Joseph Kony's Place in Manhunting History

CommandPosts.com, an excellent web blog on military history, posted a piece I wrote on the historical precedents for deploying U.S. forces to train/advise indigenous forces hunting an individual. 

By my count, Joseph Kony is officially the twelfth target of a U.S. strategic manhunt, although I argue that the campaigns targeting Che Guevara and Pablo Escobar are better precedents for this operation than Task Force Ranger's hunt for Muhammad Farah Aideed.

Today in Manhunting History -- October 8, 1967: The Capture of Che Guevara*

At 0630, October 8, 1967, Second Lieutenant Carlos Perez of the U.S. Special Forces-trained Company A, 2^nd Bolivian Ranger Battalion reported up his chain that Pedro Pena, a local peasant, had watched 17 men skirt his farm to enter El Churo Canyon the previous evening.  2LT Perez radioed Captain Gary Prado Solomon, commander of Company B which had been pursuing a group of guerrillas led by Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara since September 26, who directed him to move two A Company platoons to the north end of El Churo Canyon while Prado moved with one rifle platoon, two 60mm mortars, and one machine gun on the high ground overlooking the south end of the small ravine.  The Rangers, with a total strength of 200 men, immediately began to close off the ends of the canyon.

El Churo Canyon, about 300 meters long, ran downhill northeast to southwest.  At the southern end it merged with La Tusca Canyon and fed into San Antonio Canyon.  The steep ravine, as much as 200 meters deep, was thickly vegetated, particularly along the canyon floor, becoming sparser near the top.  CPT Prado deployed a platoon up to the north end of La Tusca, and established his command post and a blocking position with his two mortars and machine gun at the southern confluence of the two canyons.  By 1230, Prado’s forces were in position and began to search the canyons.

Almost immediately there was contact at the north end of El Churo.  2LT Perez’ men came under fire when they entered the north end of El Churo, and two Rangers were killed in the initial volley.  The movement halted as the Rangers tried to maneuver to take the insurgents under fire.  They had cut off the guerrilla’s planned movement to the high ground from the north end of the canyon, but could not penetrate down the narrow ravine.  Prado radioed Sergeant Huanca in La Tusca and told him to rapidly clear that canyon and get to the two ravines’ confluence.  Before the Rangers arrived, Che tried to break out.

CPT Prado has positioned his crew-served weapons to overwatch the area where El Chura and La Tusca canyons converged.  When the guerrillas emerged to make a break for it, the Rangers opened up on them with the mortars and machine gun.  The guerrillas took casualties and fell back into El Churo. Che was wounded in the right calf and his carbine was destroyed. (Other accounts describe Che as "riddled with bullets" having been hit in the same leg multiple times and possibly through the right forearm).  A second break out attempt was repulsed as well. 

Since the tight confines of the canyon and close proximity of friendly forces precluded the use of close air support, Sergeant Huanca’s platoon was ordered into El Churo from the south in order to drive the guerrillas against the two platoons of A Company atop the ravine.  Huanca attacked Che’s main body with hand grenades, killing two insurgents.  This forced the guerrillas to fall back and allowed the Rangers to enter the canyon. 

Che had no other choice but to try to escape up and out of the canyon. With another comrade he began climbing, but two Rangers manning an observation post near Prado’s CP observed their movement.  They held their fire until the guerrillas climbed up the ravine, and then when they were ten feet away, stood up and took them prisoner, less than 15 meters from the Ranger command post.  When Prado asked them to identify themselves, the Argentine doctor replied, “I am Che Guevara.”

Che Guevara as a prisoner of the U.S.-trained 2nd Ranger Battalion in Bolivia.

* Che Guevara was one of two cases (Pablo Escobar being the other) I researched but was not able to include as full chapters in Wanted Dead or Alive due to space restrictions. This account is largely drawn from Kenneth Finlayson, "The 2nd Ranger Battalion and the Capture of Che Guevara," in Veritas: Journal of Army Special Operations History, Vol. 4, No. 4, 2008.  

Today in Manhunting History -- October 7, 1967: Che's Last Diary Entry

The last entry in Che Guevara's diary was recorded exactly eleven months since the inauguration of the guerrilla movement in Bolivia that he (and Fidel Castro) had hoped would spark a continent-wide Communist revolution. For nearly two weeks Che and his dwindling band of 22 insurgents have been pursued by the Bolivian Army's 2nd Ranger Battalion, which had been trained by a 16-man team from the 8th U.S. Special Forces Group under the command of Major Ralph "Pappy" Shelton.

On October 7, the guerrillas ran into an old woman herding goats. They asked her if there were soldiers in the area but were unable to get any reliable information. Scared that she will report them, they paid her 50 pesos to keep quiet. In Che's diary he noted that he had "little hope" that she will do so.

Major Ralph "Pappy" Shelton, the leader of the Green Beret team that trained the Bolivian Rangers pursuing Che Guevara.

Manhunts and TMI

Jane Fonda is reported to have said: "‘My biggest regret is I never got to f*** Che Guevara.’

Yeah, just when I couldn't think any less of "Hanoi Jane" . . .