Vol. 77/No. 28      July 22, 2013

BY HARRY VILLEGAS
It is necessary to make a few comments on the political and historical circumstances that existed at the time the diary was written. On the international level, the years 1966 and 1967 were marked by an escalation of one of the most horrendous crimes humanity has ever witnessed: the aggression against the people of Vietnam, a small but unflinchingly heroic country, by the strongest imperialist power on earth.

This genocide expressed, in all its cruelty, the U.S. government course of using force to impose its criminal interests of domination, plunder, and exploitation wherever in the world these interests were seriously threatened. …

An entire region has been ravaged by foreign control over its natural resources and products, the exploitation of its workers, and the sharp impoverishment of its economies. Tribute is exacted in ways that violate the sovereignty of the nations of Latin America, pillage their material and spiritual patrimony, deepen their dependence and subjugation to imperialism, and close off possibilities of development and progress.

Together with a handful of heroic Bolivian, Peruvian, and Cuban combatants who accompanied him to Bolivia, Che fought to change this reality of the 1960s—a reality whose cruel mechanisms of plunder have since been deepened and refined. Che’s death resounds vividly in his stirring message to revolutionaries around the world:

“Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear, if another hand reaches out to take up our arms, and other men come forward to join in our funeral dirge with the rattling of machine guns and with new cries of battle and victory.”…

Totally convinced that the political conditions were ripening and that this perspective was realizable, Commander Che Guevara carried out his plans and initiated actions to open a path toward victory. In his view, victory was certain to the degree that the struggle extended as far as possible throughout Latin America.

Never has such a small group of individuals undertaken an enterprise of such gigantic proportions. That small detachment of heroic combatants was Che’s “sling of David.” As our commander in chief pointed out, Che did not outlive his ideas, he enriched them with his blood.

Following the conclusion of his internationalist activity in the Congo, and given the confrontation unfolding in Latin America at the time, Che chose Bolivia as the place from which to initiate his strategic course in Latin America.

One factor behind Che’s selection was his analysis of the Bolivian people’s combative traditions going all the way back to the fight of the indigenous peoples against the royalists. …

The diary also reflects the firm conviction and internationalist fervor of our efforts for the national liberation of Latin America, as well as the real possibilities that existed for achieving that objective. The diary reflects our conviction that the struggle we were initiating would increasingly widen those possibilities. The precondition for this was to overcome the hard and difficult stage in which the guerrilla unit struggled to survive, in order to develop later on along the lines conceived by Che.

We never envisioned a sectarian undertaking. Such a conception would have been impossible not only on a Bolivian scale, but above all on a continental scale. Our idea was to create a broad revolutionary movement that would draw in all honest individuals prepared to struggle for social justice, together with all revolutionary organizations, parties, and sectors of the people. This was the basis on which the ELN (National Liberation Army) was formed, as is made clear by its five public communiqués, containing information and appeals addressed to the Bolivian people.

Examining the events recorded in Che’s Bolivian diary and in my own, one can see how relations were established not only with different political forces within Bolivia and their representatives, but also with leaders and representatives of other political organizations of the continent. These contacts and relations would inexorably lead to an expansion of ties with other progressive forces in the region provided that the struggle intensified and succeeded in surviving the initial phase, which imposed severe restrictions on contacts and communications.

My only hope is that the recollections contained in my diary give a true picture of the war in Bolivia. This was a confrontation carried out by a group of men true to their ideas. They fought a professional army equipped by the United States and aided by the CIA—starting with the country’s president René Barrientos and extending to phony journalists, officers, soldiers, and peasant infiltrators. The participation of U.S. Rangers and agents from the CIA’s station in La Paz and its general headquarters in the United States was, of course, direct and open. …

Che taught us many lessons, which were passed on to us through his practical activity. In Cuba he, also, had the possibility of learning, of self-improvement. One of the virtues he acquired from contact with our people was confidence in victory, faith in human beings, and the deepest sense of loyalty.  
 
 
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