{"id":10362,"date":"2019-08-23T14:37:10","date_gmt":"2019-08-23T14:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/guerillas-of-che-guevara-in-rapa-nui\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T01:26:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:26:31","slug":"guerillas-of-che-guevara-in-rapa-nui","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/guerillas-of-che-guevara-in-rapa-nui\/","title":{"rendered":"Guerillas of Che Guevara in Rapa Nui"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guerillas of \u201cChe\u201d Guevara in<\/span> Rapa Nui<\/span><\/strong><\/h1>\n

Political asylum<\/strong><\/h2>\n

On February 26, 1968, while I was Governor of Easter Island, I received a radio-telegram \u2013 we didn\u2019t have telephones then <\/em>\u2013 from the then Minister of Interior, Edmundo P\u00e9rez-Zujovic, who informed me that the Chilean government had accepted a petition for political asylum \u201cin transit\u201d<\/em> with immediate explusion from the country for five guerillas who belonged to the forces of \u201cErnesto Che Guevara\u201d (an Argentine who fought with Castro in Cuba)<\/em>.\u00a0 The three Cubans Harry Villegas, Leonardo Tamayo and Daniel Alarc\u00f3n y two Bolivians Efra\u00edn Quinca\u00f1ez and Estanislao Vilca had entered Chile through uncontrolled mountain passes after the Bolivian Army had killed their leader, Ernesto \u201cChe\u201d<\/em> Guevara.\u00a0 The five fighters fled from Bolivia and entered the country without identification papers, and so were arrested by the\u00a0 Chilean police force.<\/p>\n

The guerrillas were to be transferred directly from Arica (in northern continental Chile)<\/em> to Rapa Nui.\u00a0 As a jail for the detainees, the house that was used for the \u201cYouth Club\u201d<\/em> of the Carabineros was set up, so that they would be \u201ccomfortable\u201d<\/em>, since they had a lot of games available, such as Taca-Taca, Ping Pong tables and such.\"\"
\n\"\"
\n\"\"To accompany the guerrillas in their final leg to Tahiti, the Island received the visit of the then President of the Senate, Salvador Allende.\u00a0 In his honor, and to give the prisoners some entertainment in which they could see a bit of the Island scenery and the monuments, the Mayor, Alfonso Rapu, together with the police, the Detectives Service, personnel from the Governor\u2019s office and from City Hall invited them on an Island tour, which culminated in a delicious, abundant Tunuahi (fish barbeque) <\/em>at Taharoa beach, which was enjoyed with a lot of laughing and comaraderie.<\/p>\n

Later on I got up and took an empty wine bottle to bring some sea water to wash my hands. \u00a0Senator Allende took the bottle from me and offered it to one of the Bolvians for washing his hands.\u00a0 As he poured the water over his hands, Allende said, \u201cthe Chilean ocean\u201d<\/em>.\u00a0 The Bolivian stared at him and didn\u2019t respond.\u00a0 (Chile and Bolivia have been in disagreement over ports on the Pacific Ocean for over 100 years). <\/em>\u00a0The mayor looked on with wide eyes; the police chiefs scowled and lowered their heads and, luckily, one of the Rapanui, Antonio Tepano Hito, spontaneously \u2013 and typically Polynesian \u2013 spoke up.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/em>Hey, Allende, up to 200 miles from here it\u2019s the Rapa Nui ocean … beyond that it\u2019s international … from Valparaiso up to 200 miles is Chilean ocean and beyond that it is international.\u201d\u00a0 <\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n

The tension was broken with laughter.\u00a0 On the way back to town, as we were travelling alone, I asked the Senator what the Bolivian had done to provoke him and he said, \u201cIt\u2019s just that I am in Chile … and I wanted to see if he knew that.\u201d\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

The next day, with all the due precautions, the guerillas left the Island in the LAN plane toward Tahiti, overwhelmed with island gifts.<\/p>\n

By Alfredo Tuki<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guerillas of \u201cChe\u201d Guevara in Rapa Nui Political asylum On February 26, 1968, while I was Governor of Easter Island, I received a radio-telegram \u2013 we didn\u2019t have telephones then \u2013 from the then Minister of Interior, Edmundo P\u00e9rez-Zujovic, who informed me that the Chilean government had accepted a petition for political asylum \u201cin transit\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moevarua.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}