For Aleida Guevara, my first encounter with a true revolutionary (2014)
Author: Richard L. Harris
English: Death of a Revolutionary: Che Guevara's Last Mission
ISBN: 039333094X (978-0393330946)
Publisher: New York: W. W. Norton & Company; Updated ed. (October 17, 2007)
I am not looking for publicity. I only want to tell the truth about everything that occurred in my career as a sub-secretary and minister of government, and alert not only the present government of Bolivia, but all the governments of Latin America, as to how North American imperialism undermines their intelligence services in order to introduce errors to distort, to present a completely different picture of reality, to obstruct their economic relations with other states, and finally to keep them under its control. - Antonio Arguedas Mendieta, 1930-2000 (1)
''Revolutionaries'' And ''Alternative'' Media of Today
There are three major topics to demonise communism. One is the ''great famine'' of China (Asia) during 1959-1961; second is the failure of guerrilla warfare of Che in Bolivia (Latin America) in 1967; the last one is the collapse of Soviet Union (Eurasia) in 1991. Of course, Cultural Revolution of China during 1966 to 1976 is also broadly referred to denounce communist experiences of the 20th century. Plus, so called Holodomor of Stalin during 1932-33 in Ukraine is an anti-communist narrative device for capitalist ruling classes of the world. Unfortunately, communists of CPC and ''pro-establishment''camp of Hong Kong, China don't even investigate facts on these strategically important topics of the communist experiences in the past. On the contrary, supposed ''leftists'' firmly stand with CEOs and stakeholders of multinational companies to denounce all of them.
Furthermore, self-proclaimed ''alternative'' media of Russia like RT is just exploiting ''leftists'' for its nationalist conservative interests by Redfish and its outsourced freelance left wing influencers. Why RT is so popular? The secret is that RT and its Putinists exploit completely different ideologies like anti-imperialism of Latin America and Middle East while Putinists themselves oppose marxism and leftism of all kinds in their own country. This is critical difference between traditional state media of Stalin or Mao or VOA and Putin. Pravda, CCTV and VOA strictly exclude different ideologies from its own political operations however RT exploits completely different ideologies and even strategically give them news coverage. As a result, there are republican Trumpets, leftists and liberal influencers get opportunities to expand their fan base via RT. However "There is no such thing as a free lunch" that their anti-democrat conservative or anti-imperialist leftist views are systematically exploited to camouflage and boost Russian nationalist interests and social penetration in the targeted countries. Thus, they're neither genuine republicans nor authentic leftists but they become Russian nationalist avatars in practice. In other words, RT and its Russian nationalists exploit different ideologies as their tentacles to defend and promote Russian national interests simultaneously. It means that there must be stealth censorship to keep their paid republican Trumpet writers, liberal authors and leftist influencers (e.g. ex-Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa for RT Spanish) in their control (it's more obvious from POV of users because their censorship is mainly against users). Of course, it's as equally repressive as what Soviet Stalinists did to pro-Soviet leftists of the world during Cold War if they go wrong ideologically. Then they can see sudden and swift censorship actions from hidden hands. For instance, Tulsi Gabbard (1981-) realised this earlier before the US presidential election of 2020. Fortunately, she defended her own rights and interests from this hypocritical ''alternative'' media.
Therefore, it's nothing ''alternative'' at all because they themselves are doing the same things (e.g. political censorship without any logical explanation and evidences ; mass surveillance ; brutal police crackdown on different voices; ousting persona non grata; banning non-Russian speakers on their social media etc.) against others with US imperialists while denouncing allegations, xenophobic oppressions and sanctions of US-Ukraine-the Baltics-Poland etc.. As I correctly analysed that RT will be gradually transformed into another Fox News by infiltrators (I can name some of them but it's not a topic here). As a result, there is only a matter of ethics and morality that which one is more hypocritical (''skilful'') or less hypocritical. Inevitably, facts are selectively buried by their editorial censorship (their ''output editors'' must know that moderation and editing are censorship) and broad narrative control which are ultimately based on their ''pro-oligarchic'' political correctness. Of course, it's same for Chinese state media in general but Chinese or US state media are really honest due to its strict discipline for maintaining political line publicly without exploiting different ideologies and influencers.
For instance,
CCTV (Chinese nationalism; CPC) is straightforwardly represented by Chinese nationalist narrative and influencers.
Fox News (American republican conservatism; Republican Party) is directly represented by American republican narrative and influencers.
CNN (American democrat liberalism; Democratic Party) is simply represented by American democrat narrative and influencers.
