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13 Maggio 2019 

 

Un ricordo di Monika Ertl

di Michi Caravelli

 

12 maggio 1973, un brutto giorno: l’uccisione di Monika Ertl, la donna che vendicò Che Guevara.

 

Onore a questa donna … giù il cappello compagni e compagne!

Il 12 Maggio 1973 venne uccisa in un infame agguato dalla polizia boliviana la compagna Monika Ertl militante dell’ELN boliviano passata alla storia per aver vendicato il Che uccidendo l’ufficiale dei servizi segreti boliviani Quintanilla Pereira all’interno del consolato boliviano di Amburgo, il 1 Aprile 1971. Colui che oltre ad ammazzare Ernesto Che Guevara, gli amputò le mani!

La Ertl, allora trentaquattrenne, si presentò al consolato per chiedere un visto e per parlare col console Quintanilla Pereira. Quando si trovo davanti all’assassino del Che la Ertl non esitò un momento sparò tre volte lasciando tre fori nel suo petto a forma di “V” e un biglietto sulla scrivania con su scritto “victoria o muerte”, simbolo dell’Esercito di Liberazione Boliviano.

Sparò con una pistola procuratagli da Giangiacomo Feltrinelli attraverso la rete internazionale della sinistra rivoluzionaria, una Colt Cobra 38 Special.

Monika rimase una combattente senza tomba caduta nella giungla. E nonostante riti e miti della guerra fredda, né a Cuba né nell’ Urss, né nella Ddr né nell’ultrasinistra occidentale, le furono mai intitolati una scuola, un monumento o un manifesto.

In un cimitero di La Paz, si dice che riposano “simbolicamente” i resti di Monica Ertl. In realtà non sono mai stati consegnati a suo padre, forse perché erano evidenti i segni di dolorose torture. I suoi appelli furono ignorati dalle autorità. 

Questi rimangono in qualche posto sconosciuto del paese boliviano. Giacciono in una fossa comune, senza una croce, senza un nome.


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Monika Ertl

 

Ertl was born 1937 in Munich. After World War II her father immigrated to Bolivia, where he continued to film for some time and became a farmer.

Monika Ertl came to Bolivia in 1952 when her father brought the family over from Germany. In Bolivia she accompanied her father on several filming expeditions and learnt to use both a film camera and firearms. Later she entered a marriage briefly, but felt unhappy playing the "trophy wife" of a Bolivian-German mining engineer. After her divorce she became involved with the survivors of Che Guevara's routed guerrilla movement. After helping out in minor occasions she finally joined the political underground. In Germany, she became known as "Che Guevara's avenger" because of her alleged involvement in the 1971 murder of Colonel Roberto Quintanilla Pereira in Hamburg, Germany: although this has never been completely proven it can safely be assumed that she did shoot Quintanilla who, at the time, was serving in Hamburg as the Bolivian consul. A former leader of the 'National Liberation Army' (ELN) of Bolivia, Osvaldo "Chato" Peredo, confirmed in an interview filmed by German director Christian Baudissin in 1988 that Quintanilla was a prime target of the ELN, because he had been responsible for ordering the hands of Guevara's corpse be cut off and sent to La Paz for further identification.[2] He also states that Ertl "after carrying out the mission in Hamburg" returned to Cuba where she met with Régis Debray.

After being under covert observation in Bolivia for several days she and another guerrilla were eventually ambushed and killed by Bolivian security forces on May 12, 1973 in El Alto (in La Paz) where she was reorganizing the ELN. According to Régis Debray she was also preparing the abduction of the former Gestapo Chief of Lyon Klaus Barbie to bring him to Chile and consequently to justice in France where he was wanted as a Nazi war criminal. At the time Barbie was known to be an adviser of the secret police in Bolivia. Her body was not turned over to her family to be buried and she rests in an unknown grave.


https://www.findagrave.com

Monika Ertl

 

Member of the Bolivian guerrilla group ELN (National Liberation Army), she was daughter of German photographer Hans Ertl. In 1971, along with a couple of Italians guerrilla killed the Bolivian consul in Hamburg Colonel Roberto "Toto" Quintanilla, who had tortured Ernesto "Che" Guevara and who cut its hands after his execution. She died in La Paz in a clash with military forces. The body lost or destroyed, Specifically: Her body was never delivered to his family.