"The scientific team examined the seven bodies and was able to identify all seven of them." "CHE THE ETERNAL LOOK" "And the Cuban-Argentine team could easily prove..." "This is possibly one of the identification cases I've worked on, where we could most easily establish an identity." "That is why the team decided that it isn't necessary to take samples for DNA tests because we have more than enough elements to prove, from an international point of view, an identity." "As you can see, skeleton number two is the one that has more elements that support an identity." "If you compare it to the others you'll notice those elements." "Like we said to the media unlike the other six cases the skull in skeleton number two was in perfect condition." "This allowed us to perform a photographic skull superimposition on skeleton number two, with a satisfactory outcome." "We got a perfect match from the identification point of view." "Finally, the injuries described in the forensic report the autopsy performed by doctors Martínez and Baptista that was in our possession that the papers had published at that time and also appears in several books and documents matches perfectly, regarding fractures:" "The broken collarbone, the broken forearm the broken second dorsal vertebra..." "A shot in the femur that didn't broke the bone completely but caused a tangential injury that showed the passage of a bullet." "After comparing data from the skeleton designated E2 with pre-mortis information Ernesto Guevara de la Serna's dental records we found absolute coincidence between both." "Thus, the identification was established beyond any doubt." "Thirty years ago, Valle Grande was just  a Bolivian town lost in the middle of the hills." "One October morning, it woke up to a foreign, different wind." "An unknown air crossed the streets of stone  and knocked the doors that, ajar  were trying to figure out which part of the history  was hurting its pages with indelible ink." "Voices said that guerrillas had fallen at Quebrada del Yuro  near La Higuera." "That Che had died." "That they were bringing him to Valle Grande." "Nobody said that, on the morning of October 9, 1967  Che was still alive  in a classroom at the school of La Higuera." "Nobody knew, until sunset  when his body was put in the laundry sinks  of the Señor de Malta Hospital  that just hours before he had been shot  by an unforgivable burst  that history was already condemning." "Nobody knew that 30 years of mystery would go by  that the whole world would know that Bolivian town  and that the image of the heroic guerrilla  would cross the hills that surround the town  and that his body, somewhere in Valle Grande  would remain hidden." "It's short after half past five  and everything seems to come to a stop in Valle Grande." "Its soil, wide open, is unwillingly delivering  its last mystery." "At this moment, the remains of Che  quit touching Bolivian land  forever." "But for thirty years  many voices repeated in silence  the Spanish poet's lines..." ""I want to dig the ground with my own teeth." "I want to remove it completely  with dry and hot bites." "I want to mine the ground until I find you  and kiss your noble skull  and take off your gag  and bring you back. "" "They'll take him, right?" "They'll take him away." "Well, I met Ernesto on July 26, 1964." "Che tells tells me that he is not staying in Cuba. "I'm going to Vietnam I'm going to Congo or I'm going to South America."" "And that is what leads him given his experience in Cuba to settle in Ñancahuasi, Bolivia to start the fight from there." "He believed that strategy was about being able to consolidate the armed guerrilla focus and then advance on the different countries in the continent:" "Argentina Brazil Peru Ecuador and so on." "The whole South American continent." "Che is captured on October 8, just after midday." "At dusk, I call off the combat and take my troops, prisioners, dead and wounded to La Higuera, the nearest town, to spend the night there." "Che enters La Higuera walking in front of the townsfolks and peasants that had gathered around to watch the combat and help us." "They fed us, helped us to carry the wounded, the dead." "So, when the government decides on the morning of October 9 that Che must be executed and gives the order to the commanding officer it happens that afterward they tell the press that Che died in combat." "They mishandled things." "They said something without consulting those who had been leading the operations if that version would catch on or not." "That's what it's all about." "As there was freedom of press no restriction on journalists a few hours later every journalist knew that Che had entered Havana, sorry, La Higuera, walking." "So when they say "he died in combat", the press goes..." ""What do you mean, in combat?" "We saw him walking."" "So there's a new official version that says "he died due to the wounds suffered in combat"." "The press doesn't buy it." "Because with the kind of wounds shown in the autopsy it was impossible for anyone to survive." "So the theory crumbles and finally General Barrientos, President of the Republic admits: "Yes, I ordered the execution." "Period." "I'm responsible for this." "End of the story."" "After finding bone remains with the power shovel they stopped the excavations and called the Forensic Anthropology Argentine team." "Up to that moment, they had discovered just bone remains." "So we had to make some planning to address it as an archaeological excavation." "We needed an excavation design." "A priori, we had the hypothesis that it was a common grave that