The Bolivian Diary (23 page)

Altitude = 1,100 meters.

A day of idleness and a little despair: Of all the promised wonders, there was only a bit of old sugar cane and the sugar mill was useless. As expected, the old man who owned the farm showed up at noon with his cart full of water for the pigs; he saw something strange on his way past where the rear guard was in ambush position and was apprehended along with a farmhand; they were held until 18:00, when we released them together with the youngest of the brothers; they were instructed to stay there until Monday and to say nothing.

We walked for two hours and slept in a cornfield; now we are on the road that goes to Caraguatarenda.

Sunday. We rose early and began the march; in an hour and a half we hit the outskirts of the farms at Caraguatarenda. Benigno and Coco were sent to explore, but were seen by a peasant and they took him prisoner. In a short time we had a colony of prisoners who were not particularly scared, until an old woman began to scream along with her children when she was ordered to halt. Neither Pacho nor Pablo felt like stopping her and she fled toward the village. We occupied the village at 14:00, posting sentries at both sides. A little later we took over a YPFB oil company jeep; we captured a total of two jeeps and two trucks—half were privately owned and half belonged to the YPFB. We ate something, had coffee, and after 50 arguments, at 19:30 we headed off to Ipitacito; there we broke into a store and took $500 worth of supplies; we left the money with two peasants, ceremoniously handing them a receipt. We continued our pilgrimage, reaching Itai where we were received very well in a house, which happened to belong to the schoolteacher who owned the store at Ipitacito, so we went over the prices with her. I joined in the conversation, and apparently they recognized me; they had cheese and a little bread, which they gave us along with some coffee; but I detected a false note in their reception. We continued on to Espino, following the railroad tracks to Santa Cruz, but then the truck, a Ford that had the front-wheel drive removed, stalled; we were still three leagues away from Espino when morning came. The vehicle broke down completely two leagues out of town. The vanguard took over the settlement and the jeep had to make four trips to get us all there.

Altitude = 880 meters.

The settlement at Espino is relatively new because the old one was swept away by a flood in 1958. It is a Guaraní community whose members are very shy and who speak, or pretend to speak, very little Spanish. There were oil company workers nearby and so we inherited another truck in which we could fit everything, but the opportunity was lost when Ricardo got it stuck and we could not pull it out.

It was so peaceful there, like another world. Coco was put in charge of gathering information about the roads, but what he brought back was inadequate and contradictory. As a result, we were about to make a rather dangerous trip that would bring us close to the Río Grande; at the last moment we changed our plans and decided to go to Muchiri, a place where there is water. With all these organizational problems, we set out at 15:30, the vanguard group taking the jeep (six people, seven with Coco) and the rest on foot.

The radio brought us the news that Loro had escaped from where he was being held in Camiri.
¹²

During the day we came to the railroad tracks, finding that the road to Muchiri did not exist. Searching around, we found a straight road used by the oil company workers, only 500 meters from the crossroads, so the vanguard went that way in the jeep. As Antonio was leaving, a little boy with a shotgun and a dog came along the tracks, fleeing when we told him to stop. In light
of this, I left Antonio in ambush position at the entrance to the road and we moved back about 500 meters. Miguel appeared at 11:45 saying he had walked 12 kilometers east without finding any houses or water, only a road heading north. I gave him the order to take three men in the jeep on this road for 10 kilometers to the north and to return before nightfall. At 15:00, when I was sleeping peacefully, I was woken by the sound of gunfire at the ambush site. We soon learned that the army had advanced and had fallen into the ambush; the casualties are apparently three dead and one wounded. The participants: Antonio, Arturo, Ñato, Luis, Willy, and Raúl—the latter was weak. We withdrew on foot, walking the 12 kilometers to the junction without finding Miguel; we received news that the jeep was spluttering for lack of water. We found it about three kilometers on; after we all urinated in it and added a canteen of water, we made it to the farthest point we had reached, where Julio and Pablo were waiting. By 2:00 everyone was gathered together around a fire where we roasted three turkeys and fried some pork. We are saving one animal so it can drink out of the water holes, just in case.

We are descending from 750 meters; we are now at 650 meters.

The jeep bravely kept going with its urine and canteen water. Two events changed our pace: the road heading north ended, so Miguel halted the march; then one of the security groups detained a peasant called Gregorio Vargas, who had come along a side road on his bicycle to set some traps, which is his trade. The attitude of the man was not clear, but he gave us valuable information about water holes. One of these was behind us, so
I sent a group to fetch water and to cook. With the peasant as their guide, on reaching the spot, they saw two army trucks and hurriedly set up an ambush, apparently hitting two men. Ñato, missed at first with a blank from his grenade launcher; then he put in a real bullet, and it blew up in his face; the barrel was destroyed, but he was not hurt. We continued our withdrawal, without harassment from aircraft, walking about 15 kilometers before finding the second water hole after dark. The jeep gave its last gasp due a to lack of gas and overheating. We spent the night eating. The army issued a statement acknowledging the death of a second lieutenant and a soldier yesterday, and attributing to us deaths that were “witnessed.” Tomorrow, I intend to cross the railroad tracks to get to the mountains.

