Several items claimed to relate to the death of revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara will be put up for auction this week in Texas, including an alleged lock of his hair, cut off by the man who helped capture Che more than 40 years ago.
In an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, Gustavo Villoldo - identified by the auction house in Texas as a former CIA agent who supervised the burial of the Argentine-born revolutionary - insisted he is not selling the objects for the money.
"If Cuba were free, the objects would be in Cuba's National Museum," Villoldo said.
For this Cuban-born former intelligence agent, that would require the end of the island's communist regime, led by Fidel Castro since 1959.
Villoldo, 72, said the museum in Havana is the only place he would be prepared to donate his Che memorabilia to. But given that Cuba remains a communist nation, he decided to sell.
"My children are not interested in this, but for me (the items) have great historical value, and I do not want them to get lost if I die," he said in a telephone interview.
In the efforts to capture Che, Villoldo joined operations in the Belgian Congo - where Che aided local guerrillas in an attempt to continue the revolution he led in Cuba - and later in Bolivia.
"Those were very tough years. We were in the jungle with the Bolivian soldiers, without food. But on the last week (before the capture) we received very good intelligence," he recalled.
He advised the Bolivian Army on the chase of Guevara and his men, which led to his arrest on October 8, 1967 and to his execution one day later.
Villoldo explained why he cut off the lock of hair.
"It was a symbol of the revolution of the bearded men. And to satisfy my ego, because it represented the success that we had had in stemming the revolutionary germ in Bolivia," he said.
The sale is set to take place Thursday and Friday at Heritage Auction, based in Dallas, and is expected to draw in several million dollars. Villoldo refused to say what he plans to do with the money.
Besides the hair - cut off after Che's death - the auction will sell off photographs, maps of the mission to find and capture the revolutionary in Bolivia, the text of an intercepted message which led to finding the location of the rebels and prints taken from Guevara's fingers.
It will also include Villoldo's personal letters in an exchange with the late Bolivian president Rene Barrientos, who ruled from 1964-66 and 1966-69, and military authorities in the Andean nation.
Villoldo vows that a DNA test would prove that the lock of hair is indeed Guevara's. After cutting it off, he says he buried the revolutionary.
Forty years after Che's death, and 10 years after Cuban scientists identified a body found in Bolivia as the revolutionary's and took it to Santa Clara in Cuba, Villoldo insists that Guevara's body remains buried in the jungle in the South American country.
"Dead men do not multiply, nor walk," he said.
The former CIA agent said he tried to contact Che's descendants in Cuba and offered to show them where the body is.
"But I got no answer. I guess Fidel (Castro's) government forbid them from talking to me. I am persona non grata in Cuba," he said. "But this is important for the family. They need to do their mourning."
For Villoldo, the auction also means closure for a part of his own life, in which he saw his father commit suicide, after the revolution led by Castro confiscated his property.
"For me, these objects are related to the history of my own family. With the auction I want to close off a period of almost 50 years, with my father's tragedy, with the process of destruction of my own country," he said.
For Heritage Auction, the lock of Che's hair could be one of the most attractive lots for collectors. The auction house has previously auctioned off the hair of US president Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865) and of American Civil War general JEB Stuart.
The announcement of the auction attracted a lot of interest from collectors, but it also drew fire from groups who claim that objects related to Che are "relics belonging to humanity."
Some alleged supporters of the revolutionary went as far as to threaten the auction house, seeking a cancellation.
But Villoldo does not care one bit about the criticism.
"I do what I think is best. I am not interested in what people think. The important thing is that these documents do not get lost," he said. dpa ma ge vs cc pr pw