we should find seven skeletons which was confirmed later." "So we had to tackle the excavation using characteristic criteria of prehistoric archaeology." "We tried to take the ground level to a certain plane." "We tried to locate the bottom of the original grave dug thirty years before, and then find the boundaries." "Once we found them we proceded to remove the dirt from the skeletons." "Finally, we found seven of them." "And we even found traces of the original power shovel used to dig the grave where these people were buried." "We had a testimony from the person who dug the grave with a power shovel, almost 30 years ago." "He told us how he had used the power shovel and this discovery confirmed this testimony that we, at first, couldn't testify to its verisimilitude." "We used chisels and hammers because it was a very hard sediment and, obviously, we had to extend the grave." "Besides, first we had to wipe the skeletons clean and then exhume them." "In the first three cases, we could easily do it but with the four remaining we had to remove blocks of ground, take them to the lab submerge them in water and separate the dirt from the bones." "During the excavation, the power shovel broke a humerus in skeleton number two." "Obviously, we recovered that sediment the fragments of bone and reconstructed it in the lab." "To make things easier, first we lifted the lower limbs in a caudally sense..." "Besides, the jacket was buried in the ground and it had pretty pronounced folds so removing it from the ground was a big challenge for us." "It was difficult to exhume under that conditions trying to preserve the evidence." "We couldn't tear the jacket." "While two Cuban companions lifted the exposed remains the lower limbs, and quickly reached the thorax I was still working on the jacket, so it took me quite long." "And when I lifted the jacket that was well preserved the skeleton's spime, upper torso and skull were exposed." "I you review the last 30 years in the Bolivian history you'll find that the guerrilla episode, that lasted 8 months was a small episode within more important things the country went through during that period." "So this is a closure and I believe that Bolivians learned something very important regarding this period." "Something I always emphasize." "I belive that we understood that we would not solve our problems through violence." "The guerrilla taught us that." "At that time the guerrilla was crushed by the Bolivian armed forces with the assistance of the United States of America, the rangers through a huge logistic operation mounted by the US intelligence service, the CIA." "But they couldn't get armed assistance so they merely provided logistic support to train Bolivian rangers to fight the guerrilla." "Because the Bolivian Army wasn't prepared to confront a kind of armed conflict such as the mobile guerrilla that has great flexibility and great fighting capacity in other ways, other fields and so on." "There was a concentrated effort to create the myth so as to somehow compensate the political and military defeat of the foquista theory in Bolivia." "This theory dies here with Che Guevara." "After that, the revolution, the attempts to change things urban violence, terrorism, the new fighting ways left-wingers use to confront what they call oppression..." "And so the foquista theory dies in Bolivia in 1967." "The revolution in Bolivia, and in Latin America has not ended." "This is just a landmark in the revolutionary fight that continues throughout history because no people ties its hands." "On October 13, 1967, an Argentine photographer  took a picture of the Valle Grande airfield and cemetery  less than 48 hours after the burial  of Che and his six companions." "The small plane in which Hugo Lazaridis left Valle Grande  had just taken off, when he captured with his camera  without knowing it, the excavation 's exact spot." "Well, yes, I remember that we took off from Santa Cruz and, as usual, when an event takes place and it shocks people beyond the local community authorities start forbidding." "That's a constant feature unluckily." "It should be the opposite, "forbbiding is forbidden"." "But..." "So we had to make change, let's say, our flight plan to another location." "Because Bolivian authorities wouldn't allow us to go to Valle Grande." "So we took off and it was kind of an estimated flight..." "It wasn't the first time I had to do something like that..." "Because radios in not very important airports are usually cut, turned off until the plane approaches the airport." "And it was one of those cases." "So we had to go deep into the mountains and when I thought we were close I remember I turned South and we located the airfield because it wasn't really an airport." "And then, well, I stayed beside the plane and the passengers, the photographers, journalists went to the town." "We had already been at the Señor de Malta Hospital." "We were to-ing and fro-ing, because we wanted to know how Che Guevara had really died." "We didn't believe what the Bolivian government said." "So we went to Dr. Martínez Casso's place." "After much thought he receives us." "And..." "It was hard to get information from him." "But, finally, he had to admit that Che had been dead for several hours." "He had received the body on October 9 and Che had been dead for five hours." "He receives the body at 5 pm and Che had been dead for approximately 5 hours." "Suddenly he wants us out of his sight and sends us, in case we wanted more information to the Señor de Malta Hospital, where there were soldiers who had been fighting Che." "We