Remains of Che Guevara's female guerrilla found in Bolivia

CNN 21 September 1998 Remains of Che Guevara's female guerrilla found in Bolivia

                  LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Cuban investigators said on Monday they
                  discovered in Bolivia the remains of the only woman to fight with Ernesto
                  "Che" Guevara's band of revolutionaries during his 1967 campaign there.

                  The Cuban team found the bones of Hayde Tamara Bunke Bider, alias
                  "Tania," in the town of Vallegrande, 480 miles (770 km) southeast of the
                  capital La Paz and about two-thirds of a mile (1 km) away from where the
                  same team unearthed the bones of the legendary leftist guerrilla Guevara in
                  July 1997.

"The wounds on the remains match up with those of Tania," said Cuban
forensic specialist Jorge Gonzalez.

                  Arm bones at the site were fractured, coinciding with reports Tania was shot
                  by a bullet that hit both arms. Investigators also found female undergarments,
                  Gonzalez said.

                  An Argentine-born medical doctor, Guevara was Fidel Castro's lieutenant in
                  the 1959 Cuban revolution. His attempt to spark another subversive
                  movement in Bolivia in 1967 was stopped after seven months of fighting in
                  the subtropics.

                  Wounded and suffering from severe asthma, Guevara was captured on
                  October 8 and executed the following day by the Bolivian army. His remains
                  were put on display for the press and shortly afterward disappeared for 30
                  years.

                  Tania -- an Argentine-like Guevara -- was part of a column that was
                  ambushed in the region of Vado del Yeso, south of Vallegrande, on August
                  31, 1967.

                  Witnesses said Tania's body was dragged away by the Rio Grande's waters
                  before being found on Sept. 6. It was transported to Vallegrande and buried
                  two days later.

                  The physical proof also matched testimony by Dora Cardenas, a school
                  teacher who, together with other women, was granted permission by the
                  military to bury Tania. The women had put the cadaver in a coffin, guarded it
                  with soldiers and held a mass.

Gonzalez said Tania's skeleton will be sent to the same mausoleum housing
Guevara's remains in Santa Clara, Cuba.