RT (Russian nationalism; United Russia) is indirectly and remotely represented by different ideological narratives and paid influencers of targeted countries. (e. g. their major targets are American republicans thus they hired so many republican Trumpets to infiltrate US society by exploiting paid Republican influencers and their native fan base. The point is that republican conservatism is not RT's own ideology) Exploitation of different ideologies (for Russian nationalist interests) is its major weapon to penetrate target audience without directly promote Russian nationalism. Even Pompeo couldn't understand this during the Trump regime.
Stealth influencer marketing of RT (Putinists) is to infiltrate targeted audience and media market by exploiting (''supporting'') politically oppressed opinion leaders or stars (e.g. Hulk Hogan, Steven Seagal, Jesse Ventura etc.) and their fan base. And then, those paid influencers who have quite different ideologies from ominous Russian nationalism will automatically become dasein of Russian influence without directly promoting apparent Russian nationalism. The most important thing for them is social penetration not direct propaganda campaigns.
In this sense, traditional mainstream media like CCTV, VOA, CNN, BBC, FoxNews and CBS are more politically sincere to their own political belief and ideologies than RT or related Russian state media because they simply and directly promote their own political lines without insincerely exploiting different ideologies and their fan base for social penetration.
It seems that RT and Russian intelligence agencies misinterpreted what Deng Xiaoping (1904-97) said in 1960s. "Black cat or white cat, if it can catch mice, it's a good cat." For journalists, it means that a good journalist is to tell the truth. And it is totally meaningless to label others for trivial matters.
Thus it shouldn't mean that we can use different ideological colours ''untraditionally'' to achieve our national interests even though those ideologies don't actually represent our own ideology. It's deception! Insincerity! In fact, what Deng Xiaoping (1904-97) said was all about fundamental duty of politicians not anything pragmatic or opportunistic. It actually means philosophical opposition to dualist controversies.
I found not only ''leftists'' but also so called ''alternative'' media are serious threats to our freedom of opinions today. And I totally got fed up with their hypocrisy. The truth is that Russian nationalists (Putinists) exploit republicans and anti-imperialist influencers to strategically camouflage their own ideology, infiltrate targeted audience and ultimately serve their own national interests (it can be called stealth imperialism which Putinists learned from US, and they even further advanced it technically). It's not really ''alternative'' but it must be called political insincerity because they themselves are neither Trumpets nor marxists. I realised that China was and still is perfectly right to prohibit this toxic chameleons (chimeras) from Russia. On the contrary, what we should admire is moral standard and ideological sincerity of Che Guevara.
Thus, independence of individuals from both mainstream and ''independent'', ''alternative'' media establishment is critically important to protect our lives, truly independent thought, freedom, knowledge and truth. In this sense, the famous Japanese thinker, founder of Keio University, Yukichi Fukuzawa (1835-1901) was right (importance of personal independence for independence of one country). Self-proclaimed ''alternative'' media like RT who funded by one state and run by nationalists is nothing really ''alternative'' for others. It's always an ''alternative'' in question. ''Censorship-free''platform or channel? It's a joke. While secretly banning influential users who have leftist tendencies with foreign nationalities? There is no such ''censorship-free'' social media or its certain page while there are censorship laws in their headquartered country, corporate censorship teams and moderators. They must know that so called ''moderation'' itself is censorship. Therefore, it's sheer hypocrisy logically. And their virtue signalling is another deception in practice. This is the truth of ''alternative'' media.
Furthermore, the most important thing is that so called ''alternative viewpoint'' is neither republican nor democrat one. The true alternative is always different from dualism while the world's most dominant news narratives are either a republican or democrat view. Thus, the republican Trumpet view is not alternative to dualism. It's just one side of the same coin. Indeed, they are ideological charlatans like stalinists of Soviet Union. That's all.
In short, like Bolivia in 1967, leftists of today are still totally divided into warring camps in various countries. Even sectarianism within the same leftist organisation is severe due to the pursuit of personal benefits and hegemony in the leftist market. As a result, Workers' Revolution is not their aim at all in practice. During Cold War (1945-1991), the Sino-Soviet split fatally divided leftists of the world. As a result, leftists were used for developing national interests of either Soviet Russia or China. After the collapse of Soviet Union, and emerging woke imperialist democrats further split traditional leftist parties and the working class people into pieces.
Such as, Japanese Communist Party (it's an ex-''stalinist'' revisionist political party; JCP) totally denies both Soviet and Chinese communist experiences, one-party dictatorship and their bureaucratised socialism. Simultaneously, they also strictly denounce Che, Cuban communists and especially their armed struggles. Instead, they now stick to parliamentarian policy as part of ruling classes of Japan. In fact, their foreign policy (anti-China; anti-Russia) is same with ruling bourgeois ''pro-US'' parties, The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan and Komeito. Moreover, JCP closely works with anti-Communist parties like The Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan who can be seen as a Japanese branch of American Democrats.