went back to the hospital and we entered the place as we used to do in Buenos Aires stomping in." "Walter heads for the first bed..." "There were 5 beds with wounded soldiers in the room." "So Walter approaches Taboada..." "It was the first bed we saw when we got in." "Then there were other four beds." "Paco, Choque and Giménez were also there they had also been fighting Che." "He asks him..." ""How did Che die?"" "And Taboada, spontaneously, answers..." ""He was shot to the heart, sir."" ""And who shot him?"" ""Lieutenant Prado."" "It was kind of terrible." "That was the information we were looking for in Bolivia." "At that moment while Walter is still asking questions and talking with Taboada, with Paco, with Choque I hear, from the fifth bed a soldier asking a nurse to call the rangers." "I approach Walter and say to him: "Let's get out, they've called the rangers"." "He wasn't very happy." "It's hard to cut a journalist short in the middle of an interview." "He kept on writing but I was so insistent that he understood." "At that moment a cameraman from the CBS arrived there along with the sound person Gutiérrez." "That means that all these declarations are recorded." "We got all the information we could and we fled from the hospital." "We dive into that vehicle, a truck we had rented and started driving along the streets, with those slopes and it seemed we would never get to the airport." "It was unbelievable." "And we knew the rangers would get there." "I was waiting for them alert to my passengers and I see that they are coming in a truck apparently the only chauffer-driven car available and one of them, Hugo Lazaridis is gesturing to me to start the plane engines..." "I didn't start them because it's dangerous to climb a plane with the propellers rotating." "But I was wery alert to the situation and they got in the plane and we ran away." "We started taxying." "The jeep comes closer and closer until we are side by side." "And then a race begins, a very stupid race because that jeep with five or six soldiers and I guess an officer must have been in it too wants to reach us, and it was a crazy race because it was impossible to reach the plane's speed." "At one moment, Miguel when the plane reached its take-off speed pulls the wheel and we take off." "They stayed down there, on the runway." "They stopped the jeep, we saw them..." "But then I also see..." "I take out the camera that was in the bag, and I see something that was the end of that improvised runway with little planes and on the right upper end I see the cemetery's back end." "And I take a picture just to have one more picture without knowing 'cause I realized it 30 years later that that was the picture of the exact spot where Che Guevara was buried." "The rescue of the skeletons buried in the common grave  ended on Saturday, July 5." "That night, a guarded caravan left Valle Grande  to travel along the road over 200 kilometers long  that joins Valle Grande with Santa Cruz de la Sierra." "After 6 hours of traveling the hills  they got to the Japonés Hospital  where the morgue had been equipped to allow  the six scientists to do their job identifying the skeletons." "Dr. González, a Cuban like his companions  anthropologists Héctor Soto and Roberto Rodríguez  and the Forensic Anthropology Argentine team  formed by Alejando Incháurregui, Patricia Bernardi  and Carlos Olivina, started a meteoric job  where pressure, not always evident  made the job to be continuous  thus, by night, the lit windows of the morgue  could be seen." "But the scientists knew something for sure." "It was not only Che the one to identify." "Every fallen men at Quebrada del Yuro  bore the same importance." "And until they were  sure about the identities, they wouldn 't release any report." "Dr. Jorge González represented the Cuban families and had their data." "And we had data of the two Bolivians." "We had contacted one of them in Valle Grande." "He gave us a photo, we scanned it knowing that we would need it in the laboratory." "We didn't have much about the Peruvian." "But we had his address." "When we get there that Sunday and leave the remains at the Japonés Hospital that same day we contact the families of the two Bolivians and the Peruvian and we start the lab work we do in every case we work on." "First, we clean them with water and a brush." "Then, the labeling, so that the bones don't get lost or mixed up." "And then, if they have suffered injuries we do the reconstruction, the reassembly, whatever especially of the long bones and skull." "This makes it easier to determine the in and out bevel of the bullets." "You go looking piece by piece see if it matches and then glue it so as to determine the shot's direction." "But there's something worth saving." "Up to the moment when we received the order to execute Che executing prisoners was something without precedent." "In fact, at that time, a military court was judging Regis Debray, Ciro Roberto Bustos and other eight Bolivians captured as guerrillas and were subnitted to military trial." "So..." "Everybody thought these prisoners would go to trial too." "Until that day, at least, I had no clue no element to make me think an execution could take place." "There were some people of doubtful backgrounds." "One of them was Ciro Roberto Bustos." "Bustos was one of the survivors of the armed group that fought in Orán on the banks of the Las Piedras River in Salta, with the idea of organizing an armed group in Argentina." "What about Ciro Roberto Bustos?" "When they come along with Debray..." "Regis Debray, the French, as Che used to call