Free Exposing the Real Che Guevara by Humberto Fontova Page B

story. Orwell scooted out of Spain in disguise and just in time—with Stalinist death squads hot on his tail.
    There’s ample evidence that Ernesto “Che” Guevara was a very willing tool in similar Stalinist butchery against Cuban anticommunists and noncommunists during the anti-Batista rebellion. “For some reason,” recalls anti-Batista rebel Larry Daley, “it was always the known anticommunists who kept disappearing from our ranks. Che’s march from the Sierra to Las Villas and Santa Clara involved very little fighting by his column. His path had been cleared by another column led by rebel commander Jaime Vega, who was known as a noncommunist. Vega’s forces kept running into ambushes by the Cuban army and air force and took fairly heavy casualties (relatively speaking). We suspect they were being tipped off by Castro and Che confidants.”
    From Havana to Santiago, the Castroites had a history of this type of treachery. Some of the known anticommunists among the rebels were executed by the rebels outright, but others, like Frank Pais and Rene Latour, kept running blindly into Batista’s army or police and were ambushed, or left to die in skirmishes where most communists survived. One entire boatload of eighty anti-Batista rebels who landed in Oriente province in a yacht known as the Corinthia from Florida was promptly defeated and captured by a Batista force. Heaven knows, such lethal efficiency was not characteristic of the bulk of Batista’s army. The Corinthia crew were known to be noncommunist, and had no affiliation with Castro whatsoever, but were probably infiltrated by his agents. Another tipoff? Many anti-Batista people of the time strongly suspect it.
    A bit earlier, in the Sierra, a brave and well-known anticommunist named Armando Cañizarez had a famous run-in with Guevara at his camp. They didn’t see eye to eye on the recent Soviet invasion of Hungary. “Che was all for it,” recalls Armando’s brother Julio, who was also a rebel and witnessed the encounter. “ ‘The Soviets had every right—even a duty—to invade Hungary,’ Che said outright. The Hungarian rebels were ‘fascists! CIA agents!’—the whole bit. It sounded like he was reading straight out of Pravda or Tass. We gaped.
    “Sure, to hear of Che Guevara reading straight from communist propaganda sheets may not sound odd now ,” says Julio. “But remember, in 1957 Castro and all the rebel leaders claimed to be anti-communist, prodemocracy, etcetera. And many of us rank and file were indeed anticommunist.
    “So Che’s attitude caught us off-guard. Armando kept getting hotter and hotter as he argued with Guevara. I could see it in his face. He couldn’t believe this Argentine guy—remember, this was early, Che wasn’t a famous comandante yet—was defending that naked aggression and terrible slaughter of Hungarians who were only fighting for their freedom and national independence, which we thought we were doing at the time ourselves. Armando stepped back and I could see he was balling his fist. He was preparing to bash Guevara—to punch his lights out!
    “So I moved in and asked Armando to come over by me. But he was so worked up I had to grab him by the arm and drag him over. A little while later, after we’d cooled off a bit, another rebel soldier came up and whispered to us that we’d better get the hell outta there—and fast. We did get away from Guevara, but continued in the anti-Batista fight.” 17
    After the victory, the Cañizarez brothers watched in fury as Che and Castro implemented their covert plan to communize Cuba. They both came to the United States and promptly returned to Cuba with carbines in hand at the Bay of Pigs, where Armando gave his life for Cuban freedom after expending his last bullet. To this day, his family doesn’t know where Armando Cañizarez is buried.
    “We have to create one unified command, with one comandante -in-chief.” Che laid down this Stalinist ground rule to his