Monday, October 08, 2007

Ché Guevara and South American Dictatorships

As leftists throughout Latin America and the world prepare to mark the 40th anniversary of the murder of Ché Guevara, fresh news comes out that shows Latin American dictators were at least somewhat coordinated in tracing and tracking down Guevara, revealing a collaboration that well pre-dates the official institution of Operation Condor. While this is certainly newsworthy, it should come as no surprise to anybody that the military governments of South America were in collaboration with each other before the institutionalization of such cooperation via Operation Condor. We tend to forget, in the post-Cold War era, how polarized everything was, and how threatening governments and societies (those dictatorships didn't happen without significant societal support) viewed "Communism". They did all they could to mobilize against perceived threats (real or imagined), and so, as I said, the fact that Brazil was informing Bolivia that Guevara was trying to slip across their shared border, while new, should not be surprising in the least.