EXPLAINS REASONS FOR DEFEAT OF CHE GUEVARA
{Marc Hutten, correspondent for Agence France-Presse in Bolivia, interviewed Régis Debray in prison in Camiri, October 27, asking him about his trial, Che Guevara and the Bolivian guerrilla movement. Hutten's article appeared in English in the October 28 London Times. The following extract includes the questions and answers. ]
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QUESTION: How do you feel, and what are your feelings now that your trial is nearing its end?
DEBRAY: I feel badly because my trial is taking place as if I were not there. Bolivian procedure forbids the accused to speak. I might as well not have been there, it wouldn't have changed anything. I have had to listen for a month to a string of calumnies, falsehoods, and carefully organized insinuations without being able to answer then.
As far as my lawyer is concerned, he was appointed: he can't defend me at all as I should like, first of all because he doesn't know all the facts and then because he is the victim of a normal inhibition and is under psychological pressure. I feel badly because for a month I've been listening to "evidence" that isn't evidence, to real sleight-of-hand on the part of the prosecutor, for reasons of publicity and supported by the complicity of the national press and the Government.
I'm not writing at all. It's just not in me. I spend the time thinking about Guevara, my comrades who are dead, and about my trial, too.
Q: The Bolivian Communist Party did not support the movement directed by "Ché" Guevara. Do you think it betrayed the revolution this way?
D: You can't talk about betrayal as such, because it's a serious accusation and because you'd have to have means of illustrating it, which I don't have right now. It's obvious that serious problems came up between "Ché" Guevara and the Bolivian Communist Party.
There was nearly a rupture three months before the hostilities started and of course this considerably and deeply upset relations between the guerrillas and the other political forces of the country.
It's certain that that quasi-rupture played a capital role in the liquidation of the guerrillas. That said, most of the guerrillas came from the basis of the Bolivian Communist Party. In this connection you must distinguish between militants and the leadership.
Q: Why did hostilities break out prematurely between the guerrillas and the soldiers?
D: That was the result of meeting of three things, three accidents, three imponderables.
First, because of an imprudence on the part of the leader of the forward party, Marcos, the guerrillas who were north of Nancahuazu in March were discovered by the Army and followed, step by step, on their way back from Vallegrande to Nancahuazu, by an Army column. That error was the starting point of Marcos's removal as leader of the forward party.
The second thing was the revelation by Algaranaz [one of the four Bolivians on trial] of the ranch that served as a contact point between the guerrillas and the town, and consequently, the blocking of the road to the camp and the occu-
pation of the ranch.
The third thing was the desertion of three elements on March 11 and March 17. The guerrillas had committed the imprudence of confiding in them and giving them all the information about the leadership of the movement, the presence of Guevara and strength and armament.
Two of these elements deserted on the llth. On the 14th they gave the Army a regular report, which was confirmed, point by point, on the 17th by the third deserter, Choque [another of the accused Bolivians].
Q: Can Guevara himself be held responsible, at least partly, for the guerrillas' failure?
D: No, absolutely not. "Ché" did everything to make the guerrillas prosper. He was the victim of imponderables, the victim of a political deception on the part of certain Bolivian sectors, the victim of a giving up, patently, by the guerrillas themselves, that is to say, in this absolutely deserted zone, without population, without water, without food.
So the guerrillas were the victims, first, of the jungle and the natural surroundings, which physically destroyed and broke the combatants, and that was in March.
Q: Is it correct that there was inside the guerrilla movement friction resulting from two different views about the orientation of the movement -- the national view, that of the Bolivians, and the continental view held by the Cubans?
D: There was friction, but for other reasons. The division wasn't on the criterion of nationality. "Ché" laid down a single conception, let's say Latin American, which none of the Bolivians argued with. What there was was deserters and
traitors, not by opposition but by ide-
ological deficiency.
There was, unfortunately, a lot of
this, mainly about 20 miners, which hadn't
been expected. There were 15 or 17 de-
serters and four other guerrillas who
were expelled. They belonged to the Lump-
enproletariat.
Q: The theory and ideas you set
forth in your book Revolution in Revolu-
tion, have they been upset as a result of
the experience of these past months?
D: Upset, no, modified, yes. In
fact, I wouldn't take anything out of my
book if I were to rewrite it, I would add
certain things. You have to get into the
lesson of these past months by agreeing
to look straight at things.
If it was only through loyalty to
"Ché's" memory, I would revise certain
points in my book which he didn't agree
with. Guevara read my book once and we
talked about it. Anyway, our polemic
wasn't very important, since "Ché" had
his own ideas, and although we were
agreed on a lot of things, my book car-
ried no weight in the movement. It's here,
in Camiri, that it is being accorded
great importance, for reasons connected
with my trial.
Q: Unlike many journalists, as
soon as Guevara's death was first an-
nounced you accepted it without showing
the least surprise. Would this be because
you knew he was in a desperate situation?
D: Yes. In seven months the guer-
rillas had had no contact with the out-
side world. This led me to foresee, as by
evidence, that they were going to be fin-
ished soon. The guerrillas were the vic-
tims of the surroundings. They were as-
sailed by hunger, cold, and deprived of
food and medicine. Finally the Army cut
off any possibility of retreat.
FOUR