulo GarcÃa, Andro Herrera and Ernesto. Calica had left for Venezuela.
19.
In a letter of October 21, 1953, Ernesto estimates that he will reach Panama between October 29 and 30. The departure was on October 25 but Ernesto's passport doesn't show these dates.
20.
The daughter of a Panamanian member of parliament.
21.
During his time in Panama, a report about the visit of Ernesto Guevara and Eduardo GarcÃa appeared in the paper
, La Hora
, on November 10, 1953. (See appendices.)
22.
Ernesto's article was published as “Un vistazo a las márgenes del gigante de los rÃos” (“A View from the Banks of the Giant of Rivers”) in the Sunday supplement of
Panamá-América,
November 22, 1953. The other article referred to was published as “Machu-Picchu, enigma de piedra en América” (“Machu-Picchu: Stone Enigma of the Americas”) in the weekly supplement of
Siete,
December 12, 1953. (See appendices.)
23.
All members of the Panamanian Students Federation.
24.
The date of Ernesto's arrival in Costa Rica was December 1, 1953, according to his passport.
25.
The United Fruit Company.
26.
The article titled “Experimento Extraordinario es el que se Realiza en Bolivia” was published in
El Diario de Costa Rica
on December 11, 1953. (See appendices.)
27.
Carlos PrÃo Socarrás was the president of Cuba who was overthrown by General Batista in March 1952. José (Pepe) Figueres was the president of Costa Rica.
28.
At this point Ernesto traveled on to Nicaragua on December 22, 1953.
29.
They arrived in Guatemala between December 23 and 24, 1953.
30.
Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA) or the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance was founded by the controversial Peruvian politician VÃctor Raúl Haya de la Torre in 1924.
31.
A Venezuelan exile with whom Ernesto later had contact in Mexico.
32.
The “gringo” was Professor Harold White; after the revolution he was invited to Cuba by Che and he stayed there until his death in 1968.
33.
Hilda Gadea was an APRA exile from Peru who later became Ernesto's first wife.
34.
Alfonso Bawer Pais was a communist exile from Honduras who had been a fellow student of Jacobo Ãrbenz at the Polytechnic College.
35.
The eminent Nicaraguan intellectual Edelberto Torres Rivas. His children, Edelberto and Myrna, became friends with Ernesto and supporters of the Cuban revolution.
36.
José Méndez Zebadúa was a founding member of the Communist Party of Guatemala (PGT).
37.
A Honduran exile. After the fall of Ãrbenz, they met again in Mexico. Ernesto dedicated his poem “Invitación al camino” to her. (See appendices.)
38.
The APRA leader Nicanor Mujica Ãlvarez was part of the Peruvian exile community in Guatemala.
39.
This is the first mention in the diary of the Cubans who mounted the attack on the Moncada and Bayamo barracks in July 1953, some of whom were then in Guatemala. Ernesto had contact with them through Myrna Torres, the daughter of Edelberto Torres, who was a friend of Hilda Gadea.
40.
Myrna Torres recalls this party was on Sunday January 24, 1954, and the girl was a teacher, Norma Cabrera.
41.
José Manuel Vega Suárez, alias Cheché.
42.
Confederación General de Trabajadores de Guatemala (the Guatemalan trade union federation).
43.
Jaime DÃaz Rozzoto was the private secretary at the president's office.
44.
The Guatemalan Institute of Social Security.
45.
See appendices.
46.
After the fall of Ãrbenz, Gutiérrez continued the struggle for the liberation of his homeland. He was disappeared in March 1966 along with the so-called Group of 28, to which Myrna Torres's husband, Humberto Pineda Aldana, also belonged and who was also assassinated. Ernesto met Myna's husband Humberto in the Argentine embassy after the coup against Ãrbenz.
47.
Myrna confirmed this festival was on February 13, 1954, on the banks of lake Amatitlán.
48.
Carlos Manuel Pellecer, a peasant leader, was affiliated to the Communist Party. He later renounced the left and ultimately became a CIA agent.
49.
The youth festival was held at Chimaltenango on February 20-21, 1954, organized by the Guatemalan Democratic Youth
50.
Sara de la Serna was an aunt, the sister of Ernesto's mother.
51.
Antonio (Ãico) López was one of the group that attacked the Moncada barracks in July 1953 and was later an expeditionary on the
Granma
. Because of his left-wing ideas, he became a close friend of Ernesto. He died in the Cuban revolutionary war.
52.
Myrna left on March 21, 1954.
53.
Dr. Juan Angel Núñez Aguilar, a Honduran agronomist and economist, who at the time was president of the Instituto de Fomento de la Producción de Guatemala (INFOP).
54.
Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Educación de Guatemala (Guatemalan Union of Educators).
55.
The Vietnamese independence movement inflicted a major defeat on French colonial forces in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu (March-May, 1954).
56.
An undated letter to Ernesto's family explains the details of what happened. In his book,
Aquà va un soldado de América
, Ernesto's father, Ernesto Guevara Lynch, suggests this is around April 1954.
57.
(Sic) Stanley H. Boggs.
58.
Sylvanus G. Morley was a US archeologist famous for his work in Central America, in particular, in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. He wrote several classic texts on the subject, including
The Inscriptions of Petén
and
The Ancient Maya.
59.
Construction of this highway began after the Guatemalan revolution with the goal of making a new bridge and an alternative railway line because the existing railroad was owned by North Americans.
60.
Ernesto often used the term
vieja
(old lady) as an affectionate form of addressing his mother.
61.
Argentine slang for peso.
62.
A character in a novel by the famous French writer Anatole France.
63.
A member of APRA (American Popular Revolutionary Alliance) in Peru.
64.
Dr. Carlos Tejedas.
65.
Partido Demócrata Revolucionario and the Partido de la Revolución Guatemalteca.
66.
Partido de la Revolución Nacional and the Partido Guatemalteco del Trabajo (Communist Party).
67.
Che (a common Argentine form of address) plus Bol(shevik).
68.
Carlos Castillo Armas established a brutal dictatorial regime in Guatemala until he was assassinated in 1957 by one of his bodyguards, Romero Vázquez Sánchez, in the presidential palace.
69.
This was not true. Reyes Flores was not executed but lived for at least another 20 years in Cuba after the revolution.
70.
John Foster Dulles later became US Secretary of State under President Eisenhower.
71.
Argentina's national day.
72.
José Manuel Vega Suárez, a Cuban exile living in Guatemala.
73.
The Cadet Academy (also known as the Polytechnic College) was founded in 1873 and was the training institute for the cadres of the constitutional army. In 1954, the cadets mutinied against Castillo Armas and the school was closed for three years. Turcios Lima was a member of this group and in 1960 he led a rebellion against the repressive government. He later initiated an armed struggle in Guatemala but was killed in 1966.
74.
This observation was vindicated some years later when Pellecer renounced his past communist affiliation in his book,
Mi renuncia al comunismo.