Oops, Che is not Che

According to this article (in Spanish) El mito del cadáver del Che Guevara by the always great Alvaro Vargas Llosa, the body held in Che’s mausoleum in Cuba is not actually that of Che.

In 1995 the general in charge of Che’s execution revealed where Che was buried. A Cuban forensic delegation arrived and verified that this was indeed the body of Che and brought it back to Cuba just in time for the 30th anniversary of his death in 1997.

The first hint was that Che was buried without clothes. Moisés Abraham who performed the original autopsy in 1967 took off the clothes in order to perform the autopsy and kept it. To this day the clothes are in his possession. The body unearthed in 1997 was uniformed.

Second and probably more important hint found when the original autopsy records were compared to the 1997 forensic records. None of the injuries where the same. Even Che’s hands had magically grown back it seems. They were originally cut off as proof of death and sent to Cuba (if memory serves me right).

So it would seem the true story has more to do with pressure from above for bringing any corpse back for the oh so important ceremony for canonizing the high saint of modern stalinism.