Guevara's 'betrayer' tells his story: 'When I heard Che had died it was like a bullet had hit me’

[dipsydoodle]

Ciro Bustos was on trial for guerrilla activities in Bolivia when he heard that Che Guevara had been killed. “When I heard…it felt as if a bullet had hit me,” he says.

As the news of the Cuban revolutionary leader’s death ricocheted around the world, Bustos, a fellow Argentinian, had more reason than most to feel his life had been knocked off course. In the months leading up to Guevara’s execution on 9 October 1967 he had been one of his most trusted collaborators.

Guevara was planning for Bustos to lead the next stage in his master plan. In his “Second Declaration of Havana” in 1962, Guevara famously called for socialist revolution throughout Latin America, and Bustos had come to meet him to put the finishing touches to their strategy to spark an uprising in Argentina. But history – and the CIA – had other plans.

On 19 April 1967, Bustos said goodbye to Guevara. “I could see that if we didn’t leave at that moment we would be stuck in the jungle,” says Bustos. “The Bolivian army was turning the whole area into a military zone.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/guevaras-betrayer-tells-his-story-when-i-heard-che-had-died-it-was-like-a-bullet-had-hit-me-8670243.html