Tania-who worked as a spy for three countries-Part 2

Tania- The Person who worked as a spy for three countries at the same time (Part-2)

   In 1959 Tania met Che Guevara who was the President of the Government National Bank and had come to arrange a loan for the Castro Government from East Germany. The amount involved was a huge sum nearly 10,000,000 dollars. The MFS had deputed Tania to be Che’s interpreter. They both felt attracted towards each other.

   After imparting vigorous training to Tania in Moscow in 1961, she was sent to the Cuban capital, Havana, along with a troupe of Cuban ballet dancers who had come to perform in East Germany. Due to Che’s efforts she was made a cultural delegate and then given a job in the Education Ministry of Cuba. Che Guevara got her inducted into a par- military women’s organization of Cuba.

   After Che Guevara had made plans for guerrilla uprising in Bolivia, he entrusted Tania with organizing and spying for him. Thus Tania reached La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, as a spy of Che Guevara. In La Paz Tania pretended to be an authority on American-Indian folk music and a ceramic artist. Soon she became a pupil teacher of Anthropology. She studied as well as taught. She adopted the free-style of the hippies and became popular with the students, intellectuals and politicians.

   Under cover of a cultural artist, Tania did for Che Guevara all that was necessary for a successful rebellion. She also established contacts with the local Communist part. She was an important link between the guerrillas hiding in the forests and the world outside. From La Paz she sent food, medicines, money, weapons and also newly recruited guerrillas into the forests. The truth was that the responsibility rested primarily on Tania’s shoulders. 

   For her work there, Tania needed a passport and also a citizenship, so that she could freely move about all over the country. In 1966 she suddenly married a local youth for this and got her passport and citizenship. After her marriage her husband got her a Bulgarian scholarship and sent her to Sofia (the capital of Bulgaria). Tania no more needed a husband and so she divorced him.

   While doing all this for Che Guevara, Tania made such stupid mistakes which were not expected from a spy of her caliber. That is why some people surmise that she deliberately did all that, so that the army could take notice of Che Guevara. Che Guevara had fixed the 23ed of March as the day of revolt and had made all arrangements, when suddenly, just ten days before the scheduled date, the Bolivian forces attacked him. In the first assault seven soldiers of the Bolivian army were killed, but as Guerrillas had been caught unawares, they had to flee into the jungle. There they roamed about for four months after which they lost their lives in a military encounter.

   Tania’ last days was painful and sad. Che Guevara held her responsible for the misfiring of his plans. When they met again he reduced her to tears with his scolding. All the guerrillas considered her a traitor and she was forced to flee along with them into the jungles. She had to walk even when she was running a temperature of 102 degree. The half-fed and half-clad, Tania roamed in the forests for months, which resulted in her mental instability and poor physique.

   On 31th of August 1967 she was shot by the Bolivian forces while crossing the Musicorrie River with the last batch of the guerrillas. Her dead body was found floating in the river and could be taken out only after eight days. It was so much disfigured that it could only be recognized by her identity card and passport. This was the painful end of a beautiful spy.

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