Jorge Vázquez Viaña (born 2 January 1939 in

La Paz La Paz, officially Nuestra Señora de La Paz (Aymara language, Aymara: Chuqi Yapu ), is the seat of government of the Bolivia, Plurinational State of Bolivia. With 755,732 residents as of 2024, La Paz is the List of Bolivian cities by populati ...

;

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

, presumed dead, May 1967; Nickname: ''El Loro'' or ''Bigotes'') was a Bolivian revolutionary. He was part of the intellectual revolutionary

guerrilla Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, Partisan (military), partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include Children in the military, recruite ...

group of

Che Guevara Ernesto "Che" Guevara (14th May 1928 – 9 October 1967) was an Argentines, Argentine Communist revolution, Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, Guerrilla warfare, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and Military theory, military theorist. A majo ...

Biography

He was raised in a conservative, affluent family, where he grew up with his older brother, Humberto, in

. His father, Dr. Humberto Vázquez Machicado, was a noted historian and his mother, Elvira Viana Canedo, was a pianist. After completing his education at the Institute La Salle (Colegio La Salle, La Paz, Bolivia ), he traveled to Germany in 1957 with his brother and enrolled as a student of Geology at the

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

. There he co-founded the Society of Bolivian students in 1958 and also became its president. In addition to his geology studies, he was quite interested in art (his used to accompany his nickname "Loro" with a small sketch, this nickname was also mentioned in Che Guevara's Bolivian Diary). His socially critical caricatures were published in order to demonstrate his political point of view. Inspired by

East German East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally vie ...

socialism, he immersed himself in the communist ideology. It was not surprising that upon returning to Bolivia in 1962, he became a member of the PCB, the

Communist Party of Bolivia The Communist Party of Bolivia () is a communist party in Bolivia. It was founded in 1950 by Raúl Ruiz González and other former members of the Revolutionary Left Party (PIR). It remained small and did not hold its first national party congr ...

. A year later, he was already active in the PCBs underground movement running a secret printing press in

. Using a finca (farm) near Emborozú, he was involved in transporting weapons to a Masetti guerrilla group in

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. Jorge then traveled to Cuba near the end of 1965 where he and other members of the PCB were trained in guerrilla tactics. Jorge Vázquez Viana went back home in July 1966 in order to prepare for Che Guevara's revolution in Bolivia. He reached the base camp in Ñancahuazú in November 1966. Primarily he was chosen for logistic tasks, on 25 January 1967 he was transferred to leading the forefront. As a result of a gunfight with the

Bolivian army The Bolivian Army () is the land force branch of the Armed Forces of Bolivia. Figures on the size and composition of the Bolivian army vary considerably, with little official data available. It is estimated that the army has between 26,000 and 6 ...

on 22 April 1967, he was wounded and taken prisoner.

Death

According to the Bolivian Army, Jorge Vazquez Viana was hospitalized with a stomach wound in Camiri on 22 April 1967 after being captured. There is no record of him after 30 April 1967 ... he just "disappeared". Cuban sources confirm that following his incarceration Jorge was tortured, murdered and his body thrown out of a helicopter above the Bolivian jungle. Six other bodies from Che Guevara's guerrillas can not be found to date, Jorge Vázquez Viañas is just one of these unaccountable deaths. He is survived by his German wife and two children. Villegas, Harryn. ''Pombo a man of Che´s guerilla''. Pathfinder Press, 1997, p. 339.

Notes

Literature

*Guevara, Ernesto Che: ''The Bolivian Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara / Ernesto Che Guevara'' Editor Mary-Alice Waters, Publisher: Pathfinder Press (NY) (January 1, 1994), ,

External links

Artikel in CubaWeb

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vazquez Viana, Jorge 1939 births 1967 deaths People from La Paz Bolivian communists Anti-revisionists 20th-century Bolivian people Bolivian torture victims Che Guevara