For Hong Kong, unlike opposition narrative, there is no actual leftist party at all. Even political parties of Hong Kong are limited companies to just boost business profits of their own member companies in guise of ''political parties'' due to lack of the political party law and professionalism. In other words, there is no real party politics in Hong Kong. Speaking of Che, we must refer to the opposition figure Leung Kwok-hung (an ex-Trotskyist; 1956-) who always wears the Che T-shirt while he himself is an infamous US agent and staunch anti-communist. Their aim is to divide both China and Japan, Hong Kong and mainland China for causing troubles for East Asians in context. Recently, local media exposed that Leung Kwok-hung received money from one of masterminds of the anti-extradition bill amendment movement, EASTERN AMERICAN, a Belizean Henley Lee. There is no such ''leftist'' who works for anti-communist imperialists. However this is leftist ''business'' of today. Awful truth. Thus we almost can't find a true and real leftist like Che Guevara (39 years old at the time of his death; 1928-1967). And we must know that socialism of the 21st century in Latin America, like Hugo Chávez (succeeded by Nicholas Maduro) , Eva Morales (now succeeded by Luis Arce after the defeat of the coup regime of Jeanine Áñez) are synthesis of alternative political lines of both Castro-Che and Allende. Their political lines were and still are practical alternatives to both defunct stalinism of Soviet Russia (1991) and revisionism of China (1979-).
A Revolutionary Twist of Che's ''failed'' Bolivian Mission: Barrientos And Arguedas Became Successors of Che's Anti-Imperialist War After His Death
One of successful narrative control campaigns on the 20th century communism is burial of the revolutionary twists of Che's Bolivian episode in both mainstream and ''independent'' media, especially, it's about the René Barrientos (1919-1969) regime and his Minister of Internal Affairs Antonio Arguedas Mendieta (1930-2000). Their anti-CIA stance since 1968 led to their personal tragedies (Barrientos was killed in the same way with the Panamanian president Omar Torrijos (1929-1981) in the helicopter ''accident'' in 1969; Arguedas in his last years he fought drug cartels in Bolivia as a governmental official but falsely framed as a drug cartel leader and accused for terrorist activities without any evidence by police, ultimately he was killed by a mysterious explosion which could be seen as an assassination. DEA or CIA involvement on his death is still highly suspicious) however the unexpected episode which is totally buried in establishment publication of today is the most brilliant and revolutionary twist of Che's ''failed'' Bolivian mission. Grave reactionaries, US agents who killed Che and his FOCO in 1967 later became revolutionaries than any ''leftists'' in Bolivia at that time. This is the most exciting part of this book. It's totally impossible without Che's Bolivian guerrilla campaign (1966-67) and his famous Bolivian Diary (1968). In fact, historical meaning and revolutionary impacts of Che's Bolivian campaign are equally or more important than the ''successful'' Cuban revolution of 1959 itself. Anyway, both revolutionary campaigns proved correctness of Che's socialist theory of new mankind ''Communist New Man'' (read Che Guevara's essay "Socialism and man in Cuba" ) and methodology of guerrilla warfare. For his Bolivian campaign, Che's moral fight finally won the heart of Arguedas in 1968. The episode of Arguedas is what CIA wants to totally bury forever. As a result, the episode of Arguedas' rebellion against CIA is still totally excluded from media coverage and narrative of establishment in many countries including ''socialist'' China. The Bolivian campaign must be rediscovered in context by readers without edits. "Failure is the mother of success." (Che's Bolivian mission revolutionized Arguedas after his death)
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The author Richard L. Harris is an American professor emeritus of Global Studies at California State University, Monterey Bay according to his public profile. Fairly speaking, he himself is not any kind of communist or marxist or agitator. His professional research on Che, his revolutionary path and his guerrilla warfare actually provides facts that rarely known or totally covered up by establishment of capitalist countries in the world. In fact, facts are alternative viewpoints to official narratives of ruling classes. Only facts can defeat narrative control. Thus we need to know facts not any ''narratives'' in lectures, articles, films, TV dramas, arts, news, books, magazines and advertisements etc..
