Covers

Abstract

Front and back cover caption, volume 22 issue 6Front coverCaption to front cover: ‘From this murdered man are born all the men of tomorrow’: ‘The death and resurrection of Ernesto “Che” Guevara’, by Alicia Leal. Che Guevara died nearly 40 years ago in the jungles of Bolivia. He was almost immediately drafted into the canon of post‐Catholic saints. Jorge Castaneda argues that the official army photograph of Che, taken after he was executed by Bolivian soldiers with CIA assistance — head raised, eyes open, a faint smile on his lips — became the very icon of a saintly revolutionary. This Christ‐like image fuelled a popular myth among the poor of Latin America that their ‘querido Che’ would some day rise again. A Cuban expedition to Bolivia in 1997 located, exhumed and repatriated Che's remains. Dr Jorge Gonzalez, the forensic pathologist in charge, later described to Nancy Scheper‐Hughes the ‘almost mystical’ moment when his shovel hit a skull and he had the privilege of reaching down into the earth to retrieve the bones of their national hero.For Catholics and communists alike, dead bodies exercise a strong influence on the imagination. Once transplanted for human use, however, body parts are stripped of their owner's personality before being implanted into another body, whose biography they then assume. In this issue, Nancy Scheper‐Hughes considers the criminal traffic in tissues and other body parts brought to light by the abuse of the body of broadcaster Alistair Cooke (1908‐2004), whose bones were anonymously and illegally sold to be implanted in many bodies worldwide. When told of the crime by police, Cooke's daughter, an Anglican priest, invoked the death, vanished body and resurrection of Christ in her preaching as she struggled to come to terms with the crime.Back cover‘OSAMA BIN LADEN'S MEN’ IN THE SAHARA‘Terrorists’ belonging to the Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC), who took 32 European tourists hostage in the Algerian Sahara in 2003, pose for tourists in Mali and Niger. Despite the Algerian and US authorities' claim that their leader, El Para, is, or was, bin Laden's ‘man in the Sahel’, many local people believe him to be a member of Algeria's counter‐terrorist service, the Direction de Renseignements et de la Sécurité.The last of the 32 hostages were released in August 2003. Between December 2003 and March 2004 El Para and his men were allegedly chased from their ‘terrorist bases’ in Mali across Niger into Chad by a combined force of Malian, Nigerien and Algerian troops, assisted by US aerial surveillance. They ran into groups of German, French and Austrian tourists near Timbuktu (December 2003) and then at Temet in the Aïr Mountains of Niger on 24 February 2004. On both occasions they were keen to be photographed (right). The ‘contract’ was signed at Temet on 24 February 2004.For all the claims made by U.S. and Algerian authorities, no ‘al‐Quaida bases’ have yet been found, despite the best efforts of American satellites and Special Forces on the ground. We are now told that the bases, rather like Saddam Hussein's chemical weapon factories, are ‘mobile’, and thus hard to find. These photos depict such ‘mobile bases’— easily ‘located’ by tourists passing by.It is less difficult to conjure up terrorists than to control their legacy. The Tuareg term for a ‘terrorist’ like El Para is the French word ‘fantôme’. This ghostly metaphor invokes comparison with ‘freedom fighters’ who, after death, are glorified by their followers as heroes and martyrs. A notable example is the legend surrounding Che Guevara (see front cover). American intelligence agencies, in seeking to spread ‘democracy’ and secure their people against foreign threats, have been involved in fighting both types abroad. Perhaps they have learnt that the ‘phantom terrorists’ are easier to control than real‐life martyrs.