LA PAZ: Gary Prado Salmón, a Bolivian general who captured Communist revolutionary leader Ernesto Che Guevara and was hailed as a “national hero,” died at the age of 84.
Gary Prado Salmón oversaw a military operation in Bolivia in 1967 that suppressed a communist uprising led by Che Guevara with the assistance of US secret service operatives.
Bolivia at the time had a right-wing military regime. A day after his capture, the army commander killed Argentina-born Guevara.
Washington was particularly concerned about communist influence in Latin America, notably Che Guevara’s actions, at the height of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union.
After the 1959 revolution was successful in Cuba, he left the country to head guerrilla organisations in other nations. He became a hero for communists all over the world and was a crucial comrade of the Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro.
“A legacy of love, honesty, and courage was left by Gen Prado,” according to his son, who called his father “an extraordinary person.”
Mario Terán, a Bolivian officer who shot and killed Che Guevara, died last year.
Gen. Prado, who ambushed Che Guevara’s guerrilla force, was hailed as a national hero for standing up for Bolivia’s military government.
In a remote jungle area where Che Guevara’s force had shrunk to only 22 from original 120, he had commanded Bolivian Rangers who had received US training.
Since being accidentally struck in the spine by a gunshot in 1981, Gen. Prado has used a wheelchair. He published a book titled How I Captured Che about his victory in 1967.
Che Guevara was put to death 830 kilometres (516 miles) south of La Paz in the Bolivian town of La Higuera, and his body was interred in a hidden grave. His bones were found, dug up, and sent back to Cuba in 1997, where he was reinterred.