Indeed, Richard L.Harris is like another respected American authors Chalmers Johnson (1931-2010) or William Blum (1933-2018) who still represents goodness, morality, objectiveness, profound knowledge and superiority of American intellectuals to the world. Ironically, the most powerful and leading anti-imperialist critics of the world are also Americans. Richard L.Harris did not write this book from his personal political position on this topic. On the contrary, he tried to avoid typical political bias of both republicans and democrats. Telling facts without consideration of political correctness needs courage, independence and conscience of an author. In fact, Richard L.Harris proved this quality for writing his masterpiece. Thus writing this book itself is quite revolutionary.
In fact, Che defined guerrilla war as a war of the people, led by a fighting vanguard (the nuclear guerrilla force) against the forces of the ruling oligarchies (elites) and their foreign backers (the US government and the transnational corporations with investments in the Third World). Thus, in Che's view, the guerrilla force does not seize power by itself; rather, it serves as a catalyst that inspires the masses themselves to take up arms and overthrow the established regime. (2)
Questions
Q1: Why Che's Bolivian Mission was failed militarily?
A: We shouldn't see results as causes. Shortage of foods and medicines, sabotage of pro-Soviet communists, inactiveness of other leftists, military encirclement, US military aid(sending anti-Castro Cuban advisors to Bolivia which was officially announced on April 13, 1967), no recruits and total isolation of FOCO from farmers, the urban guerrilla network and outside world by intelligence agencies, pro-Soviet communists and media were all results not causes of the failure. Reading Che's Bolivian Diary, we can only find results of the campaign and monthly conclusions written by Che. His optimist attitude had been maintained throughout the campaign. However direct answers are not in the diary and Castro's introduction. The first fatal mistake (a drastic failure of intelligence analysis on Bolivia; it had nothing to do with his failed Congo campaign) was that both Castro and Che were misinformed and even deceived by the leader of Bolivia's pro-Soviet founder Secretary-General of the Communist Party of Bolivia (Partido Comunista Boliviano, PCB), Mario Monje (1929-2019) in January 1966.
From January 3 to 15, 1966, the first conference of the Organisation of Solidarity of Asian, African, and Latin American Peoples - referred to thereafter as Tricontinental - was held in Havana. (3)
This dream was bolstered by Che's belief that Cuba would become truly independent of the Soviet Union only when additional revolutionary governments were established in Latin America that could provide support to Cuba. ......Finally, they confirmed what Che and Cuban intelligence service already knew - that the Bolivian security and military forces were perhaps the most ineffective and badly organised in Latin America. ...He minimised the fact that Bolivia's communists were badly split along pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese lines and that the leader of Bolivia's pro-Soviet communist party, Mario Monje, had told Fidel during the Tricontinental conference in 1966 that he was interested in establishing a guerrilla FOCO himself in Bolivia. (4)
It appears they (Monje and pro-Soviet communists of Bolivia) deliberately misled Fidel into believing this in order to outflank the more militant, pro-Chinese communists, who they feared were interested in doing this with Cuban help. (5)
Apparently, Che's Bolivian campaign was already doomed to death at the earliest phase when Mario Monje successfully deceived Fidel and Che about the Bolivian situation in 1966. Failure of intelligence is a failure of entire military mission apriori.
Q2: When Che's Bolivian Mission should have been cancelled after the start of their guerrilla campaign?
A: Unlike official narrative on this campaign, it was March 23, 1967 not August or September 1967 when FOCO lost their main base and everything was exposed to Bolivian regular forces at the preparatory phase. It was time for withdrawal. Militarily and tactically, they (44 FOCO guerrillas included 17 Cubans; 22 Bolivians; 3 Peruvians; 2 Argentines in March 1967) lost the war already at this moment. The most important combatant, talented Argentinian guerrilla spy Tania did her brilliant HUMINT work for Che - even his passport was prepared by Tania - but Tania is spitefully depicted as someone who made stupid mistakes and disobeyed Che's orders, which was and still is Hollywood CIA's total fabrication. This is so called narrative control not a fact.
......after a month at the guerrilla's camp, where they (informers) claimed they had been made to work as peons, they decided they were fed up with guerrilla life and would desert at the first opportunity. Rocabado and Barrera gave the army detailed information about the location of the guerrillas' camp, the number of people there, and the fact that most of the guerrilla force was away at the time on a training and reconnaissance march to the north. They also told their captors about the large number of Cubans in the guerrilla group and about the presence of Regis Debray, Ciro Bustos, and Tania at the camp. (6)
The information that Choque, the two deserters Rocabado and Barrera, and the oil worker Vargas gave the Bolivian authorities led to the discovery and subsequent annihilation of Che's guerrilla force. This information enabled the army to locate Che's main base before his men were ready to begin military operations. It also gave the army the initiative from the beginning of the conflict until its tragic termination some six months later. (7)
In August 1967, their supply caves were exposed; in September, consequently, urban guerrilla contact, Loyola Guzmán (she's still active in Bolivia; 1942-) was arrested and led to the total collapse of urban guerrilla network in La Paz. These damages were final blows to his Bolivian campaign and main aftermath of the March exposure.
