By Pablo Daniel Magee *
When I first arrived in Paraguay, it looked like I had a long way ahead of me. My days were planned between the Palace of Justice, where I was bound to study the four tons of archive of the Condor Operation placed under the protection of the UNESCO; and interviews with Doctor Martín Almada and witnesses of the dictatorship. Paraguay still holds the record of the longest dictatorship ever in South America, held together by the wrath of General Alfredo Stroessner between 1954 and 1989. In fact, the archive kept in the Palace of Justice are not those of the Condor Operation per se. They are the archive of the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, which include documents related to the Condor: so, finding those was my main concern. Thankfully, many academics and journalists had done part of that job for me, but in four tons of archive only partly scanned and kept in pretty basic conditions (to say the least), the challenge was a high one. I was up for it, particularly as I found very rewarding every gem I stumbled upon during my quest. The Director of the FBI, Clarence M. Kelly, wishing the worst torturer of Paraguay a very Merry Christmas “filled with all the good things he sincerely deserves”: my oh my! Then of course, came all the part about cutting 12-year-old girls into pieces because they were part of the communist guerrilla… but let’s not go there. I had enough nightmares for all of you.
Coming back to our subject, things got particularly interesting for me, as a convinced Guevarist, when I came across archives number 00019F 1269 and 00019F 1270.
The documents go as follows:
Police of the Capital
Monday October 3rd 1966
Confidential report N° 374
To the Chief of the Investigations Department of Asunción
I am honoured to write to you in order to call your honourable attention on a report received at 1:00am of today, Monday October the 3rd.
(…) ERNESTO CHE GUEVARA LEFT THE STATE OF CORUMBA (BRAZIL) THIS THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 29TH UNDER THE FAKE IDENTITY OF OSCAR FERREIRA. HE IS CURRENTLY ONBOARD THE BOAT VICTORIA DOS PALMARES. HE WILL POSSIBLY ARRIVE IN ASUNCIÓN THIS MONDAY, 3RD OF OCTOBER AT DAWN AND HAS A MISSION.
SIGNATURE: CHIEF OF THE SECRET SERVICE OF BRAZIL, MAJOR PASCUAL.
In these circumstances, the officer having received the report went in person to the duty officer of the General Harbour Organization to check on the future arrival of the boat. It turns out the boat had arrived on Sunday, October the 2nd at 2pm. Among the 7 people on the manifest, he found an OSCAR FERREIRA, Sex: Male, of Paraguayan nationality, 45 years of age, married and salesman. The order for capture was sent to all patrols and villages nearby.
BENITO LÓPEZ PERÉZ, Insp. Major Guard Official.
Now THIS is something you don’t find every day. A quick check on the internet allowed me to establish that these documents had previously been found but that the Che’s presence in Paraguay had never been proven for sure.
Being overwhelmed by many other leads concerning my investigation more directly, I put these reports on the side, but never stopped thinking about them, which proved useful when I finally interviewed a man called Doctor Alcides Molinas. Something else, this man. Under the dictatorship, he was arrested and tortured over a hundred times. In fact, the police even came knocking on his door apologizing to have to take him in times and again: a true revolutionary. At the end of our long interview, I tried my luck: “Have you ever heard that the Che Guevara came to Paraguay?”, I asked, “- Oh yes! I remember I once was waiting for a torture session when a captain rushed into the police precinct and insisted they gave him men at once to go arrest the Che Guevara who was having dinner alone at the Rosedal, a very popular restaurant in Asunción. I remember he also said Che was smoking a pipe. His Colonel laughed right at his face saying there was no chance that Che would ever be here, even less smoking a pipe when it was a public fact that he was into cigars. But I knew something they didn’t: the Guarani Indigenous had told Che to use amba’y for his asthma. It’s a plant. Yet, unlike the Indigenous who inhale its steam, Che smoked it in a pipe. So as soon as that captain brought up the pipe, I knew that it was very likely that this man had actually seen Che Guevara.” What a testimony for sore ears! By then, my phone was tapped and my computer had been attacked several times. I’d also received very straightforward threats about my work by phone and in the street. Studying the Condor is still a touchy subject in Asunción del Paraguay!
A couple of years later, as that lead had gone cold and I had nearly forgotten about it, a friend of mine brought me to the house of Doctor (yes, another one!) Joel Filartiga. You might not have heard of him but in his country, Doctor Filartiga is a legend. In fact, Hollywood made a biopic about his life called One man’s war, and the actor staring the role is none other than Anthony Hopkins. This man and I had a long conversation at the end of which I suddenly had an inspiration: “Sir, did you ever hear that the Che might have come to Paraguay at one point in time? – Of course!”, he answered, “It’s me who fetched him at the harbour when he arrived!” –Bingo! – I thought to myself as he went on:
“The boat arrived about twelve hours early that day, so Che got here on a Sunday. He came in with a fake Paraguayan passport, as a sunglasses salesman. I wasn’t thrilled because the streets of Asunción were packed, but I brought him to see Miguelito: a friend we had in common who had a traffic of communist magazines going on. Some of those publications, like Bohemia, came directly from Cuba. This guy knew most of the subversives in the capital. Che wanted to know about the potential for a revolution in Paraguay. Because I still had surgeries to perform that evening, I then brought him to a friend’s hotel, the Majestic, in Avenida Quinta and Estados-Unidos, and recommended him to get some food at the Rosedal -double Bingo! –, a popular place at that time. But it all turned short when he thought he’d been recognized by a policeman -triple Bingo! -, and I helped him flee the city before midnight towards the north of the country.”
Confidential documents of the secret service and testimonies from two distinct highly credible sources interviewed two years apart? That’s what you call a potential gold-paved scoop.
What about my uncle the Che, say you?
At this stage of the story, he might still be stuck somewhere between the Paraguayan Chaco and Bolivia…
But we’ll get there!
* French writer, journalist, screenwriter and playwright, author of the non-fiction novel Opération Condor, Un homme face à la terreur en Amérique latine, Saint Simon, 2020, 378p. ISBN 978-2-37435-025-7
Cover illustration: Roberto Goiriz