我是怎么抓到切?格瓦拉的?

On October 8 1967, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara was captured in Bolivia. A key player in the 1959 Cuban revolution, Guevara had travelled to the country in the hope of turning it into one of the “many Vietnams” he had called for in his 1966 “Message to the Tricontinental”. Accounts of the events surrounding Guevara’s death have varied, and some details remain contested.

1967年10月8日，埃內(nèi)斯托•切•格瓦拉(Ernesto 'Che' Guevara，切是綽號(hào))在玻利維亞被俘。作為1959年古巴革命的關(guān)鍵人物，格瓦拉來(lái)到玻利維亞，是希望將它變成“許多個(gè)越南”中的一個(gè)——他在1966年《通過(guò)三大洲會(huì)議致世界人民的信》(Message to the Tricontinental)中呼吁讓更多的國(guó)家像越南一樣(根據(jù)公開資料，該信發(fā)表于1967年——譯者注)。關(guān)于格瓦拉之死的記載眾說(shuō)紛紜，有些細(xì)節(jié)至今仍存在爭(zhēng)議。

“On October 8 my soldiers were controlling the route out of the Yuro ravine, an area that was covered with thick underbrush, rocks and trees. At around one o’clock they shouted that they had two prisoners. I ran 20 metres uphill to see them and asked one of the captives to identify himself. ‘Che Guevara,’ he said. The other was ‘Willy’ [Simeón Cuba Sarabia, another guerrilla].

“10月8日，我的士兵控制了尤羅(Yuro)峽谷外面的路，那里到處是大石頭、茂密的灌木叢和樹林。大概一點(diǎn)鐘左右，他們喊著抓到了兩名俘虜。我往山坡上跑了20米后看到了這兩人，遂讓其中一名俘虜報(bào)上姓名。‘切•格瓦拉，’他說(shuō)。另一名俘虜是‘威利’(Willy)，即游擊隊(duì)員西梅翁•庫(kù)巴•薩拉比亞(Simeón Cuba Sarabia)。

There were confusing rumours about three or four possible ‘Che Guevaras’ being in the region at that time, so it was essential to check his identity. I asked Che to show me his right hand because, according to the information I had, he had a scar on the back of it. The scar was indeed there. He didn’t look much like the photographs. He presented a pitiful figure, dirty, smelly and run-down. He’d been on the run for months. His hair was long, messy and matted, and his beard bushy. Over his uniform he was wearing a blue jacket with no buttons. His black beret was filthy. He had no shoes, just scraps of animal skins on his feet. He was wearing odd socks, one blue, one red. He looked like those homeless people you see begging in the cities pushing a supermarket trolley. I noticed that he was carefully carrying an aluminium pan with six eggs in it — it showed he’d had contact with the locals.

當(dāng)時(shí)謠言四起，按照各種傳聞，這片地區(qū)可能得有三四個(gè)‘切•格瓦拉’，所以必須核實(shí)他的身份。我讓切給我看他的右手，因?yàn)楦鶕?jù)我得到的信息，格瓦拉右手背上有一道疤痕。他伸出右手，手上真的有道疤。他看上去跟照片上不太像，整個(gè)人形容憔悴，渾身又臟又臭，而且精疲力盡。他已經(jīng)逃亡了幾個(gè)月時(shí)間。他的頭發(fā)很長(zhǎng)，亂蓬蓬地散著，還有一臉濃密的胡須。他的軍裝外面套著一件藍(lán)色夾克，扣子都掉光了。他的黑色貝雷帽污穢不堪。他沒(méi)穿鞋子，腳上只纏著幾片動(dòng)物皮毛。襪子也不配對(duì)，一只藍(lán)色，一只紅色。他看著就像你在城里見(jiàn)過(guò)的那些推著超市購(gòu)物車到處乞討的流浪漢。我注意到他小心地帶著一口鋁鍋，里面裝了6枚雞蛋，證明他與當(dāng)?shù)厝私佑|過(guò)。

Che had been wounded in his right calf when trying to escape capture by running down the ravine. I had placed a machine gun to cover the area, plus a 60mm mortar to support it. My soldiers had opened fire on Che, hit him in the calf, made a hole in his beret and broken the M2 carbine he was carrying.