Q3: Did CIA kill Che? How Che was killed?
A: Official narrative they told is that ''Che was killed by CIA in Bolivia in 1967''. That's a lie. On the contrary, CIA tried to stop execution of Che because it could have been politically more beneficial to keep Che alive as a hostage in Panama than simply killing him. Moreover, Che's possessions were robbed by Bolivian soldiers as booty and brutally shot by many not by one man who wanted to take credit for being men who shot the famous Che Guevara. These facts were far from films and novels. His death was caused by lynching and nine shots from many soldiers (two of which were fatal). Moreover, we can prove this from rarely seen images taken from immediately after the ''legally-groundless'' execution of Che in 1967.
......since Bolivia did not have the death penalty, they feared that if Che remained alive as their prisoner, sympathisers from all over the world would converge on Bolivia in an effort to save him or carry on his fight. They (Bolivian government) decided, therefore, that Che had to be executed immediately and that officially they would announce he had died from wounds received in battle. (8)
.....while Teran's carbine was still smoking, several soldiers pushed past him into the classroom. They said that they, too, wanted to shoot Che so that they could boast that they had shot the famous Che Guevara. Sergeant Teran weakly nodded his approval, and they began firing. When the shooting was over, there were nine bullet wounds in Che's body, two of which were obviously instantaneously fatal. (9)
To be sure, the CIA was ever present during the entire episode; it certainly was determined to see that Che was defeated and, if possible, captured. However, it was not responsible for the failure of Che's guerrilla operation or his execution. In fact, the US government and CIA appear to have opposed the idea of executing Che. (10)
The former CIA agent Rodriguez later confirmed the theory that CIA ordered him to stop execution of Che and bring him to Panama. Thus official narrative of today is far from the fact.
Q4: US military assistance was a significant contribution to defeat Che's Bolivian Mission?
A: Their specific military assistance to Bolivia against Che Guevara had begun after the critical defeat of Che's guerrilla mission in March 1967. Thus a significant contribution to his capture was not the US military aid but deception of pro-Soviet communists (the aftermath of the Soviet-China split) and fatal intelligence failures of the Cuban side while the Bolivian military was actually the weakest one in entire Latin America at that time. Thus, Che's films and novels completely lost the point. History and society can't be learned from fictional works.
Why they send ''advisers''? Simply because they think local agents are ineffective and need training.
US military aid is traditionally sending non-Anglo-American ''advisors'' (e.g. for central and Latin American operations, anti-Castro-Cuban exiles, paid mercenaries as ''agents'' not case officers) and equipment like we can still see in US-backed regime change attempts, coups and colour revolutions of the world.
For Hong Kong, officially no American ''advisors'' were arrested during the defunct anti-extradition bill colour revolution (the true aim was not to topple the HK government as no-one childishly thinks that it's possible to overthrow the Beijing government from HK remotely) but mysterious anglo-europeans appeared as ''advisers'' of front-line radicals, US and its allies mainly provided training for protesters, and some of them were arrested. For instance, fake Martin Svenningsen (Benton Rendail Olmsted). Curiously, Hong Kong police completely blocked any following information on those ''foreign'' prisoners after that. As a result, no local media still track them.
A regime change op is always a military campaign, and intelligence service is just a supportive role. Furthermore, ''decision makers are not intelligence agencies'' in general. This general principle makes the most of local Hong Kong ''professional'' anti-US opinions baseless, helpless, pointless and useless. Moreover, even the fictional novel 007 reflects this reality.
What Hong Kong media and politicians still totally ignore is that the military team (actual military personnel not any para-military team of CIA) is always more significantly important than intelligence agencies and NGOs they easily find and blame for colour revolutions (such as notorious political fund machines, money-laundering devices, USAID, NED, NDI, IRI etc.). In fact, regime change ops are mainly military ops not just intelligence ones. You can't only see and blame supportive roles instead of major military roles. Moreover, the major target of CIA's infiltration is always government officials, and then use their paid agents in the government to further infiltrate media and political parties. It's ''efficient'' because agents in the government can protect their agents in both media and political parties effectively. Therefore, it's funny to see local ''opinion leaders'' to blindly hunt ''NED-CIA operatives'' without any proper concept. I believe that real CIA guys are also laughing at them. I firmly stand with CIA on this issue.
