Che and Evo: ¡Hasta La Victoria Siempre!

As the wide scale release date for Steven Soderbergh’s new film, Che, starring Benicio del Toro as Ernesto “Che” Guevara, draws near, the second half of the movie, Guerrilla, needs to be placed in a proper historical context.  The first half of the movie has a more accessible plot considering the general populace is more familiar with the Cuban Revolution. But what about Bolivia during Guevara’s involvement there?  What about Bolivia today?  The small South American nation seems to be left out of worldwide political discourse for the most part.  Soderbergh’s biopic about the radical ideologue will certainly increase awareness not only about Che and Marxism, but also his continuing struggle that is embodied by current Bolivian president, Evo Morales.

Che is concerned mainly with two pinnacles of its namesake’s existence.  The first half of the film, The Argentine, covers the Che’s involvement in the Cuban Revolution alongside Fidel Castro.  The latter half, Guerrilla, follows Guevara’s final revolutionary attempt in Bolivia.  His endeavor eventually fails, and he is executed for his subversion.

Guevara’s activities in Bolivia came during a time of quasi-military rule under President René Barrientos of the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement. The Barrientos administration attempted to maintain popular support within the peasantry while blatantly serving foreign interests, mainly the United States.  The president had initially come to power through an armed coup d’état in 1964 while he was serving as vice-president.  He would later be elected with help from the military.

After recovering in Prague from a failed revolutionary effort in the Congo, Che began to meet with Bolivian dissidents in late 1966 or early 1967.  With a band of Cuban soldiers and supplies from Havana, Guevara made his way to the Ñancahuazú region of Bolivia where a military training camp was set up.  There he began to recruit and train Marxist-sympathizing peasants.  The recruiting process was largely unsuccessful given that the Communist Party of Bolivia did not support his guerrilla movement.

In total, a ragged band of about 50 guerrilla warriors began an armed assault against the Bolivian army.  They won a few small victories throughout 1967, but the tide turned against them as Barrientos, with help from the CIA, took a strong stance against Guevara’s efforts.  Guevara’s small forces were quickly encircled by the Bolivian military and subdued in October of 1967.  Che himself was captured and placed in a schoolhouse where he was later executed. Reportedly, his last words were “shoot, coward, you are only about to kill a man.”  The execution had been ordered by President Barrientos himself.

Barrientos’ decisions surrounding the quelling of Guevara’s movement and his local supporters would eventually lead to his political demise.  During the onslaught against Che’s troops, a group of Bolivian miners came out in support of the insurgency.  Barrientos sent soldiers to extinguish this spreading sentiment.  This resulted in the soldiers massacring approximately 30 civilians of both sexes.  His authoritarian actions in both situations led to the loss of what popular support he still had.  In order to regain his popularity, the president took to traveling around the Bolivian countryside and explaining his actions.  While on this journey, Barrientos perished in a helicopter accident in 1969.  The country then plunged into decades of political and economic turmoil that lasted until the early 1990s. The political situation remains unstable even today.

Che’s gift to Bolivia would not be his dream of a violent revolution, but his socially progressive ideals.  He also encouraged anti-capitalist sentiments within the largely indigenous populace.  These concerns would later form the basis for the backlash to neoliberal globalization and neocolonialism imposed by the international community.

Evo Morales was elected to the presidency of Bolivia on December 4, 2005.  Since then he has carried on a legacy that began in his country with Che.  He is the first indigenous president of Bolivia and is seen by many as the first step to throwing off the shackles of Western imperialism.  He raised the minimum wage by fifty percent soon after his election.  In a landmark move, he partially nationalized Bolivia’s natural gas reserves, the second largest in Latin America after Venezuela.  In doing so, he has exponentially increased the amount of capital available to the national government.  This has allowed Bolivia to heavily invest in social welfare programs, which have been largely successful; as of December 21, 2008 Evo Morales has declared Bolivia an illiteracy-free region.

Despite Morales’ success and popularity, in early 2008 there was an autonomy movement in the Santa Cruz regions, the wealthy area of Bolivia, which was instigated by wealthy oligarchs.  This move led to rioting, which was reportably supported by the US ambassador to Bolivia.  The ambassador was promptly expelled from the country for his alleged subversive position. Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, in a show of solidarity with Morales, also expelled the American ambassador to Venezuela.

The US “War on Drugs” has also been a point of contention for Bolivian policy as the coca leaf is a traditional herb used by the indigenous people there as a remedy for altitude sickness and as a mild stimulant.  Morales, a former coca farmer and union organizer, has allowed for more legal production of the plant.  In response to this action, the United States has placed Bolivia on its narcotics blacklist and has stopped all aid to the poorest nation in South America.

All of these events culminated in an unsuccessful attempted coup against the Morales government in 2008.  The coup may have been tacitly supported in my opinion, although not very vocally, by the government of the United States.  Unanimously, the leaders of every South American country came out in support of the Morales government, and Hugo Chavez pledged military support for his political ally.  The coup failed, but some of the regions were granted a level of autonomy as a result of the coup attempt.

The rejection of US authority when viewed with Guevara in mind can be seen as a continuation of his beloved revolution.  Although for now, mass bloodshed has not been necessary to attain progressive goals in Bolivia, the future is uncertain. Recent declines in worldwide commodity prices put many of Morales’ social programs in jeopardy. This has the potential to lead to tumultuous times not only in Bolivia, but also throughout Latin America. Time will tell whether a socialist democracy can survive such an economic shock. As such, history will either view Guevara and Morales as idealistic failures or heroic humanitarians.  As for me, I’ll hope for the latter.