切從峽谷上跑下來(lái)試圖突圍時(shí)傷了右小腿。我在那片地區(qū)設(shè)了一挺機(jī)關(guān)槍，外加一門60毫米迫擊炮。我的士兵們向切開槍時(shí)擊中了他的小腿肚，在他的貝雷帽上打了個(gè)洞，還打壞了他身上背著的M2卡賓槍。

Che was depressed, completely demoralised. He was seeing the end. He’d had five guerrillas killed, so he wasn’t happy about that. He saw me calling up more troops to secure the area and said: ‘Don’t worry captain, this is the end. It’s over.’ I said: ‘It may be over for you, and you might be a prisoner now, but there are still some good fighters in the ravine.’

切情緒低落，徹底喪失了斗志。他看到了自己的結(jié)局。他有五名游擊隊(duì)員被擊斃，這讓他難過(guò)。他見(jiàn)我呼叫部隊(duì)增援來(lái)守衛(wèi)該區(qū)域，就說(shuō)：‘不用擔(dān)心，上尉，這就是結(jié)局。都結(jié)束了。’我說(shuō)：‘對(duì)你來(lái)說(shuō)可能結(jié)束了，雖然你現(xiàn)在成了俘虜，可峽谷里還有些特別能打的游擊隊(duì)員。’

He asked me for some water. He had a canteen but I worried that he might have some kind of poison and try to kill himself, so I gave him water from my canteen along with some of my cigarettes. I confiscated everything he had in his pockets and rucksack, including some money and his diaries. Che was totally resigned and offered no resistance. He had a pistol but it had no clips to carry ammunition. So basically he was unarmed.

他跟我要水喝。他帶了一個(gè)水壺，但我擔(dān)心他身上可能帶了什么毒藥，他也許會(huì)自殺，于是從自己的水壺里倒了些水給他，還分給他幾根香煙。我收走了他衣兜和背包里的所有東西，包括一些現(xiàn)金和他的日記。切完全順從，毫不反抗。他有把手槍，但沒(méi)有彈匣裝子彈。所以基本上他手無(wú)寸鐵。

Che also had two Rolex watches, one on his wrist, one in his pocket which he told me had belonged to ‘Tuma’, a guerrilla who had died a couple of months before. He said the whole Cuban group had been given watches by Fidel Castro as a farewell gift.

切還有兩塊勞力士表，一塊戴在他手腕上，一塊在他衣兜里揣著，他告訴我這塊表是‘圖馬’(Tuma)的——幾個(gè)月前死掉的一名游擊隊(duì)員。他說(shuō)整個(gè)古巴游擊小組的隊(duì)員都有菲德爾•卡斯特羅(Fidel Castro)贈(zèng)予的手表，作為告別禮物。

By five in the afternoon it was starting to get dark, so I decided to call off the operation and take all my dead, wounded and prisoners to La Higuera, two kilometres away, and spend the night there. La Higuera was a village of around 20 adobe houses with straw roofs, inhabited by poor peasants who survived by cultivating the land they owned around the village.

下午五點(diǎn)時(shí)天開始黑了，我決定結(jié)束這次行動(dòng)，帶著所有傷亡人員和俘虜前往兩公里外的拉伊格拉(La Higuera)，在那里過(guò)夜。拉伊格拉是一座小村莊，村里有二十幾幢茅草頂土坯房，住戶都是貧苦的農(nóng)民，以耕種村莊周圍的土地為生。

My soldiers helped Che walk, because of his wounded calf. As we walked, Che said to me: ‘I’m more use to you alive than dead.’ The local peasants helped us get everyone to La Higuera; they were keen to help us fight the guerrillas, whom they distrusted, as they believed they were trying to invade their country.

由于切的小腿受了傷，我的士兵們攙著他行走。路上切對(duì)我說(shuō)：‘我活著比死了對(duì)你更有用。’當(dāng)?shù)剞r(nóng)民幫我們把每一個(gè)人都弄到拉伊格拉村;他們很愿意幫助我們打擊游擊隊(duì)，因?yàn)樗麄儾⒉恍湃斡螕絷?duì)，認(rèn)為這些人想要侵略自己的國(guó)家。

We spent the night in the tiny schoolhouse in La Higuera.

