Guevara had scarred the army in a series of clashes and ambushes, one of the most notable occurring near a small town called Iripiti, where, according to Guevara, the soldiers fell twice into the same ambush. The fight resulted in nine Bolivians being killed, including two officers and one noncommissioned officer. Although the army claimed that it killed at least four guerrillas, it seems more likely that it killed one, a Cuban captain, Jesus Suarez Gayol (code-named El Rubio), who had been in the Sierra Maestra campaign and held high administrative posts in Cuba before coming to Bolivia.
The clashes with the guerrillas caused the government to place four new provinces under military control, in addition to one already declared a military zone. The increased level of conflict also convinced the government to outlaw both the Bolivian Communist Party, which must have amused Guevara when he heard about it, and the Revolutionary Workers Party. Meanwhile, throughout May and June, the clashes and skirmishes continued, with the army consistently taking heavier losses than the guerrillas, suffering at least 25 dead by May 10.
But Guevara, too, was taking casualties. By the end of March, he had only some 40 men, and in April he suffered what he called "two great losses." One was El Rubio, the other Captain Eliseo Reyes Rodriguez (Rolando), two of his best fighters, both of whom had fought in the Cuban Revolution. He had no new recruits to fill the empty ranks, and because he had been forced out of his base encampment, he had to keep moving. In addition, he spent considerable time and effort in a fruitless attempt to find Joaquin and reunite his forces.
Unfamiliarity with the territory hampered Guevara continually. Despite the fact that many writers about guerrilla warfare, ironically including Guevara, have stressed the need for guerrillas to know the territory in which they operate very well, and despite Bolivian Army claims that the guerrillas had excellent knowledge of the area, they, in fact, had very little grasp of the local geography. It was rugged, complicated terrain to which most had come in late 1966; not even the Bolivians in the group were from that part of the country.
Their total area of operations extended from north to south for approximately 120 miles, along an axis starting just south of Santa Cruz and ending just north of Camiri. The zone, a heavily wooded territory with numerous small rivers and precipitous ravines, extended east to west for about 65 miles. 16 Guevara was determined to become familiar with the region, but his attempts were cut short. He had been conducting a long orientation expedition in March when the Bolivians first became aware of the group and the fighting began In contrast to the extraordinary prowess the Bolivians attributed to the guerrillas, Guevara bemoaned their lack of discipline and skill, even if they were superior in those respects to the enemy.
For example, on April 22, while Tope and Henderson wrote gloomy assessments of the Bolivian armed forces, Guevara wrote of his own band, "The errors began early in the morning." He then described a botched attempt to get supplies, involving the band in a useless skirmish. One man went missing, merchandise they had purchased was lost, and a wad of money, which fell during the fighting, was never found. "There is still much to do to turn this into a combat force," he said, "although the morale is quite high."
The Americans seem to have judged the situation accurately, at least for the time being. They believed that the two forces could prowl around each other, the army prodding the guerrilla band into moving more or less constantly but unable to close with it and finish it off and probably unwilling to try. They also believed, as Tope stated, that the only "real hope" for the army rested with the newly formed Second Ranger Battalion.
Guevara took quite a different view of the new Bolivian military developments. Hearing of the planned arrival of the battalion's Green Beret trainers, he wrote on April 13, "Perhaps this is the first episode of a new Vietnam."
1916: the War of Attrition