him..." "When they get to Ñancahuasu, along with Tania, the guerrilla who goes fetch them the start to struggle to leave the camp." "So they are both arrested and a trial begins in Camiri that, as Che wrote in his book caused a greater scandal than all the guerrilla activities put together." "And they start inquiring the accused." "Both Bustos and Debray say that Che was in Bolivia fighting with the guerrilla." "Bustos draws the Identikits of almost every, if not all, guerrillas." "Meanwhile, at the morgue of the Japonés Hospital  a Cuban anthropologist, while doing his job  moved after having found his Commander  remembers the sadness he felt when he was 11  and listened to Fidel  reading Che's farewell letter." "I feel I've fulfilled that part of my duty  which tied me to the Cuban Revolution in this territory  and I say good-bye to you, to my companions  to your people, that is mine already." "I formally resign my positions in the leadership of the party  my post as minister  my rank of commander  my Cuban citizenship." "Nothing legal binds me to Cuba  just ties of another nature that can 't be broken  as appointments can." "Other nations of the world  summon my modest efforts of assistance." "I can do  that which is denied to you due to your responsibility  as the head of Cuba." "It's time for us to part." "I do so with a mixture of joy and sorrow." "I leave here the purest of my hopes as a builder  and the dearest of those I hold dear." "And I leave a people who received me as a son." "That wounds a part of my spirit." "I state once more that I free Cuba  from all responsibility  except that which stems from its example." "If my final hour finds me under other skies  my last thought will be of this people  and especially of you." "Wherever I am  I'll feel the responsibility of being a Cuban revolutionary  and I'll behave as such." "I am not sorry that I leave nothing material  to my wife and children." "I'm happy it is that way." "I ask nothing for them  as the state will provide them with enough to live on  and receive an education." "Words cannot express  what I'd like them to, and there's no point  in scribbling pages." "Until victory always." "Nation or death." "I embrace you with revolutionary fervor." "Che." "The Cuban archaeologist, Roberto, went..." ""You can't imagine what I felt, at 11 when I listened to Fidel reading Che's farewell letter."" "And he spoke with tears in his eyes." "It was like a very heavy history filled with feelings and emotions." "But to us, particularly to me, it wasn't like that." "I mean, it's okay, Che's history what he meant to my generation but to them it meant a lot more." "The fight in itself, in Bolivia, at that time..." "I think it wasn't the proper one, at that moment, in that place." "Because we'd already had the revolution of 1952 regarding the agrarian reform and so on and had turned our peasants into petits bourgeois." "So it was unlikely that that incipient petit bourgeois who was starting a new life would support Che's fight." "On October 8 rumor had it that the guerrillas would arrive to the hospital." "They said that Che Guevara would arrive because Selich had killed him in La Higuera." "They brought him in a dump truck..." "No, it was a helicopter straight to the batallion and from there they brought him in a dump truck to the hospital in a stretcher, and took him to the laundry." "The nurses and the doctors were there." "The director, the internist Colonel Selich, General Prado Dr. Salinas, all of them were there, watching." "Everybody in Valle Grande went there to see who Che was." "They were around the laundry." "We took his clothes off to wash him because he was completely dirty." "He was wearing two trousers, three pairs of socks a jacket a soft pair of shoes and a pair of boots that seemed made by himself up to the shinbones and very soft." "We undressed him connected the hose to the tap and washed him with the hose." "He had one bullet in his heart one in his arm and one in his shinbone." "He told me to bring formol from the hospital in a big sprinkler, a liter and a half, he said." "I prepared it, brought it back and went for a scalpel, to make him an incision in the aorta, and through it we injected the formol." "I held the sprinkler, the doctor injected it and gave him two stitches..." " Dr. Martínez Casso?" " Dr. Martínez Casso injected the formol." "When we finished, we took him downstairs because it was late." "Santa Cruz' streets won't slow their pace for a moment." "A city that, for a few hours, coexists with its people's  opposing opinions." "Some join the Vallegrandinos ' heart  and would like to keep the Commander there forever." "They say he belongs to them  that his fight and final cause took place here  that he had chosen this land." "Others, appeal to a humanitarian spirit  sustained by international agreements  that say that every fallen combatant has the right  to be returned to their family." "The veterans of Ñancahuasu cohabit here too." "18-year-old soldiers who were sent to the forest  with a gun by General Barrientos' government  only to die or save themselves." "The same soldiers to whom the communiqué number 2  of the National Liberation Army said..." ""If fire surprises you  drop your guns and stay still on the spot  with your hands on your heads." "Force your officers to take the most dangerous place  in combat." "We'll always shoot the vanguard to kill  as much as it hurts us to shed innocent recruits ' blood." "That means that the Bolivians will not be identified?" "No, I didn't mean the Bolivians." "Maybe we identify a Cuban." "We're not