Tania — Undercover with Che Guevara in Bolivia
By Ulises Estrada
Ocean Press, 2005
327 pages, $28.00
REVIEW BY ALEX SALMON
After working clandestinely for over two years in La Paz, Bolivia, and then fighting in the ranks of the Bolivian National Liberation Army (ELN), the woman known as Tania was shot dead in a Bolivian army ambush at Puerto Mauricio on the banks of the Rio Grande on August 31, 1967. Since then, ruling-class intellectuals have tried to present Tania either as a "femme fatale" having a secret affair with Che Guevara or as a triple agent working for the Soviet and East German intelligence services. This biographical account by Ulises Estrada, who was responsible for her espionage training and also had a relationship with her from 1963 to 1964, attempts to tell the true story about Tania's revolutionary mission in Bolivia.
Tania, originally known as Haydee Tamara Bunke Bider, was born in 1937. Her parents were communists who fled Nazi Germany in 1935 to avoid persecution. From a very young age Tamara became involved in communist activities in Argentina and East Germany. Her work as a Spanish translator for Latin American leaders visiting East Germany on behalf of the international relations department of the Free German Youth (the Communist Party youth organisation) enabled her to gain firsthand knowledge of political events occurring in Latin America.
Tamara demonstrated solidarity with the revolutionary struggle in Cuba that led to the overthrow of the US-backed Batista dictatorship in January 1959. Her support for the Cuban Revolution grew when she met Antonio Nunez, a captain in the rebel army, and Lieutenant Orlando Borrego, when they were visiting East Germany in July 1959. In December 1959 Tamara acted as translator for a meeting Che Guevara held with East German and Latin American students while he was part of a delegation representing the National Bank Of Cuba.
After continuing to serve as a translator for visiting Cuban delegations to East Germany throughout 1960, Tamara moved to Cuba in May 1961. Almost immediately she became involved in doing translation work for government ministries and for visiting East German delegations. Tamara also worked with the Union of Young Communists (UJC), helping them to organise the International Student Union conference held in Havana in 1961.
After the initial triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the newly formed Cuban National Assembly committed itself to the liberation of Latin America from US imperialism. To enable the Cuban government to carry out its work in solidarity with revolutionary movements across Latin America, the special operations division (MOE) initiated Operation Fantasma to coordinate a range of activities.
To avoid being detected by enemy intelligence and counterintelligence units, particularly the CIA, these operations had to be carried out in complete secrecy. After investigating potential candidates, Tamara was selected to carry out clandestine intelligence work in Bolivia in 1963. She was briefed on the requirements of her mission and then asked if she could adopt the alias of Tania, in tribute to a Soviet guerrilla fighter who had used the alias and had been killed in December 1941 fighting against the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
The mission Tania was assigned to carry out in Bolivia required her to acquire legal residency in La Paz and travel to different places, particularly rural areas, using the cover of a folklore and ethnology expert. Tania was also required to conduct a detailed study of the social, political and economic characteristics of the country, as well as trying to establish close links with people connected to the Bolivian government, political power, the bourgeoisie and the Bolivian armed forces.
After carrying out preliminary intelligence work in Prague, Tania travelled to Peru, en route to Bolivia using the false identity of an Argentinian woman, Laura Gutierrez. Two days earlier reactionary general Rene Barrientos had overthrown the President Victor Paz Estenssoro, a leader of the 1952 Bolivian revolution, in a military coup d'etat.
After entering Bolivia on November 17, 1964, Tania spent the next 15 months developing a tight network of relations within the Bolivian ruling elite by demonstrating conservative, anti-communist views. Her cover work enabled her to gain valuable information on the workings of the institutions of the dictatorship, the location of certain military units such as the staff military college in Calacoto, La Paz. This work and the links she made enabled her to help Che Guevara make his clandestine entry into Bolivia in November 1966 and to begin the liberation struggle against the dictatorship.
After her cover was blown, Tania joined the ELN in March 1967. From April 1967 she fought in a column commanded by Juan Vitalio "Acuna" Nunez (alias Joaquin). Tania and the rest of Joaquin's column fought courageously for four months, however up against the CIA-backed Bolivian army, most of the combatants, including Tania, were killed in August and September 1967.
Tania and the rest of her comrades were secretly buried in unmarked graves by the Bolivian military. After a long campaign by the Cuban government their remains were eventually taken to Cuba for burial in 1998.
In finishing his account, Ulises comments that he has seen many Tanias among all those women "who, without losing their tenderness or their love of life, have committed themselves, body and soul, to humanity's many different struggles to save the 'wretched of the earth'". This biography demonstrates the dedication of Tania's revolutionary commitment and the inspiration that her struggle provides to people all over the world.
From Green Left Weekly, April 26, 2006.
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