 |
E
se Fidel Castro traiu Che Guevara?
28/4/2015,
É a teoria do livro
"Che Guevara. Valho mais morto que vivo", de Alberto
Müller. O jornalista cubano diz que Fidel enviou Che numa missão
suicida para a Bolívia, e que não o resgatou por opção.
Conquistaram Havana
juntos, roubando-a das mãos de Fulgencio Batista, em 1959. A
história costuma ser romântica, violenta e arrebatadora, mas agora
vem à luz do dia uma teoria que sugere que Fidel Castro traiu Che
Guevara, deixando-o ao sabor da sorte, acabando por morrer sozinho e
sem apoio na Bolívia, conta o ABC. A tese está estampada no livro
“Che Guevara. Valho mais morto que vivo”, de Alberto Müller, um
jornalista e escritor cubano. O título do livro diz respeito à
suposta frase que Che proferiu quando foi capturado em La Higuera,
uma aldeia boliviana.
A investigação de
Müller revela que Ernesto Che Guevara terá escrito a frase “sem
contacto com Manila” várias vezes nos seus famosos diários, que
significaria o afastamento de Cuba. Para o escritor isso sugere e
anuncia o “abandono”. O livro revela também que haveria uma
unidade de guerrilheiros que estariam prontos para seguir para a
Bolívia para resgatar Che. “Fidel nunca autorizou o resgate”,
diz ao ABC Müller, à margem da Feira Internacional do Livro em
Buenos Aires.
Para o autor do
livro, Che Guevara transformou-se numa “pedra no sapato” para o
governo cubano, principalmente pelas afrontas e críticas ao Kremlin,
a quem acusava de ser “cúmplice da exploração imperial” dos
Estados Unidos. “[Che Guevara] morreu de uma forma lamentável. Sem
medicamentos para a asma, sem botas, sem água, sem comida e sem
aliados”, diz Müller.
O escritor garante
ainda que Che Guevara queria voltar a casa, para libertar a sua
Argentina. Mais: Müller diz que o recuo dos cubanos no Congo, assim
como o envio de Che Guevara para a Bolívia, naquilo que assegura ser
um “suicídio”, atestam a teoria de afastamento e traição.
O autor do livro não
se escusa a entrar em polémicas, pois afiança que, se estivesse
vivo, Che “estaria mais perto da Madre Teresa de Calculá do que de
Fidel” e que o argentino não gostaria nada do rumo tomado por
Cuba. Para este escritor, a História ficará encarregue de separar
as águas: “a revolução de Che e a de Fidel”. Para ele, Guevara
era “mais puro”, era alguém que “deu a sua vida por um ideal”
e que morreu “com uma moral intocável”.
|
Close
but no cigar: how America failed to kill Fidel Castro
From
poison pills to exploding molluscs, the CIA and its allies tried
everything to take out the Cuban leader
Duncan Campbell
Saturday 26 November
2016 13.41 GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/26/fidel-castro-cia-cigar-assasination-attempts?CMP=fb_gu
From the famous
exploding cigars to poison pills hidden in a cold-cream jar, the CIA
and Cuban exile groups spent nearly 50 years devising ways to kill
Fidel Castro. None of the plots, of course, succeeded but one of his
loyal security men calculated that a total of 634 attempts, some
ludicrous, some deadly serious, had been made on the life of El
Comandante.
On one occasion,
aware that Castro was a keen scuba-diver, the CIA devised a cunning
plan. Documents released under the Clinton administration confirm
that the agency invested in a large volume of Caribbean molluscs with
the intention of finding a shell big enough to contain a lethal
quantity of explosives. The idea was that the molluscs would be
painted in vivid colours to attract the attention of an underwater
Castro.
Eventually this plan
was abandoned, as was another that involved preparing a custom-made
diving-suit infected with a fungus that would cause a debilitating
skin disease.
Fabian Escalante was
head of the Cuban secret service at the height of attempts by the CIA
and an increasingly desperate exile community to assassinate Castro.