talking of nationalities." "We talked about nationalities in the sense that, for instance if an anthropological study determines that the skeleton is an Amerindian, he couldn't be a Cuban 'cause in Cuba there are no Amerindians." "So, it'd have to be either Bolivian or Peruvian." "And maybe it's easier to identify it than the Cuban ones of which we have much more information." "This is how we go ruling out." "If we identify the 4 Cubans and two of the three Amerindians have elements we identify the third one by exclusion." "Maybe we just identify two Cubans, but we know that two Amerindians are possitively identified." "The third Amerindian has to be the remaining Bolivian or Peruvian." "He couldn't be Cuban." "A process of elimination in a close group makes the identification easier, contrary to the situation with the skulls." "We could only analize skull number 2 because eventhough we tried to reconstruct the others they are so damaged that we couldn't use superimposition technique." " Were they finished off?" "We don't know if it was a shot." "The violence exerted to the skulls could be by means of projectiles, which we'll analize now or by a crushing action for instance the skulls being run over by a tractor after the burial." "That's a study we haven't done yet." "Does the process of elimination confirm that skeleton number 2 belongs to Ernesto Che Guevara?" "We can't say that yet." "Once we analize the information and reach a scientific conclusion using the proper parameters, we'll tell you." "First we have to be sure." "The district coroner said that skeleton number two was already crated." "Why's that?" "Every skeleton is already crated." "Maybe you heard only about number two but every skeleton bears the same importance." "In the case of Ernesto Guevara we bear in mind that he's Argentine and could be different but I've said it already, and I'll repeat it 100 times if necessary, that Che's is the easiest identification." "There was an important difference." "He was covered by a cape." "The cape covered his head." "You could only see the cape, a green one that covered his skull and his torso and his arms." "Nearby the site of the discovery  the Cuban geophysicists continue their studies  in search for another grave and other guerrillas  among who could be Coco Peredo and Joaquín." "Go ahead." "Don't hit it now." "Move it." "Any aspect related..." "They were possitive anomalies." "We look for anomalous areas, not bones." "And then, we dug again." "We dug two previous excavations." "Because we were convinced that it was a place where the physical field shows that there was a movement." "The seismic results show a weak area." "But the site of the third excavation was not as weak as two years ago, 'cause 30 years went by." "And we extended the excavation in the area 3 and found it." "In an absolute hard soil tough the night of the burial was raining." "And they dumped the bodies." "Maybe some were placed by hand, but it seemed like they were dumped 'cause you saw it, it was a jumble of skeletons." "Regardless of the fact that some were laid out in a way that shows that maybe they were covered as in the case of skeleton number two, that had the cape." "But we wanted to corroborate certain hypothesis due to the size of the place, that is 5 meters long by 3 or 4 meters wide." "Sure, they took him away overnight." "We don't know why." "It is like stealing." "That would be the word." "I think that here they wanted to pay some kind of farewell tribute, but we couldn't because the truth is that, all of a sudden there was nothing." "He was already in Santa Cruz." "In Bolivia they always talk about democracy." "We are just starting to feel what Che meant to Bolivia." "No." "After so many dictatorships I don't know..." "At least, I didn't know what he meant." "Now, that because of the press, you are able to know Che's thoughts we are sorry about his death." "Regarding Che's death, it's..." "It's where Terán fired the burst." "He had a broken collarbone, a broken arm..." "I'm just repeating what the autopsy said." "When we captured him he only had a wound in his right calf with no exit wound and the bullet hadn't touch the bone." "So I believe that it's quite clear, they've repeated over and over that NCO Terán, following the order he had received shot him." "There were no speeches, no goodbyes it wasn't the right moment, and that was it." "That was the end." "Hours go by and in Santa Cruz  they talk about a Cuban plane that will arrive and take away  Che from Bolivia, forever." "The anthropologists ' report hasn't arrived  but the cambas feel they are losing him." "The most affected are those who live in the country like in Valle Grande, where they pray to him." "They want the body to stay, not to be taken away." "They consider Che one of them." "A lot of people knew he was there but nobody said anything." "This is the first time a military says like Vargas said 2 years ago where Che was." "People knew where he was and they'll lose him again." "And they're sorry about it." "Nobody wants him to leave." "The priest in Valle Grande says that masses have decreased from 6 or 5 masses for him to 2 or 3." "No, I don't believe it's true, because everybody loves him a lot and they're gonna be very, very sad." "They don't want Che to leave." "The scientists worked relentlessly." "Just a few minutes' break at the hospital cafeteria  weren 't enough to stray them away from that mixture  of dedication and wakefulness that kept them beside  the seven guerrillas' skeletons." "Sleep overcame them at the morgue, where they woke up  to go on working." "Is