Interesting Article on Gustavo Villoldo and his Pursuit Against Che
Saw the cover to this article while walking down Las Olas. Not to0 bad.
Gustavo Villoldo, a stocky figure in green army fatigues, stands just inside the tiny laundry room where the Cuban revolutionary's corpse rests atop a sink. For five months, the CIA operative has led soldiers hunting Guevara through the rough crags and valleys of southern Bolivia. Less than 24 hours ago, his team had captured and executed him in a village called La Higuera, then brought his body here to Vallegrande.
Gustavo watches the slender doctor take notes in a small notebook: one bullet wound to the left collarbone; another in the right collarbone, causing a compound fracture; three slugs in the dorsal region around his rib cage; a ragged hole in the left pectoral; a bullet in the right calf; a graze wound on the inner thigh; a bullet through the forearm.
Several shots criss-crossed his asthmatic lungs and lodged in vertebrae. Che died, the surgeon notes, from hemorrhaging in the chest.
Gustavo stares at the body. He thinks of all the death Che has caused, from Havana to Bolivia to the Congo. He imagines all the Cuban patriots the revolutionary leader has killed.
Patriots like Gustavo's own father.
Read it here.
My father met Gustavo some years ago. I heard that Guevarra gave his pipe to him and I also heard that when he came to tell him, "lo siento mucho",
the man turned white as a ghost for he new well what was coming.
If there is a hell I hope he is suffering for all the misery he caused when he was alive.
Can you imagine the stench emanating from that carcass?
Why isn't this picture on the Urban Outfitters' shirts?
Lazaro great idea, maybe Artie from Cubanzos can get some created, with a slogan like
"A died communist is best", "Conyo esto muerto, ya no valgo nada".
Lazaro and rjbonau -
THAT would be a Che T-shirt I would wear.
Part of me hopes that if he actually sees any of this 1 billion + $, that he shares it with the many families who have been torn apart by the culprits in the lawsuit.
What are others views on this? Is such a large judgment fair, considering there is only so much confiscated assets to disperse and so many thousands/millions of victims? Talk me down fellow Cubanos
I am thinking of Spielberg's Munich. It surprises me that Spielberg hasn't yet made a movie analyzing how it did harm to Gustavo to have such obsessive feelings of vengeance and wished to go after Che and see him dead. After all, then how does Gustavo differ from Che? Give me a break.
Sorry to bring that up, but the more I think about that movie, the angrier I get.
I just started reading the article and Gustavo makes me so proud! Although our struggle against the tyranny has been long and arduous, we've mostly hit soft targets. We've been betrayed in battle and isolated, most notably in the Bay of Pigs and El Escambray. Those people who have turned against castro have become martyrs suffering in prison. Some like Armando Valladares and Reinaldo Arenas have subsequently hurt the tyrannt with their memoirs, but no one has been able to hit at the heart of the dictatorship and international communism as directly as Gustavo. Ironically, in a way, Gustavo helped immortalize che by giving the tryanny [and subsequently Hollywood] what they longed for, a martyr! But alas, it still gives me great satisfaction that a Cuban killed that piece of human excrement, che.
And I'm, also, proud of Gustavo for not giving up, for being relentless. I think that his lawsuit is great and perhaps one day if the tyranny is defeated, Gustavo or his descendants will be able to collect money from castro's family via their substantial holdings in Europe, in the same way that descendants of Holocaust victims have done in Europe.
By the way, Gustavo's anonymity [how many Americans and Hollywood types know who Gustavo is? You can count them on one hand] shows how reluctant the world is to give Cuban Americans any credit for anything. Remember, to the world, we're spineless jellyfish, cowards who after a lifetime of cruel exploitation, ran away with our tails between our legs when the 'great vindicator castro liberated the Cubans'.
The fact is, there is no way, NONE, to ever make Castro, Inc. pay for the deaths, suffering, misery and destruction it has caused. There will never be anything close to reasonable justice, not in this world. Look at what happened (or rather, didn't happen) in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. In a nutshell, "Aqui no ha pasado nada," or "the past is history and we should just forget it and move on as if nothing had ever happened." I have absolutely no respect for the Russian people, not to mention the Nicaraguans, but I'm afraid it won't be much different in Cuba.
Besides, let's face it, did killing Che make up for what he did? Would boiling Fidel and Raul alive make up for what they've done? No. When the crime is so extensive, so wide, so deep, human means cannot bring about true justice, because no human punishment would be bad enough to cover the magnitude of the crime.
Yeah, it's like the world's attitude about Israel. As long as Israel accepts violence against it, it gets the world's sympathy. But as soon as it tries to defends itself, the world goes to work spreading animosity against it. So Israel must be the victim or it will be named the exploiter, the occupier, the murderer of innocent civilians.