我們?cè)诶粮窭灏〉男Ｉ崂镞^(guò)了一夜。

In one room we kept Willy and the dead bodies, and in the other Che, with one of my officers sitting with him in two-hour shifts. We fed both prisoners a meal of meat, potatoes and rice, and gave them coffee and cigarettes. I did not sleep that night as I was checking the security both of the village and the prisoners.

我們把威利和幾個(gè)死者的尸體關(guān)在一間房間里，將切安排到另一間屋子，讓一名軍官看守他，每?jī)尚r(shí)換一次班。我們給兩名俘虜提供了一頓飯，有肉、土豆和米飯，還給了他們咖啡和香煙。那天夜里我一宿沒(méi)睡，一直在巡查村莊和俘虜?shù)氖匦l(wèi)情況。

During the night I conversed with Che seven or eight times, and after two or three talks he seemed to perk up a bit, as if he was interested in what was going to happen to him. He recovered some of his character.

晚上我和切有過(guò)七八次交談，聊了兩三次后，他看上去振作了一點(diǎn)，似乎對(duì)他要面臨的命運(yùn)有了興趣，恢復(fù)了些他的性子。

Both of us were trying to understand the situation. I asked him: ‘Why did you come to Bolivia? One of the things you say in your book on guerrilla warfare is that if any country has a democratic government, even with some problems, it’s very difficult to foment revolution there.’ (We had a democratic government in Bolivia — President René Barrientos had been elected one year earlier — and we had a parliament, a free press and so on.) He didn’t reply, so I asked again: ‘Why did you come here?’ He said: ‘It wasn’t just my decision, it was a decision taken on other levels.’ ‘What levels? Fidel?’ I asked. ‘Other levels,’ he replied, and we left it at that. Of course, it was clear the command had come from Cuba.

我們倆都想搞清當(dāng)時(shí)的情況。我問(wèn)他：‘你為什么要來(lái)玻利維亞?你寫的那本游擊戰(zhàn)書里說(shuō)過(guò)，如果一個(gè)國(guó)家擁有民主政府，那么即使它存在一些問(wèn)題，也很難在該國(guó)煽動(dòng)起革命。’(我們玻利維亞已經(jīng)有了民主政府，一年前我們選出了雷內(nèi)•巴里恩托斯總統(tǒng)，而且我們還有議會(huì)，有新聞自由等等。)他沒(méi)有回答，于是我又問(wèn)道：‘你為什么來(lái)這兒?’他說(shuō)：‘這不僅僅是我個(gè)人的決定，而是其他層面做出的決定。’我問(wèn)：‘什么層面?菲德爾?’他回復(fù)：‘其他層面。’我們沒(méi)有繼續(xù)談?wù)撨@個(gè)話題。當(dāng)然，很明顯這一命令來(lái)自古巴。

I asked him if he’d heard about the national revolution we’d had in Bolivia in 1952 and he said, ‘Yes, I was here.’ So I asked: ‘Why did you come here to offer people land when we’ve had a very profound land reform already? That’s why no peasants are joining your movement.’ He replied: ‘Yes, we were wrong about that, we had the wrong information.’

我問(wèn)他是否聽說(shuō)過(guò)1952年我們?cè)诓＠S亞掀起的全國(guó)革命，他說(shuō)‘是的，我當(dāng)時(shí)就在這兒。’于是我問(wèn)到：‘我們的土地革命已經(jīng)進(jìn)行得非常深入，你為什么還要來(lái)這兒為人民爭(zhēng)取土地?這就是為什么沒(méi)有農(nóng)民加入你們的運(yùn)動(dòng)。’他回答道：‘是的，我們?cè)谶@件事上犯了錯(cuò)，我們掌握的信息有誤。’

Che came to Bolivia because he had nowhere to go. After his failure in Africa [he had not been able to bring ‘revolutionary war’ to the Congo] he went to Prague. He was trying to patch up things with Fidel but he had given up his Cuban nationality and his position as commander of the Cuban army. He couldn’t go back to Cuba so he went back underground. He talked with Castro and that’s when they decided on South America. But I believe it was just the solution that Fidel found to get rid of him because he had no use for him in Cuba. Che was a problem for him, for Cuba and for the Cuban Communist party, because Che was advocating revolutionary action at a time when Fidel had agreed to another approach to the Soviet Union. The idea of peaceful coexistence had been agreed between the two superpowers, so they had agreed not to help guerrilla movements in Latin America. So Che was a problem and the best way to get rid of him was to send him on an adventure in Bolivia and cut off all support. Once Che was here, he got no support at all from Cuba. No people, no contact, nothing. Che told me they’d lost all communication [with Cuba] when they had left their base camp in south-east Bolivia, after it was taken by the army, so they were completely isolated.