there any possibility to show the image of the possibility that Che is in one of those crates?" "Personally, I think they are poor images less illustrative than those from previous days..." "And the benefit of photographing crates..." "They won't be better photos than the ones you already have." "And it disturbs us because having human bone remains involves a great deal of responsibility." "Especially when they could be Che's." "Six of the cases we worked on in Valle Grande presented multi-fragmented skulls." "The skull fragments were one inside the other because of the injuries and the weight of the sediment that had compacted them." "While we were doing the archaeological work we had pre-mortem data, physical data of those seven persons, provided by their families." "When they ask us how the lab work was like we say it was relatively simple." "Because the big task was to find the remains." "Once they were found the lab part..." "It was like we had a close sample." "We had 7 skeletons and because of the investigation we had the possible seven." "So it was just a matter of determining who was who." "We went not only for Che." "We were aware that there were 7 persons." "Alejandro went first and when he came back Patricia and I went." "So we were the original trio." "This is a long story because at that time, November '95, we made another exhumation in Cañada del Arroyo." "We returned on January and February, 1996 to sectors nearby the site of the discovery we did a lot of research most of it from January to March, 1996." "But it was the first time I had to go there three times I think all of us went at least three times and I think we all were..." "I don't know about the others but I was pretty skeptical about finding him." "We can't but repeat over and over that the thing that changed the situation was the greatly structured base work organized by the Cuban team." "Basically, the geophysicists." "Jorge mounting the equipment and the geophysicists doing their specific job." "The problem with a short historical investigation 'cause our budget allowed us to stay just 2 or 3 months is that you have..." "You must have suffered that too..." "You have lots of versions." "Everybody has a different version." "We discussed this, with the best of intentions but as years go by versions go..." "It's like playing "broken phone"." "The person that heard a version that was just gossip 20 years later is convinced that he even saw it." "And he tells you:" ""I saw it happening"." "And that jams the system, to say it in terms..." "So I was pretty skeptical." "Personally, when I saw the dental records and the clean skeleton, I was certain..." "I knew that we were in a position to say it is Che." "In three of the Cuban cases we had dental records good pictures." "The problem was that only in one case we were able to do the photo-skull superimposition." "It was the case of Che's skull, which was the only one in good condition." "The others, though we mounted the pieces were relatively deformed, so you don't have precise spots to do a collation between photo and skull." "We could only do it with the skull of skeleton 2 and that was the only case where we could take a panoramic dental plate, it is called panoramic." "It revolves around the skull to register all the dental features." "In the other cases we took serialized X-rays." "In the case of the Cubans we had good dental data." "In the case of skeleton 2 we had two dental records, one more updated than the other that showed the absence of a premolar I think it was the second left premolar..." "We had morphological features of the inner part of the incisors..." "We had the plaster cast, the impression of his teeth." "We also had the data provided by the family height, exact age which is crucial 'cause sometimes you don't know how old these persons are." "We had the pre-mortem asthma Che suffered." "And we had the autopsy made 30 years before where there was an exact description of the bullet wounds he had had." "Although there would be differences 'cause they had had a body and we had just bones we compared piece by piece and got a match in every case." "Leaving aside what everybody was looking for the fact that he had no hands." "His hands had been cut off along the joints so it wasn't what..." "I was naive, 'cause I was looking for what I see in Argentina." "Those who cut off the hands of a body to prevent identification, are not doctors and they cut off a portion of the ulna and radius." "And part of my obsession with my work was looking for that until I realized that his hands are very well cut off, along the joints." "To verify Che's identity they cut off his hands." "At the same time I arrive in Bolivia and I meet with Jorge Kolle the General Secretary of the Bolivian Communist Party who tells me that he had had in his hands a suitcase that contained Che's hands." "That suitcase had left to Cuba with Che's hands, and was carried by Arguedas, former Secretary of the Interior." "So I listened to him, astounded." "But I was even more astounded when Jorge Kolle said to me..." ""You know, it would be great if somebody from our party could talk to Arguedas and take along with him Che's hands to Cuba." "Kolle asked me to talk with the Soviet comrades to mount that operation with their support." "I took a plane in Lima and arrived in Santiago de Chile around 6 am." "I went to the Soviet Embassy and they deliberated on the matter all morning long from 7 am when I got to the Embassy to almost 1 pm." "Finally, at approximately 12:30, 1 o'clock they decided to give me their support." "We went to the