The world chooses to give Israel little credit for its great accomplishments and for its willingness to sacrifice so much for quiet. There is something strange about these topsy turvy assessments where Cubans and Israelis are concerned. And it doesn't flatter those making these assessments.
Like Gustavo, Israel has to do what it must despite the silly world and its strange definitions and alliances.
Revenge may not be okay with Spielberg according to his movie but it's fine with me. And giving in to what others think of us is fruitless.
Long live a free and prosperous Israel. And may Cuba soon be free.
Honey, Spielberg is a Jew technically, and no doubt when and how it suits him, but if you ask me, he's hardly a great Jew. Looks more like a Jew of fashion or convenience. Unfortunately, the same thing, in principle, could be said of more than a few Cubans.
If you want to see a better film about the Mosad's payback for Munich, see Sword of Gideon with our local boy Stephen Bauer. That's a great film that doesn't try to make the terrorists look sympathetic like Spielberg made them look.
Asombra, at least in countries like Romania, after the fall of the communists, the country returned the stolen lands back to the heirs of those it was stolen from. There's some hope.
Mike, I wasn't really talking about restitution of stolen or confiscated property, though that's obviously a legitimate issue. Material losses, relatively speaking, are the easiest to make up. There are other losses which are more serious and can never be restored. But frankly, my personal opinion is that, for the most part, the only way for Cubans who were robbed to get back their rightful property will be to buy it back, assuming said property still exists. It won't be pretty, I'm afraid.
It's a great photo, isn't it? Was maybe inna seventh/eighth grade when che got his, all over the radio news.
Make a nice T-Shirt, one I'd proudly love to wear, particularly on Carib cruises whilst lounging on the deck, DF'ng cuban radio sites.
Maybe a nice motto like 'the fruits of communism'?
"as one reaps"? "Live by the paredon...."?
Possibilities limitless.
Paul Vincent Zecchino
Mana'no-che-me Key, Florida
06 August, 2009
PS -
Concur with thoughts expressed above. Desire for revenge is within us and surely justified as in wish to give it to fido & raulita.
What banks the fires a bit is not only that the Creator reserves revenge to himself, 'vengeance is mine', but what that implies, in that he will not indefinetly tolerate worldwide tyranny merely because a handful of creepy oligarchs want it.
PVZ
Manasota Key, Florida
06 August, 2009
But alas, it still gives me great satisfaction that a Cuban killed that piece of human excrement, che.
Rayarena, just to correct something, Gustavo didn't actually shoot Che - although I'm sure he had - that honor went to a drunk Bolivian sergeant named Mario Teran - chosen because it was his birthday and several Mario's from his unit had been killed while fighting Che's guerrillas.
I don't believe Gustavo saw Che until he was already killed, tagged, and flown to Vallegrande (where this photo was taken a few days after). I believe the interviewing of Che went to exile Felix Rodriguez, although him and Gusatavo obviously have squabbled ever since on their 2 roles.
correction to post above "I'm sure Gusatavo wish he had"
Asombra
It's also puzzled me that after the fall of the Soviet Empire there was no trials for any of the murdering scumbags in Eastern Europe. With the Czechs, I can understand because they never even fired a shot when the Nazis invaded (twice) and the Russians invaded (twice)---kinda makes you wonder why they even have an army. Anyway, I have a very strong suspicion that it's not going to be like that when the Reds fall in Cuba. Aside from the ones in exile, I've heard it say that a lot of Cubans have sharpened their knives and put them under the bed for when the day arrives. Goody, goody, goody.
CountNomis, lets hope. However knifes don't hold up well against Soviet AK47's. The "Reds" are the only ones with the guns. Hence the 50 + years in power and a law making private gun ownership illegal. It is even illegal for a tourist to bring a walkie talkie into Cuba. My neighbor went back to Cuba last year and wanted to bring some small walkie talkies for his young nephews to play with, they were confiscated at the Havana airport - along with his pair of binoculars. Anything deemed in any way as potentially benefitical for a military purpose is siezed immediately.
Nomis, only time can really tell what will happen, but this horror has lasted so long, it's affected (and yes, compromised) so much and so many, that I'm not at all sure there will be more than very limited justice. There are a LOT of people with dirty laundry, even though it may not be downright bloody. Castro, Inc. hasn't held on to absolute power for 50 years due to the efforts of a tiny minority. There's been plenty of collaboration of one kind or another.
The big-name, high-profile, blatantly criminal crowd will naturally get the hell out as soon as they see the game is up, and I'm sure they've all got contingency plans to that effect (unless they're extremely stupid). The rest, if they can't manage to get out or somehow "disappear," will come up with some version of "I was just a victim of the system" or "I had no choice" or "I meant well" or "I was deceived." All of these people have family members and/or friends who will try to get them off the hook, and the path of least resistance will be to forget the whole putrid mess.