cheeni

I came across this news report, that I quote selectively behind the lj-cut. Talk about a checkered career! A friend from Latin America once told me that he always carried a machine pistol on him when at home since kidnapping was quite common. *shudder*

This reminded me of

Our lady of the assasins (La Virgen de los Sicarios)

BOLIVIAN EX-MINISTER BLOWS HIMSELF UP [CNN en Espanol 2/23/00; Los Tiempos (Cochabamba, Bolivia) 2/24/00; El Diario (La Paz) 2/24/00]
Former Bolivian minister of government Antonio Arguedas Mendieta
died on Feb. 22 when a high-powered bomb attached to his body
exploded in a residential zone of La Paz.
[...]
It is unclear whether the explosion was a
suicide, a murder or an accident. No one else was injured.
Arguedas was not immediately identified following his death since
he had a false identity card with him.
Arguedas was minister of government in 1966 and 1967, during the
military regime of Gen. Rene Barrientos (1964-1967); it was
Arguedas who in 1967 arranged for the delivery to Cuban president
Fidel Castro of the diaries and the severed hands of Argentine
guerrilla leader Ernesto "Che" Guevara, arrested and executed in
Bolivia on Oct. 9 of that year. Soon afterwards, the Bolivian
army discovered his involvement in sending Guevara's diaries and
hands to Cuba; Arguedas then fled to Chile, where he spent
several months under the protection of socialist senator Salvador
Allende Gossens before returning to Bolivia.
[...]
According to his own
statements, Arguedas later worked for the US Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA)
[...]
Once in
the post, he allowed the CIA free reign to carry out intelligence
operations, including the capture of the international guerrilla
movement led by Guevara in Bolivia.
In 1969, after surviving a machine gun attack in Bolivia, he
sought asylum in Mexico, then lived in Cuba for seven years. He
was jailed on a kidnapping conviction in Bolivia from June 1986
to November 1989. In 1998, police broke up a kidnapping gang
headed by Arguedas, but Arguedas himself managed to avoid prison.
Recent investigations linked Arguedas to a ultra-rightwing
terrorist group operating in Bolivia, known as C4, Commando
against Corruption, Cocaine and Castroism (referring to Cuban
president Fidel Castro). The C4 has been under investigation by
Bolivian police and military intelligence in connection with six
bombs set in La Paz between Nov. 20 and Dec. 16 of last year;
only one of the incidents caused injuries. In searching Arguedas'
home following his death, the Special Investigations Command
(CEIP) found evidence of his involvement in C4, including
originals of the group's pamphlets, equipment used to prepare
explosives, a list of extortion threats against businesspeople,
and messages against union leaders and leftist politicians.