specified place a hotel in O'Higgins avenue, in Santiago de Chile we asked for a certain person." ""I'm looking for a Bolivian man by this name."" "They said: "He checked out two hours ago"." "At 10 pm, the super came and told me he was boiling tallow to make a mask." "But it didn't work 'cause they hadn't put any ointment in his face." "When they removed the mask, they pulled out the flesh." "They boiled more tallow, they boiled another pot to make another mask." "I don't know if that one worked 'cause I wasn't there anymore." "Then the super came, at 3 am." "He told me: "They're taking him away." "In a stretcher"." "Who?" "The soldiers, the General, the doctors." "They had taken him away, we didn't know where." "When they took him from here he had his hands." "The super would had told me they had cut off his hands." "Because he had been upstairs all the time." "So they cut off his hands before taking him." "I don't think so." "Because the super would had told us." "He would had told us." "No." "I think they did it in the batallion not to be seen." "The doctor and the General." "The night cleared the Japonés Hospital of journalists  and the hope of getting information  turned into a protective and respectul homage  from those who feared that, once again  in the middle of the night, they'd take Che away." "Alone  divested  Valle Grande feels it has been left unprotected." "They coexisted with the secret of not telling where he was." "They hid him." "Maybe they never understood his fight  or the liberating reasons for which Che went to Bolivia  and walked the same land Sucre and Bolívar walked." "Maybe they don 't understand it yet and lit candles  to San Ernesto de La Higuera, asking him to help them in life." "The same life that, 30 years ago  Che proposed them to change, getting all together." "We are living like..." "Like, for instance..." "Like always." "No good things, no bad things either." "I've never met that person." " You haven't." " I haven't." "What did you know about Che?" "I knew that he was killed, that's all." " Why did they kill him?" " I don't know." "If I knew I'd tell you." "I don't know what he was up to." "I don't know." "I know he was taken from here, that's all." "Here in Valle Grande many of us worship Che since he died." "And the fact that they took him away behind our backs it's not such a good thing." "It hurts us as Vallegrandinos." "Many of us worship Che." " You pray to him." " Yes." "Many times we ask him to help us solve some of the problems we have." "Too bad they took him away." "Because a lot of people say that he works miracles." "They pray to him, as to a saint, and he works miracles." "What do you think about that?" "Do you believe it?" "I think I believe it." "And it is like I were seeing him right now." "I haven't forgotten." "I remember it all." "What did you do with Che's belongings?" "His jacket, his boots, his socks?" "Everything was..." "We piled everything aside." "We didn't know, we didn't think it was a kind of charm." "Some pulled out a clump of his hair, but we, the nurses didn't take anything." "And now they say it brings good luck." "The report provided by the family included Che's last photo, at the laundry and an enlargement of his buckle and belt that was exactly what we had found." "The jacket was a different one." "And we thought: "Too bad we don't find anything that allows us to date it"." "What can you find?" "A piece of paper, a certain outfit..." "Any other element, even projectiles." "Bullets have the manufacturing place and date." "But we hadn't found any." "So if we wanted to date it..." "One of the guys says:" ""The clothes"." "I went: "No, I've already checked them"." "He said: "Inside the pockets"." "And we said: "The pockets"." "And there, inside the morgue in the jacket pocket we found Che's tobacco pouch and it was in good condition." "And those kind of things estimulate you and it's like entering the time tunnel and you go: "30 years ago, the militaries didn't see it"." "You are used to working with bones and that doesn't takes you back to the past." "But those things, clothes or associated elements make you go..." "They move you a lot." "It was like he had won." "At least he could keep this." "And maybe it was one of the last things he put in his pocket." "They are deprived of the mystery." "Maybe now they'll look into the whispering about Tania  and the supposed grave of the Argentine guerrilla  fallen in Vado del Yeso, and find a link to the past." "Valle Grande's hills." "The space and the silence." "And as if time had stopped, the laundry fallen into disuse  of the Señor de Malta Hospital  and its sinks." "Nothing changed in 30 years." "The only thing missing is that image that shocked the world." "The last and eternal look." "Years have been writing these walls  that in some sections retain their original color  in many languages and with only one message." "The old Valle Grande airfield  exposed  naked." "With an open wound nobody will dare close up." "Bereft of mystery  its people have left at the bottom of the pit  a cross that takes up the exact place  where Che's remains were found." "Petals lost in the afternoon, and a dry and whirling wind  are the only company for two crosses facing each other." "The report that the coroners issued today regarding the seven guerrillas confirmed, in the other six cases the existence of a shot to the skulls." "I mean, they don't say that those are coups de gráce, to put it that way pero it was a characteristic that the skeleton that belongs to Che Guevara's body didn't share." "Do you believe that maybe, at