Altitude = 620 meters.

The negative point is the impossibility of making contact with Joaquín, in spite of our pilgrimage on the mountain range. There are indications he has moved to the north.

From a military viewpoint, we had three new battles with losses for the army and none for us. This, along with our forays into Pirirenda and Caraguatarenda, indicate success. The dogs have been declared ineffective and have been withdrawn from circulation.

The most important features are:

News of the month: The arrest and escape of Loro, who now should be rejoining us or heading to La Paz to make contact.

The army reported the arrest of all the peasants who collaborated with us in the Masicuri area; now comes the stage in which the peasants will be afraid of both sides, although in different ways; our triumph will signify the qualitative change necessary for their leap in development.

1
.
Small mountain bird, so named because they announce the presence of a person or an animal with their crowing.

2
.
Henry Laredo. Second lieutenant in the Bolivian Army whose wife had sent a letter asking him to bring home a guerrilla fighter's scalp to adorn their living room.

3
.
Humberto Rocha Urquieta, colonel and head of the Fourth Division of the Bolivian Army, headquartered in Camiri.

4
.
Chicho Otero was the owner of one of the homes located in the area in which the guerrilla forces operated.

5
.
Raúl Leoni, president of Venezuela in 1967.

6
.
Birthday of his two brothers, Roberto and Juan Martín Guevara de la Serna.

7
.
Birthday of his son Camilo Guevara March.

8
.
Guzmán Robles, a Bolivian peasant, who was detained by the army when he returned from buying food for the guerrillas.

9
.
Moisés Robles, a young Bolivian peasant, 17 years old, who served as a guide for the guerrilla detachment.

10
.
Land used for cultivating smaller fruits.

11
.
Previously mentioned as Moisés Robles's grandfather.

12
.
The news from the radio was false. It is known that Jorge Vázquez Viaña, after being tortured, was dropped into the woods from a helicopter.

I sent the vanguard to position themselves along the road and to explore up to the junction with the oil company's road, about three kilometers away. Aircraft began to move over this area; according to information on the radio, bad weather had made activity over the previous days difficult, but now flights have been resumed. There was an odd report about two dead and three wounded, but it is not clear whether this is new or old news. After eating, we left at 17:00, heading for the railroad tracks, covering seven or eight kilometers without incident, then walked one and a half kilometers along the railroad tracks and took an abandoned, narrow road that should lead to a farm seven kilometers away, but everyone was tired, so we slept halfway there. On the entire journey, we only heard a single shot in the distance.

Altitude = 800 meters.

Altitude = 800 meters.

We covered the seven kilometers that Gregorio
¹
had
estimated and reached the farm where we caught and killed a robust pig and killed it; at that moment, however, Braulio Robles's cowherd, his son, and two farmhands showed up. One of the farmhands turned out to be the
achacao
²
of the owner, Symuní. Using their horses, we transported the pig, now chopped in pieces, three kilometers to the creek where we detained them while we hid Gregorio, whose disappearance was known. Just as the center group arrived, an army truck went by with two young soldiers and some barrels, an easy target; but this was a day for revelry and pork. We spent the night cooking and at 3:30 set the four peasants free, paying each one $10 for the day. At 4:30 Gregorio departed, after waiting for the meal and his reenlistment bonus; he was paid $100. The water from the creek is brackish.

We started out at 6:30 by the left bank of the creek and walked until 12:00; Benigno and Ricardo were then sent off to scout the road and found a good place for an ambush. At 13:00, we took our positions, Ricardo and I each with our own group in the middle, Pombo was at one end, and Miguel was with the entire vanguard at the best point. At 14:30, we let a truck loaded with pigs go by, and at 16:20, a small truck with empty bottles; at 17:00, we saw an army truck, the same one as yesterday, with two soldiers wrapped in blanket in the back of the vehicle. I did not have the heart to shoot them, and my brain did not react fast enough to figure out how to detain them, so we let them drive by. At 18:00 we lifted the ambush and continued down the road until we came to the creek again. We had barely arrived when
four trucks came by in a row and then three more, but they did not seem to be carrying soldiers.

We continued walking beside the creek planning to set up another ambush if the conditions were right, we struck another path leading to the west and went that way; then we followed a dry creek bed in a southerly direction. We halted at 14:45 to make some coffee and oatmeal, by a pool of muddy water, but we dawdled so long we camped there. A cold front blew in from the south in the evening, bringing a light rain that fell all night.