The truth is that there are US Air Force attaches in Ukraine (Brittany Stewart) and Bolivia like this case, for Hong Kong, there is a US Navy attache (John Cranston) in the consulate general.
Che's guerrilla operation was already defeated prior to the arrival on the scene of the US-trained Rangers. (11)
On April 1, 1967, the first instalment of American military equipment arrived in Santa Cruz aboard a US Air Force C-130 cargo plane. Subsequent shipments increased the amount of material assistance, but this aid was restricted to light arms, ammunition, communications equipment, and helicopters. Meanwhile, the US government persuaded the Bolivians that their most important need was in the realm of training. (12)
......while major Shelton and his team were training the Rangers, the CIA made the determined effort to improve the intelligence capabilities of the Bolivian army and civilian intelligence service. Pressure was placed on the minister of interior, Antonio Arguedas to accept several CIA agents as ''advisers'' on security and intelligence matters in his ministry. Additional agents were attached to the military high command, and two Cuban American special agents, who used the names Eduardo Gonzales and Felix Ramos were assigned to the south east to collect first-hand information on the guerrilla operation and work closely with the troops in the field. Felix Ramos's real name was Felix Ismael Rodriguez, and he subsequently wrote a book about his involvement in Che's death as well as his exploits as a CIA operative. Eduardo Gonzales, or 'Dr. Gonzales,' as he called himself, was placed in charge of the CIA team. His real name was Gustavo Villoldo. He had been assigned by the CIA to find Che after he left Cuba, and he followed him to the Congo and then Bolivia. Rodriguez and Villoldo became part of a CIA task force in Bolivia that included the case officer for the operation, 'Jim', another Cuban American, Mario Osiris Riveron, and two agents in charge of communications in Santa Cruz. Because Washington was anxious not to have Anglo-Americans present in the combat zone and because they naively assumed that US agents of Cuban origin could be less conspicuous in Bolivia than Anglo-Americans, all of the operatives assigned to the guerrilla situation were Cuban exiles with a history of involvement in anti-Castro operations. However, their Cuban accents and phoney-sounding names made them as conspicuous as any of the gringo advisers in the Bolivian government. (13)
Q5: How pro-Soviet communists sabotaged Che's Bolivian Mission?
A: Monje, Jorge Kolle Cueto (???-2007) and other pro-Soviet communists (con artists) of Communist Party of Bolivia were decisive roles to ruin Che's guerrilla mission because they gave Castro and Che false information about Bolivian conditions in order to fraudulently obtain Cuban money for personal wealth. First of all, Che was dragged into the wrong political swamp by Monje. Everything was deception. In other words, political deception itself was the major sabotage. And then, they not only provided information to CIA and even had prevented recruits of Che throughout the campaign. As a result, no leftists came for actual help of Che and his military campaign. Che's films didn't depict their sabotage in its entirety.
1. They gave Havana false information about the political situation in Bolivia and about the determination of their party to launch a guerrilla operation there. 2. They prevented members of the party, who had been trained in Cuba, from going to join Che's guerrilla force. 3. They promised Che and his companions support that they never gave them. 4. They prevented the militants in their party from providing support to Che and his comrades. 5. They provided the Bolivian authorities and the CIA with important information about Che and his guerrilla force. (14)
Of course, inactiveness of any other leftist organisations was also criminal. And we are sure that there are also many Monje (con artists) in Hong Kong politics, in both ''pro-establishment'' and opposition camps. Unlike official narrative, even Chinese or US aid itself was targeted by ''pro-Beijing'' or ''pro-US'' con artists.
Q6:What were the René Barrientos regime and true social conditions of Bolivia in 1960s?
A: In short, René Barrientos (1919-1969) was like the popular military leader Omar Torrijos (1929-1981) not the brutal fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (1915-2006). Unlike Cuba, Bolivia already completed their land reform for peasants in 1952. Furthermore, peasant militias were broadly pro-Barrientos even though the regime was actually a US client economically and militarily. However, Barrientos himself accepted marxists in his government and acted like a populist regime who didn't bury the legacies of the 1952 revolution. Thus, demonising Barrientos as the Pinochet of Bolivia is totally fraudulent. In fact, Che fought the wrong enemy under improper political conditions.
