Eutímio Guerra

Eutimio Guerra (1920 — February 1957) was a Cuban peasant army guide executed for treason during the Cuban revolution by Che Guevara. He is believed to be the first person executed by Guevara.

Execution

In his diaries, Guevara described the execution of Eutimio Guerra, a peasant army guide who admitted treason when it was discovered he accepted the promise of ten thousand pesos for repeatedly giving away the rebel's position for attack by the Cuban air force. Such information also allowed Batista's army to burn the homes of rebel-friendly peasants. Upon Guerra's request that they "end his life quickly", Che stepped forward and shot him in the head, writing "The situation was uncomfortable for the people and for Eutimio so I ended the problem giving him a shot with a .32 pistol in the right side of the brain, with exit orifice in the right temporal [lobe]." Later, Guevara published a literary account of the incident entitled "Death of a Traitor", where he transfigured Eutimio's betrayal and pre-execution request that the revolution "take care of his children", into a "revolutionary parable about redemption through sacrifice."

References

• Anderson, Jon Lee (1997). Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-1600-0.