By Pablo Daniel Magee
You don’t want to rush things and jump to illegitimate conclusions when you spend eight years writing a book. Although all the facts about Che Guevara I had gathered up to then looked fairly convincing, I still had to go through some thorough fact checking before announcing to the World that Che had set foot on Paraguayan land. Those who know Che’s story are aware that he grew up near Paraguay, and that the first political conversations he heard were about the injustice of the Chaco War, when Bolivia, financed by US private companies, invaded Paraguay to get their hands on the Chaco region where, supposedly, oil was awaiting. This event is at the very core of Che’s political consciousness. Therefore, it’s not unreasonable to think that sometime before his own revolutionary incursion in Bolivia, he would have wanted to know that in the event of a success, he could have continued liberating South America through Paraguay, which was always a geo-strategic centre for both the USSR and the United States during the cold war.
But ( because there is always a but, isn’t there?!) my old friend Pierre Kalfon, author of the first biography about Che I’d ever read, locates Che in Cuba at the dates the documents of the Secret Service of Brazil locate him on his way to Paraguay. Yet, Castañeda, author of the second biography I’d read about the man, reports that General Alfredo Ovando, who was in charge of dealing with Che Guevara in Bolivia, established that Che entered Bolivia alone right around these dates. Knowing that Filartiga drove Che towards the north of Paraguay was only one step from deducing that my theory held, and that Che had followed this route into Bolivia before going back to Cuba and starting the journey that brought him and his team to Bolivia to meet their fatal fate. Moreover, many other biographies of the Che report that exactly in this time, there are no official traces of Che and that many people he knew thought they saw him in his own country, Argentina. The historical panorama was therefore vague enough for me to consider an attempt at proving my theory.
That is when I contacted the brother of Che Guevara, Juan-Martín Guevara, asking him to meet with me in Argentina. Do I need to say I was somewhat incredulous when the answer came: yes, he would meet me in Buenos Aires on October 3rd 2016. I mean. I did after all ask him for an interview, but I think I never imagined he would accept. Think of it for a moment: I was about to meet the little brother of the myth whose face I had on my bedroom wall since I was 14. But that’s not the point.
Here is what happened (I do cut to the relevant parts here, as the interview lasted over three hours):
Pablo – I’m writing a book about the Condor Operation and Martin Almada, and based on facts I’ve discovered these last years, I’d like to dedicate a chapter to your brother. I don’t know if you know these documents that came to my attention. Can you have a look?
Juan-Martín – Of course. (He studies the documents). Well. It is very difficult to establish because so many people say that Che was all over South America at that time. But it is actually the first time I see documents of the secret service about these dates. I mean. Who knows through where he entered Bolivia for the first time? Someone must know. Maybe Fidel (Castro), maybe someone in Cuba, or people who later travelled with him. The thing is, if someone had known beforehand where he would enter, he would have never made it through. Keep in mind they were looking for my brother everywhere. I had a library in Buenos Aires then, where people came from all over the world. It was a blend of movements, some armed, others not, and some very important people told me that my brother was already in South America. That he’d left Cuba in 1966.
Pablo – Yes but historian Pierre Kalfon has him in Cuba at that time.
Juan– Martín – Yes, I’ve read his book. But there is no way he could have located my brother with exactitude. Many people have him at different locations in Argentina. My cousin swore to me all his life that he saw Che exactly where your documents state, exactly at those dates. I never believed him but now that I see these documents… you know, with my brother, anything is possible. I also have another cousin who swore to me he spoke with my brother in Argentina in 1966. It’s like people want to have met him.
(I explain my investigation to him and the interviews that lead me to think Che was in Paraguay)
Juan-Martin – What calls my attention is that this policeman says he recognized him. And at this time, the Che probably already had undergone plastic surgery. So he would have been unrecognizable, even more for someone who didn’t know him.
Pablo – Yes but do bear in mind that this is only his first incursion in Bolivia. Kalfon for example, mentions that the surgery was performed just before he left for the final trip to Bolivia. After That.
Juan-Martín – Look Pablo. It is clear for me you have enough elements to defend a thesis about the way my brother entered Bolivia, and in fact, it is important that you do so. It is important because on the one hand, there are only two ways my brother could have entered Bolivia. And that is through the North of Argentina or through Paraguay. I know the North of Argentina and I can tell you right now that is not the place you want to choose. So the Paraguayan thesis is more than probable. Also, the Cuban archive that kept track of all of this are probably in Fidel (Castro)’s nightstand, and the day he dies, they will disappear. Cuba does not have this policy of declassifying archive. The day Fidel goes, they go with him.”
Following our meeting, with the somewhat desperate idea that in the end, we’ll probably never know the truth, I walk Juan-Martin to his bus stop. There, the man takes me in his arms and whispers to my ear: “Thank you son. You’ve done a great work for the memory of my brother”.
Later that day, I’ll have my revolutionary writer of a mother on the phone and will tell her about the interview. “But wait a moment”, she’ll reply, “He called you son! If Juan-Martín is your father in the Revolution, that makes Che… your uncle!”
* 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