切之所以來(lái)玻利維亞是因?yàn)樗麩o(wú)處可去。在非洲遭遇失敗之后(他沒(méi)能將‘革命戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)’帶到剛果)他去了布拉格。他設(shè)法修復(fù)與菲德爾的關(guān)系，但他之前已經(jīng)放棄了古巴國(guó)籍和軍銜。他不能回古巴，所以他是秘密回去的。他與卡斯特羅談過(guò)，就在那次談話中他們就南美的事情做了決定。但我認(rèn)為這只是菲德爾想要擺脫格瓦拉的對(duì)策，因?yàn)楦裢呃瓕?duì)他在古巴已經(jīng)沒(méi)有任何用處。切對(duì)于他，對(duì)于古巴和古巴共產(chǎn)黨來(lái)說(shuō)都一個(gè)問(wèn)題，因?yàn)楫?dāng)時(shí)菲德爾已同意轉(zhuǎn)變對(duì)蘇聯(lián)政策，而切還在鼓吹革命行動(dòng)。這兩大強(qiáng)國(guó)之間已經(jīng)達(dá)成了和平共處的共識(shí)，因此它們同意不幫助拉美的游擊運(yùn)動(dòng)。于是切就成了一個(gè)問(wèn)題，而擺脫他的最好辦法就是派他去玻利維亞冒險(xiǎn)，同時(shí)切斷對(duì)他的所有支持。切一到玻利維亞就得不到古巴的任何支持。沒(méi)人手，完全失去聯(lián)系，什么都沒(méi)有。切告訴我，當(dāng)他們?cè)诓＠S亞?wèn)|南部的大本營(yíng)被政府軍占領(lǐng)后，他們就離開了大本營(yíng)，從此失去了與古巴的一切聯(lián)系，完全陷入孤立。

Che was clearly worried about what was going to happen to him. I told him he’d be put under a military court because at that time [the French journalist] Régis Debray and other foreigners were under court martial in Camiri for being part of Che’s revolutionary group, and I assumed it would be the same with Che. We started talking about what his trial would be like. Debray’s trial had attracted a lot of publicity, it was quite a show, and Che had heard about it on Bolivian radio, so he probably thought a trial would be a good opportunity for him.

切顯然為自己即將面臨的命運(yùn)擔(dān)憂。我告訴他，他會(huì)被送上軍事法庭，因?yàn)楫?dāng)時(shí)(法國(guó)記者)雷吉斯•德布雷(Régis Debray)等一些外國(guó)人因參與格瓦拉革命組織已被送上卡米里軍事法庭受審，我推測(cè)切的命運(yùn)也一樣。我們開始談?wù)撍膶徟袑⑷绾芜M(jìn)行。德布雷的審判吸引了大量關(guān)注，成了一場(chǎng)精彩演出。切此前從玻利維亞的廣播上聽過(guò)這場(chǎng)審判，因此他可能覺(jué)得一場(chǎng)審判將是他的一次好機(jī)會(huì)。

We talked about the Cuban revolution, too. Each of us was trying to find out what the other thought. ‘You’ve been trained by the Americans,’ he said. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and you’ve been trained by the Russians, so we are both puppets of the superpowers and have to find our own way.’ He agreed.

我們還談到了古巴革命，我們倆都想要搞清楚對(duì)方的想法。他說(shuō)：‘你們受過(guò)美國(guó)人的訓(xùn)練。’我說(shuō)：‘是的。而你們受過(guò)俄羅斯人的訓(xùn)練，所以我們都是超級(jí)大國(guó)的傀儡，我們必須找到自己的道路。’他表示贊同。

During the night I looked at Che’s diaries and asked him about some of the things he said in them. A bit later Che told me that my soldiers had taken his Rolex watches, so I called them and told them to give them back. I handed them to Che but he said, ‘Tomorrow another soldier will take them off me, so please keep them for me.’ He took a small stone from the floor and scratched a cross on the back of one of the watches. ‘That’s mine,’ he said, handing it to me. After Che was dead I took it to my battalion commander but he told me to keep it. I kept it until 1985, when we re-established democracy in Bolivia and restored diplomatic relations with Cuba. I sent it to his family via the Cuban embassy.