Che failed to note that the Barrientos regime was not a typical right-wing military government. First of all, Barrientos was popularly elected to the presidency in 1966. Afterward, he attempted to build a broad base of popular support for his regime by courting the peasant syndicates. In addition, he cloaked in many of the legitimising symbols of the revolution of 1952 and promised to extend the social and economic reform measures put into practice after the revolution. Furthermore, to a degree unparalleled in Bolivian history, Barrientos travelled from one end of the country to the other to meet with the general public and talk to local political leaders. His showmanship and his command of both Aymara and Quechua (the two major languages of Bolivia's large indigenous population) earned him the respect and support of a large segment of the population. At times, Barrientos displayed a remarkable degree of political flexibility. For example, he appointed four marxist politicians to his cabinet during the height of the guerrillas' activities. In his reply to the confusion and criticism that followed this move, he indicated that he was not opposed to marxists perse, so long as they operated within the democratic process and did not engage in illegal activities against the state. (15)
Surprisingly, Barrientos was more moderate than what both official communists and anti-communists told us. Obviously, Che's another fatal intelligence failure was about the nature of the Barrientos regime. And it had nothing to do with his guerrilla warfare technics. It's the intelligence failure that made Che ''a villain'' in terms of Bolivian politics under Barrientos leadership.
Q7: Why and how Arguedas exposed CIA's infiltration of the Bolivian establishment?
A: A US paid agent in government becomes a patriot. The Arguedas' case is really impressive and revolutionary like the last days of the Manuel Noriega (1934-2017) regime in 1989. Of course, it's not a personal emotional conflict with CIA actually caused his revolutionary change but Barrientos's decision to defend sovereignty of Bolivia on the US mining company lawsuit triggered a morally improper CIA overreaction on Arguedas. As a result, the remnant of Che's Bolivian mission and his diary became political weapons against CIA for Arguedas since July 1968.
Remember US regime change attempts and infiltration of targeted governments are always military ops as a whole. Involvement of military personnel shouldn't be ignored.
Arguedas revealed to the press that his association with the CIA had begun in 1964, shortly after the MNR government of Paz Estenssoro was overthrown by the military. At that time, Arguedas was appointed to a high-level administrative post in the ministry of internal affairs. But two months after his appointment, Colonel Edward Fox, the USA Air Force attache in the US embassy, informed Arguedas that if he continued in office, the US government would suspend all economic assistance to Bolivia and take drastic measures against its government. The reason given was Arguedas' past membership in the Bolivian Communist Party. In order to avoid any trouble, Arguedas resigned. Several weeks later, however, he was again contacted by Colonel Fox, who told him the US government might reconsider its opposition to him if he would meet with a certain US diplomat in Bolivia. Colonel Fox introduced him to Larry Sterfield, then the head of the CIA team in Bolivia. ...In order to clear himself with the Americans, Arguedas agreed to go to Lima, Peru, for several days of intensive interrogation by the CIA. Arguedas returned to La Paz and was reappointed to his post in the ministry. However, as time went by, the CIA men asked him to provide them with various kinds of information to which he had access in his position. ...They promised to praise him in all the right circles and to present him as the ideal person for this important post. Soon articles began appearing in the newspapers concerning the marvellous job Arguedas was doing. ...In addition, the US officials and advisers around president Barrientos began praising Arguedas. ...After his appointment, the CIA invited Arguedas to visit Washington and gave him 6,500 USD (a lot of money at that time) for traveling expenses. ...Evidently, the CIA wanted to ensure that his outlook on Latin America affairs conformed with the agency's. (16)
After Arguedas became minister of internal affairs, his relations with the CIA assumed to Arguedas, under the threat of blackmail, it forced him to carry out a variety of actives that served its interests. Through him, he claimed, the CIA took control of the most important operations in his ministry in particular the state intelligence service. This in turn allowed CIA to infiltrate agents into many of Bolivia's political parties and to control the information presented to the president and the cabinet on matters of internal security. Naturally, this arrangement also gave the CIA access to all of Bolivia's state secrets. Arguedas also revealed that the CIA gave him money to corrupt various Bolivian leaders. (17)
...the CIA intervened extensively in Bolivian affairs. It spread information that undermined the government's attempts to negotiate credit in France. It recruited agents from, and infiltrated, nearly all of the major political parties and government agencies in the country. It also gave assistance to the military and political careers of those persons whom it was interested in advancing. (18)