that time an execution took place beyond what it's known as the burst of machine gun fire against Che Guevara?" " That was the only thing." "I imagine that the others, save Willy who was executed in the same circumstances as Che, in the other room the others fell in combat." "Their kind of wounds fit those of a combat." "We didn't execute anybody." "If we had executed them why not execute Che too?" "In general the six skeletons that were with Che's skeleton had bullet wounds in their skulls." "Because of the condition the skulls were in we couldn't determine from what distance they were shot." "But all of them had in and exit wounds and in some cases, they had injuries to ribs and vertebrae." "But I think none of them had bullet wounds to their legs." "Did Che arrive here open-eyed?" "Yes, that's right." "He looked like Christ." "His eyes shocked us." "Because anywhere we went, he kept staring at us." "He followed us with his eyes." "That shocked us." "I admire him because eventhough I wasn't there, he set a very strong example regarding perseverance an example of a captivating and strong spirit and that's what I feel present about him." "His spirit and I hope I can carry on a similar fight." "During those nights the investigation lasted we saw you in a constant wakefulness." "What were you feeling then?" "That wakefulness helped me to regain strength to move on because it was like I had him closer." "I had a source of energy and fight near me." "I had to charge myself and I had to review some things I feel inside to be able to move on." "I think he has always been in my house." "Always." "I guess I must've asked my parents who Che was and they must've answered:" ""A guerrilla"." "Since then guerrillas and I are united." "I think that there will be no other like Che Guevara." "I think his remains must go there where they belong." "With his relatives, with the people that remember him..." "It's very sad to see him go." "The Bolivian guerrillas ' relatives were there." "They were meeting again after 30 years." "At last, Willy Cuba and Aniceto Reynaga  would rest in Cochabamba and La Paz." "After 30 years, the remains of the Commander appeared along with those of the guerrillas fallen in Nancahuasu." "I was six when Willy was killed." "The last companion and combatant who fell with Che." "After that, he was riddled with bullets." "During these distressing days you were doubtful about the outcome of the whole thing." "Yes, we thought, considering what happened in Valle Grande that, after 30 years the same would happen, as in '67." "But, on the contrary, they have given us the remains and this makes us very happy." "Let him rest in peace, wherever you choose." "Sure, and he will receive a Christian burial where he belongs." " Cochabamba?" " Cochabamba." "On the morning of Saturday, July 1 2  just minutes were left for Che's departure." "Long international procedures to allow the trip  to the 4 guerrillas to Cuba, had been completed." "The press conference and the last report  would close a cycle." "These are the conclusions." "This is the archaeological report of the airfield which includes a series of photos that show all the elements we had at the moment we exhumed the bodies." "Positions, relations between them the evidence associated with each skeleton and so on." "This is included in this report." "We also have the anthropometric study of each specific body." "This is skeleton 1 's study and includes every measurement taken to the skeleton." "Everything that was anthropometricwise performed." "And it includes all about the generic data such as sex, race, height, every element including associate evidence and also the X-rays that allowed us to establish an identity." "These data appear in every..." "Skeleton number 1 number 2, number 3 number 4, number 5 skeleton number 6 and skeleton number 7." "Regarding particular features we got a match regarding racial groups, sex, age and height." "The use of CG the photo-skull superimposition that allows us to compare images between a living person and a certain skull, gave us a perfect match between the anatomical condition of skeleton 2 and the photography of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna." "This is reflected in this study here that is a photo-skull superimposition where we can see spot by spot every element used to establish the identity which constitutes an indubitable element." "That means that just because of this element we could be certain." "But, obviously, we analize several elements." "This is just one of those on which we based our studies." "Finally, Dr. Jorge González  as the Cuban families 's proxy  had the power to receive and transfer  Orlando Pantoja  Rene Martínez Tamayo  Alberto Fernández Montes de Oca  and Ernesto Guevara de la Serna." "Che departed Bolivia." "Go, Che!" "Go, Che!" "Go, Che!" "Go, Che!" "Long live the Cuban Revolution!" "Long live the fight ot the Bolivian people!" "Young people must create." "A youth that doesn 't create is really an anomaly." "Besides, his great sensitivity  to every problem." "His sensitivity to injustice  his nonconformist spirit  every time something wrong shows up." "No matter who said it." "To declare war on conventionality  on conventionality of all kinds." "And to think, each and every one of us  of how to change reality." "The demand is to be essentially human." "And to be so human  that we can come closer to the best of the human being." "Let the best of man  purify  through work, through education  through exercise and continuous solidarity..." "I say goodbye to you  because I must perform my duty..."