那天晚上我翻著切的日記，問(wèn)他一些他在日記里提到的事。稍后切告訴我，我的士兵拿走了他那兩塊勞力士手表，我把他們叫來(lái)，讓他們把表還給他。我把表遞給切，他卻說(shuō)：‘明天還會(huì)有別的士兵把表拿走，所以請(qǐng)?zhí)嫖冶９芩鼈儼伞?rsquo;他從地上撿起了一塊小石頭，在其中一塊手表背面劃了個(gè)十字架。‘這塊是我的’，他邊說(shuō)邊將手表遞給我。切死后我把這塊手表交給我的營(yíng)長(zhǎng)，他讓我繼續(xù)留著。這塊表被我保管到1985年，那時(shí)我們?cè)诓＠S亞重新建立起了民主政體并與古巴恢復(fù)了外交關(guān)系。我通過(guò)古巴大使館將這塊表送交了他的家人。

At dawn, the commander of the 8th Division, Colonel [Joaquín] Zenteno, arrived by helicopter from Vallegrande, the provincial capital 60 kilometres north. I gave him a report of the situation and handed the prisoners to him — including Che, who was calm and quiet. Zenteno was accompanied by CIA agent Félix Rodríguez.

黎明時(shí)，第八師師長(zhǎng)華金•森特諾上校(Joaquín Zenteno)乘直升機(jī)從北面60公里之外的巴耶格蘭德鎮(zhèn)(Vallegrande)抵達(dá)拉伊格拉村。我向他匯報(bào)了情況，將俘虜轉(zhuǎn)交給他。切也在其中，他十分平靜。陪同森特諾的是美國(guó)中情局(CIA)特工費(fèi)利克斯•羅德里格斯(Félix Rodríguez)。

I left La Higuera to return to the ravine with fresh troops to try to capture the rest of the group — there were still five left in the area. When I returned to La Higuera at around noon, after capturing two more guerrillas, I found Che dead. My battalion commander, Major Ayoroa, told me he’d been executed. The division commander had left for Vallegrande but had left instructions to send Che’s body by helicopter. So at around 1.30pm we strapped his stretcher to the runners of a chopper, and that was the last time I saw him.

我離開了拉伊格拉村，帶著新部隊(duì)返回尤羅峽谷，抓捕游擊隊(duì)剩余成員，該地區(qū)還有5名游擊隊(duì)員。我又抓了兩名游擊隊(duì)員，大概于中午時(shí)分返回了拉伊格拉，得知切死了。我的營(yíng)長(zhǎng)阿約羅亞少校(Ayoroa)告訴我切已被處決。師長(zhǎng)已返回巴耶格蘭德，但留下指示將切的尸體用直升機(jī)運(yùn)走。下午一點(diǎn)半左右我們將切的擔(dān)架綁在直升機(jī)起落架上，那是我最后一次看到他。

The man who shot Che, NCO Mario Terán, later told me what had happened. After the order had come from the president and the military high command to kill Che, Colonel Zenteno had asked for volunteers from the NCOs who were around at that moment — there were seven. [Some of the many varying accounts claim that Prado himself was present when the order was received. Prado strongly denies this.] Contrary to the myth that no one wanted to pull the trigger, all the soldiers volunteered. So he selected two at random, saying, ‘OK, you do that room [where Che was] and you do that room [where Willy was].’ So they entered and fired their M2 carbines. It happened very fast. From what Terán told me, Che died from a single burst. There were no speeches, no goodbyes, nothing.