Apparently, his relations with the CIA were further estranged when, under his orders, the Bolivian police broke up an underground spy network that they thought was being run by the pro-Chinese Communists in Bolivia. Following the announcement by Arguedas that the government had uncovered a pro-Chinese spy network, he was angrily informed by Hugo Murray, the CIA agent who worked most closely with him, that the network actually belonged to the CIA. The CIA, not content with controlling the Bolivian intelligence apparatus, had organised its own intelligence network under the camouflage that it was a pro-Chinese operation. (19)
...the CIA asked him to influence the outcome of a law suit brought against a US company by the state-owned Bolivian Mining Corporation. Arguedas claims the CIA told him it was necessary in order to guarantee private initiative in Bolivia, that the court decide in favour of the US mining firm. However, it seems that Arguedas had received special instructions from the president Barrientos to ensure that the court decision was correct. (20)
Asked whether he was not afraid that the CIA would have him assassinated, Arguedas answered that if the CIA wanted to send some 'patriots' to shoot him in his cell, it was welcome to do it. However, he said that he expected it to continue its efforts to discredit him, and that there was nothing that could be done to stop the machinery it had set in motion to do this. In support of this assertion, he recounted how he had planted an article for the CIA in the Bolivian press that falsely reported that Tania had been a Soviet spy operating under orders to sabotage Che's guerrilla operation. He predicted that articles slandering him would continue to appear in the Latin American press. Nevertheless, he said that he was content with having told the truth even if no one believed him. (21)
......he added that coups lend themselves to CIA manipulation and that the group that brings off a coup usually ends up being more dependent upon the CIA than its predecessor. For this reason, the only alternative was a general election administered by an impartial and autonomous commission composed of honest and respective civic leaders, but even this was no guarantee against CIA interference. Arguedas said that the CIA had manipulated many elections in Latin America and that several CIA agents had even bragged to him about the CIA's influence over the national elections in the United States itself. (22)
Arguedas' revelation was and still is meaningful that he told us how CIA or similar intelligence agency exactly infiltrates one country. First, they get agents in the targeted government, then they use them to further infiltrate the judicial system, media, all political parties (right and left-wings), moreover systematically recruit another agents into governmental agencies and departments, the most fatal one is state intelligence. Because they infiltrated top governmental officials thus it's extremely easy to do HUMINT and doxing.
In my mind, this is a mirror of Hong Kong politics of today. Lice are opposition. And ''pro-establishment'' and other con artists like the HK SAR government removed lice successfully with help from CPC and oligarchs however they themselves are also lice. Moreover, those ruling con artists totally ignored improvement of the social conditions that ''systematically'' and ''conspiratorially'' produce lice. Unfortunately, the 2021 Hong Kong electoral reform was to eliminate and prevent oppositionists from influencing both the legislative council and the chief executive election by expanding influence of local oligarchs who are major sponsors of both ''pro-establishment'' and opposition candidates. Thus it won't change anything. And it will only intensify and stiffen oligarchy at the end.
In the case of the peasants, government was spraying them to rid them of lice, rather than improving the social and economic conditions that were the cause of their lice. (23)
Almost all Hong Kong politicians are just like this. They always do irresponsible PR campaigns and make false promises for the poor while they themselves are enjoying comfortably wealthy lives that funded by their sponsors who are really responsible for social issues they fraudulently claimed to tackle. Therefore it's a perfect mirror of today's HK politics.
The leaders of the pro-Soviet Communists in Bolivia were leading a rather bourgeois lifestyle at the time. They talked a great deal about the misery, hunger, and poverty of the masses, but they themselves had never known any of these. The funds they received from Moscow allowed them to live very comfortable existence too well to want to give it up for the dangerous life of revolutionary guerrilla fighters. (24)
In addition, we must correctly understand that Che's theory of Communist New Man is all about true humanist conscience without racial and nationalist bias toward world people which was perfectly written in his last letter to his children. This is what revisionist China lacks today because revisionist China is just promoting Chinese nationalism not revolutionary internationalism.
Grow up as good revolutionaries. Study hard so that you can master technology, which allows us to master nature. Remember that the revolution is what is important, and each one of us, alone is worth nothing. Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary. (25)
NOTES
Richard L. Harris, 'Death of a Revolutionary: Che Guevara's Last Mission', New York: W. W. Norton & Company; Updated ed. (October 17, 2007), p.244.
Ibid., pp.53-4.
Ibid., p.86.
Ibid., p.89.
Ibid., p.94.
Ibid., p.114.
Ibid., p.115.
Ibid., p.160.
Ibid., p.162.
Ibid., p.222.
Ibid., p.226.
Ibid., p.218.
Ibid., pp.220-1.
Ibid., p.201.
Ibid., p.175.
Ibid., pp.231-2.
Ibid., p.234.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., p.236.
Ibid., p.245.
Ibid., pp.246-7.
Ibid., pp.31-2.
Ibid., pp.203-4.
Che Guevara, https://lettersofnote.com, 'Grow up as good revolutionaries', June 14, 2013. https://lettersofnote.com/2013/06/14/grow-up-as-good-revolutionaries/
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