Escalante, who
retired in 1996, recounted the plots in his book, Executive Action:
634 Ways to Kill Castro, which was the subject of a 2007 Channel 4
film of (almost) the same name: 638 Ways to Kill Castro.
The obsession on the
part of the CIA and their exile allies perhaps only had a modern
equivalent in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. As Wayne Smith, the
former head of the US interests section in Havana, said a few years
ago: “Cuba seems to have the same effect on American
administrations that a full moon has on a werewolf. We may not sprout
hair and howl but we behave in the same way.”
While the
assassination attempts started under the presidency of Dwight
Eisenhower and continued under John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson,
there were more – 184, to be precise – during Richard Nixon’s
tenure than at any other time; many attempts were without the
knowledge of the administrations but planned by Cuban exiles, often
with CIA assistance.
The plotting began
almost immediately after the 1959 revolution. In 1961, when Cuban
exiles, with the backing of the US government tried to overthrow him
in the Bay of Pigs debacle, the plan was to assassinate Fidel and
Raúl Castro along with Che Guevara. At times it seemed as though the
US security services were more interested in bumping off the Cuban
head of state than protecting their own: on the very day that Kennedy
was assassinated in 1963, an agent, who had been given a pen-syringe
in Paris, was dispatched on a mission to assassinate Castro.
Plots seemingly
straight from a James Bond novel include that of the famous exploding
cigar, which was supposedly to have been given to Castro when he
visited the UN in New York. Another idea was to contaminate a cigar
with botulinum toxin but it never actually reached him and he quit
smoking in 1985.
One former lover was
recruited as a hitwoman and given poison pills by the CIA, which she
hid in her cold-cream jar. The pills melted and the woman decided
that the chances of forcing them into Castro’s mouth while he slept
were limited. According to her, Castro guessed her intentions and
chivalrously offered her his own pistol so she could finish the job.
“I can’t do it, Fidel,” she told him.
The CIA’s
operations continued with tests on bacterial poisons that would be
put into his tea or coffee. There were other schemes: a toxic
fountain-pen, a botulin-poisoned chocolate milkshake to be served at
the former Havana Hilton, and a non-fatal plan to discredit Castro by
having an LSD aerosol sprayed near him while he was making a
broadcast which would, supposedly, lead to national humiliation as he
freaked out on air.
When Castro
travelled abroad, the CIA cooperated with Cuban exiles for some of
the more serious assassination attempts. As recently as 2000, when
Castro was due to visit Panama, a plot was hatched to put 200lb
(90kg) of high explosives under the podium where he was due to speak.
Castro’s personal security team carried out their own checks before
he arrived and foiled the plot.
Four men, including
Luis Posada, a veteran Cuban exile and CIA operative, were jailed as
a result, but they were later given a pardon and released. Posada
retired to Florida, home of most of the Cuban exile community. He
later faced accusations, which he denied, that he had played a part
in the blowing up of a Cuban airliner in 1976 in which 78 people
died.
While the CIA used
their own operatives and anti-Castro Cubans, they also considered
outsourcing the assassination. American underworld figures from the
mafia – still smarting at being kicked out of Cuba by Castro –
were approached to see whether to would carry out a hit.
One would-be sniper
was caught by security men at the University of Havana. A grenade
attack at a baseball game was another failed ploy.
Officially, the US
eventually abandoned its attempts and instead introduced a trade
embargo of the island in an effort to dislodge Castro. However, the
Cuban security service remained wary of any gifts sent by foreign
“well-wishers”. Doubles were used to confuse potential assassins
and he moved around the country constantly. Asked once if he wore a
bullet-proof vest, Castro replied: “I have a moral vest.”
His ability to
survive the many efforts to eliminate him prompted many jokes. One
tells of him being given a present of a Galápagos turtle. Castro
politely declined the gift after he learned that the turtle was
likely to live only 100 years. “That’s the problem with pets,”
he said. “You get attached to them and then they die on you.”
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