行刑的是馬里奧•特蘭軍士(NCO Mario Terán)，后來(lái)他告訴了我事情的經(jīng)過(guò)。在收到來(lái)自總統(tǒng)和軍方高層處死切的命令后，森特諾上校從當(dāng)時(shí)在場(chǎng)的七名軍士中召集志愿者。(在眾多記載中，有些版本稱接到這一命令時(shí)普拉多本人也在場(chǎng)。普拉多對(duì)此強(qiáng)烈否認(rèn)。)傳說(shuō)當(dāng)時(shí)沒(méi)人想去扣動(dòng)扳機(jī)，其實(shí)恰恰相反，在場(chǎng)所有士兵都主動(dòng)請(qǐng)纓。于是森特諾上校隨機(jī)選了兩名軍士，他說(shuō)：‘好吧，你處理那間房(切所在房間)，你處理那間房(威利所在房間)。’兩名軍士遂走進(jìn)房間扣動(dòng)了他們的M2卡賓槍。整件事發(fā)生地非?？?。據(jù)特蘭告訴我，切是被一槍擊斃的，沒(méi)留下任何演講、任何告別，一字未留。

When Che’s body arrived in Vallegrande it was washed and groomed in the hospital following instructions from the army. The military wanted him to look like the Che Guevara people have an image of; if you’d seen Che the way he looked when captured, you wouldn’t have recognised him. There were other bodies on the floor but they weren’t cleaned or anything; Che was the only one who got this treatment because of the importance of showing it was the real Che Guevara. He was then laid out on a concrete slab in the little laundry behind the hospital and around 30 press photographers from all over the world were invited in to shoot images of the body as it lay in state. It was important for the government and the military to show Che dead as a lesson to anyone intending to invade or threaten the Bolivian way of life in the future.

切的尸體運(yùn)抵巴耶格蘭德后，當(dāng)?shù)蒯t(yī)院在軍方指示下為他的尸體做了清理和梳洗。軍方希望他看起來(lái)像人們印象中的切•格瓦拉;如果你見(jiàn)過(guò)切被俘時(shí)的樣子，你是認(rèn)不出他的。地上還陳放著其他尸體，但他們沒(méi)有得到清洗之類的待遇，切是有此待遇的唯一一人，因?yàn)樽C明這是真的切•格瓦拉很重要。他被陳放在醫(yī)院后面一間小洗衣房里的一塊混凝土板上，約30名來(lái)自世界各地的新聞攝影記者受邀來(lái)拍攝他的遺體。對(duì)于玻利維亞政府和軍方來(lái)說(shuō)，展示切已經(jīng)死亡，以此告誡任何意圖入侵玻利維亞或威脅玻利維亞生活方式的人，是非常重要的。

To prove Che’s identity we needed fingerprints and documents with Che’s handwriting, so the Bolivian government asked the government of Argentina [where Che was born] to send proof. They sent two police experts, who brought the fingerprints from his 1952 passport and examples of his writing. Transport was slow in those days, so it took them quite a while to get to Che’s body. In the meantime the body was in a serious state of decomposition; it had a terrible smell and there was nowhere to store it. So the decision was made to bury the body and keep the hands in formaldehyde.

為了證明切的身份，我們需要指紋和有切筆跡的文件，于是玻利維亞政府請(qǐng)求阿根廷政府(切的出生國(guó))送來(lái)證明材料。阿根廷政府派了兩名警方專家過(guò)來(lái)，他們帶來(lái)了從切1952年護(hù)照上取下的指紋，以及他的手跡樣本。當(dāng)時(shí)的交通運(yùn)輸還很慢，兩名專家花了好一段時(shí)間才抵達(dá)切的遺體陳放地。在此期間切的尸體腐敗嚴(yán)重，散發(fā)出難聞的氣味，而且也沒(méi)地方存放。因此有關(guān)方面作出決定，就地掩埋他的尸體，將他的雙手浸入甲醛保存。

When the experts finally arrived they took the fingerprints from the hands and certified that it was indeed Che, and they did the same with the writing. The hands were kept by the minister of the interior, who later gave them to a communist friend of his, who sent them to Castro. They’ve since been returned to Che’s family.

當(dāng)兩名專家終于抵達(dá)時(shí)，他們從切的手上采集了指紋，證明這確實(shí)是切本人，他們用手跡作出了同樣的證明。切的雙手被內(nèi)政部長(zhǎng)保管，后來(lái)他又將這雙手送給他的一名共產(chǎn)主義朋友，這名友人又將它們送給了卡斯特羅?，F(xiàn)在切的雙手已被歸還給他的家人。

I was shocked about the execution, I didn’t expect that. I thought Che would have been tried like other prisoners. The whole thing was badly managed. The Bolivian government put out the misinformation that Che had died in combat, but then came reports that he’d been seen walking to La Higuera, so finally the president had to come clean. I think he made the decision to execute because if Che had been taken prisoner he’d have been put on trial and the trial would have been a cause célèbre. They were already tired of the show with Debray, and a trial of Che Guevara would attract thousands of journalists, so that had to be avoided. Also, if we’d tried him he’d have been condemned to 30 years in jail — we have no death sentence in Bolivia and the maximum jail term is 30 years. But where would we keep him for 30 years? We have no secure jails in Bolivia, so we’d always have the problem of people trying to liberate him. So we executed Che to get rid of the problem. But it was badly managed. It would have been fine if they’d managed to sustain the idea that he’d died heroically in combat, but the truth — that he’d been executed — had become public.

