The French government joined the Americans in putting pressure on the Bolivians for fairness and clemency. French President Charles de Gaulle wrote Barrientos, and the French embassy in La Paz did everything it could. The Vatican weighed in discreetly, and Debray's mother arrived in Bolivia to plead his case. This enormous pressure, especially by the American government to whom the Bolivian regime was so beholden, paid off at least temporarily. The prisoners would get a trial, although the Foreign Ministry made it clear that because Bolivia was not at war with any nation and because the guerrillas were trying to overthrow the government, thereby causing the deaths of both Bolivian soldiers and civilians, the prisoners must be treated as common criminals rather than prisoners of war.
Nevertheless, they would come before a military court in Camiri. Barrientos, however, who declared publicly that the Frenchman had come to stain Bolivia with blood, was far from happy about the trial. Furthermore, he was unhappy with the American ambassador for urging that the prisoners be spared, even before other voices had been raised on their behalf. If they could have been dispatched quickly, as the military wanted, those other voices, faced with a fait accompli, would have been raised only in a futile lament. Henderson, who said later that his relationship with Barrientos was noticeably cooler after the Debray affair, obviously had put the president in a very difficult position. Either he had to turn down a strong request by the United States, a patron upon which so much depended, or he had to risk antagonizing his military, a highly perilous thing for a Bolivian president to do, especially in that era.
If Barrientos was angry, members of the Debray family in Paris were frantic. While Mme. Debray, a friend of de Gaulle's, tried desperately to influence the Bolivians to save her son, the family in Paris urged the U.S. government, through its embassy there, to exert its influence in Bolivia to gain him clemency. The State Department cabled the Paris embassy: "U.S. Mission in La Paz has used every opportunity [to] impress on GOB [the government of Bolivia] desirability [of] extending] humane treatment to prisoners. . . . You may inform family ... we will continue, where appropriate, to urge Bolivians [to] apply acceptable standards of due process, including fair trial, and to point out benefits of doing so to GOB."
Debray was questioned by Cuban exiles employed by the CIA and then put on trial, but he maintained steadily that he was a journalist covering a story, nothing more, although he did not try to hide his sympathies, which were, of course, internationally known by then. Guevara had asked both Debray and Bustos not to reveal that he was in Bolivia, but during their incarceration, which lasted some three months before the trial began, both revealed it—"under military interrogation," according to DeBray. He also told his lawyer, Walter Flores Torrico, about Guevara's presence, and Flores subsequently made it public.
Although Debray benefited by legal counsel, life was not easy even for his lawyer. By June, the entire guerrilla operation had become so unpopular that the attorney required police protection in Camiri, where youths roamed the streets calling for Debray's death. Bustos went even further than Debray in describing the guerrilla movement, telling a press conference in July not only that Guevara was in Bolivia but also that he was there to lead a continental rebellion. He added that Guevara had only about 40 or 50 men, many of them foreigners. According to one writer, Bustos's press conference probably resulted from a deal made with the army, because soon after that his wife was permitted to visit him and he began to receive better treatment than Debray.
Their treatment, in fact, became a matter of international comment. With the three prisoners held incommunicado since they were captured in April, rumors began circulating that they were being mistreated. As a consequence, the Bolivian high command permitted a prominent clergyman, Monsignor Andres Kennedy, an American who was chaplain to the Bolivian Armed Forces, to interview them on June 21. The military did this reluctantly, however, according to a U.S. embassy cable, requiring repeated intercessions by Barrientos before agreeing to the meetings. Three days later, Kennedy appeared in a photograph in Presencia with a very fit looking Debray, and he told the newspaper that he found all three prisoners to be in good health. 40 In early July, however, an Associated Press reporter who interviewed Debray said he had a new scar, a lump on the right side of his forehead, and lumps near his right eye. The reporter added that Debray feared for his life in Camiri and wanted his case moved to La Paz.
Botched Escape