我對(duì)切被處死感到震驚，我沒(méi)預(yù)料到這一幕。我以為切會(huì)像其他俘虜那樣受到審判。這整件事的處置非常糟糕。玻利維亞政府先是發(fā)布了錯(cuò)誤消息，稱切已在戰(zhàn)斗中死亡，隨后又有報(bào)道說(shuō)有人見(jiàn)到切正步行前往拉伊格拉村，最后總統(tǒng)不得不出面澄清。我認(rèn)為總統(tǒng)之所以作出處決切的決定是因?yàn)槿绻斜魂P(guān)押，他就會(huì)受到審判，而這場(chǎng)審判將轟動(dòng)全球。他們已經(jīng)厭倦了德布雷審判那場(chǎng)戲，而審判切•格瓦拉將吸引成千上萬(wàn)的記者，因此必須避免。此外，如果我們審判他，他將被判處30年監(jiān)禁——我們玻利維亞沒(méi)有死刑，最高刑期就是30年。但我們?cè)谀睦锟垂芩?0年呢?我們玻利維亞沒(méi)有一間可靠的監(jiān)獄，所以我們將不斷遇到有人試圖救他出獄的問(wèn)題。于是，為了避免這種情況，我們處死了切。但這件事處理得很糟。如果當(dāng)時(shí)他們讓人們繼續(xù)相信切已英勇戰(zhàn)死，這樣處理就很好，可惜切被處決的真相已經(jīng)公開了。

As for Che’s achievements, he committed a lot of mistakes here as a guerrilla leader. He contradicted everything he’d written in his books. That’s what led him to fail. You see his image on posters everywhere, something I don’t think Che would have liked. But most people don’t know who he was, or what he did. He was good at theory but when the chance came to practise his ideas [in Bolivia], he was a total failure.”

說(shuō)到切的作為，他在玻利維亞當(dāng)游擊隊(duì)長(zhǎng)時(shí)犯了很多錯(cuò)誤。他與自己書里所寫的一切都背道而馳，而這導(dǎo)致了他的失敗。到處都能看到他的肖像海報(bào)，我覺(jué)得切不會(huì)喜歡這東西。但大多數(shù)人不了解他這個(gè)人，或者他所做的事。他精通理論，但當(dāng)他有機(jī)會(huì)(在玻利維亞)實(shí)踐他的想法時(shí)，他成了一個(gè)徹頭徹尾的失敗者。”

After his role as a captain in Bolivia’s elite US-trained 2nd Ranger battalion, Gary Prado Salmón became a minister in the Bolivian government. In 1981 he was paralysed and confined to a wheelchair after being accidentally shot in the back. He went on to serve as Bolivia’s ambassador to the UK and Mexico, and now teaches at a private university in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Clare Hargreaves lived in Bolivia (and met Prado) while researching ‘Snowfields’, a book about South America’s cocaine trade; clarehargreaves.co.uk

加里•普拉多•薩爾蒙(Gary Prado Salmón)曾是玻利維亞第二突擊營(yíng)的一名上尉，這支精銳部隊(duì)由美軍訓(xùn)練。后來(lái)他成為玻利維亞政府的一名部長(zhǎng)。1981年他因后背意外中槍導(dǎo)致癱瘓，只能坐輪椅。隨后他又相繼擔(dān)任了玻利維亞駐英國(guó)和墨西哥大使，如今他在玻利維亞圣克魯斯的一所私立大學(xué)教書?？巳R爾•哈格里夫斯(Clare Hargreaves)在為撰寫一本關(guān)于南美可卡因交易的書《雪原》(Snowfields)進(jìn)行研究工作期間，居住在玻利維亞(并在這里認(rèn)識(shí)了普拉多)。