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Dr. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna
Alberto Korda's famous image of Guevara taken at the memorial service for the victims of the explosion of the ship Le Coubre, March 5, 1960
Alberto Korda's famous image of Guevara taken at the memorial service for the victims of the explosion of the ship Le Coubre, March 5, 1960
Born June 14, 1928
Rosario de Santa Fe, Argentina
Died October 9, 1967
La Higuera, Bolivia

Dr. Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (June 14, 1928 [›] – October 9, 1967), commonly known as Che Guevara or el Che, was an Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary and Cuban guerrilla leader. Guevara was a member of Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement that seized power in Cuba in 1959. After serving in various important posts in the new government and writing a number of articles and books on the theory and practice of guerrilla warfare, Guevara left Cuba in 1965 with the intention of fomenting revolutions first in the Congo-Kinshasa (later named the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and then in Bolivia, where he was captured in a CIA-organized military operation. It is believed by some that the CIA wished to interrogate Guevara but, after his capture in the Yuro ravine, he died at the hands of the Bolivian Army in La Higuera near Vallegrande on October 9 1967. Participants in and witnesses to the events of his final hours testify that his captors summarily executed him, perhaps to avoid a public trial followed by imprisonment in Bolivia. Gueverra was said to have ordered the execution of thousands in Cuba during his involvement with Castro's movement. After his death, Guevara became an icon of socialist revolutionary movements worldwide. An Alberto Korda photo of Guevara has received wide distribution (and modification) and has been called "the most famous photograph in the world and a symbol of the 20th century." [1]

Youth

File:Che13.jpg
Guevara at age 13

Guevara was born in Rosario, Argentina,[2] the eldest of five children in a family of mixed Spanish, Basque [›] and Irish descent. The date of birth recorded on his birth certificate was June 14, 1928, although some sources assert that he was actually born on May 14 1928 and the birth certificate falsified to shield the family from a potential scandal relating to his mother's having been three months pregnant when she was married.

One of Guevara's forebears, Patrick Lynch, was born in Galway, Ireland in 1715. He left for Bilbao, Spain, and traveled from there to Argentina. Francisco Lynch (Guevara's great-grandfather) was born in 1817, and Ana Lynch (his beloved grandmother) in 1861.[›] Her son Ernesto Guevara Lynch (Guevara's father) was born in 1900. Guevara Lynch married Celia de la Serna y Llosa in 1927 and they had five children.

In this upper class family with leftist leanings, Guevara became known for his dynamic and radical perspective even as a boy. Though suffering from the crippling bouts of asthma that were to afflict him throughout his life, he excelled as an athlete. He was an avid rugby player despite his handicap, and earned the nickname "Fuser", a contraction of "El Furibundo Serna" for his aggressive style of play.[3] In 1948, he entered the University of Buenos Aires to study medicine. There, after some interruptions, he completed his medical studies in March 1953.

While a student, Guevara spent a long time traveling around Latin America. In 1951, Guevara's older friend, Alberto Granado, a biochemist and a political radical, suggested that Guevara take a year off from his medical studies to embark on a trip they had talked of doing for years, traversing South America. Guevara and the 29-year-old Alberto soon set off from their hometown of Alta Gracia, riding a 1939 Norton 500 cc motorcycle grandiosely named La Poderosa II meaning "the mighty one", with the idea of spending a few weeks volunteering at the San Pablo leper colony in Peru on the banks of the Amazon River during the trip. Guevara narrated this journey in The Motorcycle Diaries, translated in 1996 (and used in 2004 as the basis for a motion picture of the same name).

Through his first-hand observations of the poverty, oppression and powerlessness of the masses, Guevara self-narrates, he decided that the only remedy for Latin America's economic and social inequities lay in revolution. His travels also inspired him to look upon Latin America not as a collection of separate nations but as a single cultural and economic entity, the liberation of which would require an intercontinental strategy. He began to develop his concept of a united Ibero-America without borders, bound together by a common 'mestizo' culture, an idea that would figure prominently in his later revolutionary activities. Upon his return to Argentina, he completed his medical studies as quickly as he could, in order to continue his travels around South and Central America.

However some of Guevara's detractors sustain that in these years a far darker character begins to emerge. A passage in these diaries describes how "Che wakes in the middle of the night and, mistaking his hosts' beloved pet Alsatian (German Shepherd Dog) for a vicious Chilean Puma, shoots the poor creature dead." [4] This theme, the symbolic murder of innocence, is to be repeated in Cuba, when as the Che writes in Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War, he has to kill his puppy in the Sierra Maestra.[5] The Che's detractors take this theme to its ultimate level with Guevara's unnecessary murder of a 14 year old [6]

Guatemala

Following his graduation from the University of Buenos Aires medical school in 1953, Guevara went on to Guatemala, where President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán headed a populist government that, through various reforms, particularly land reform, was attempting, by sometimes bloody means, to bring about a social revolution. Around this time, Guevara also acquired his famous nickname, "Che", due to his frequent use of the Argentine word Che (pronounced /tʃe/), used in a similar way to "pal" or "mate" or "dude" as used colloquially in various English-speaking countries. The word is used in some other Spanish-speaking countries, with some differences in usage.

The overthrow of the Arbenz government by a 1954 CIA-backed coup d'état cemented Guevara's view of the United States as an imperialist power that would consistently oppose governments attempting to address the socioeconomic inequality endemic to Latin America and other developing countries. This helped strengthen his conviction that socialism was the only true way to remedy such problems. Following the coup, Guevara volunteered to fight, but Arbenz told his foreign supporters to leave the country, and Guevara briefly took refuge in the Argentine consulate before moving on to Mexico.

Cuba

Main article: Che Guevara's involvement in the Cuban Revolution
File:Ergstrasbatallasc.jpg
After the battle of Santa Clara 
(January 1, 1959)

Guevara met Fidel Castro in Mexico City and joined the "26th of July Movement" that intended to overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. When the cabin cruiser Granma set out from Tuxpan, Veracruz for Cuba in November 1956, Guevara was the only non-Cuban aboard. Attacked upon landing by Batista's forces, only about 15 rebels survived as a battered fighting force; they fled into the mountains of the Sierra Maestra.[›]

Guevara became a leader among the rebels, a Comandante (English translation: Major), respected, by some but not all rebels, for his courage, and feared by most for his ruthlessness: he was responsible for the execution of many men he accused of being informers, deserters or spies. While some consider Guevara's march on Santa Clara in late 1958 as the final blow that forced Batista to flee the country; there are others who consider Fidel Castro's own far bloodier far harder fought victory at Guisa [7] , November 20 to 30, 1958 [8], the so called "Gate of Victory" [9] and the rest of the subsequent Cauto Basin campaign far more decisive (see Castro 1972 pp. 439-449)[10] At Guisa the still fighting Batista army lost perhaps 200 men, while in the armored train (shades of Trotsky) the demoralized Batista army only offered token resistence. Later wars when Castro changed to Stalinist tactics had far higher losses. Over 2,000 militia died for Castro at the Bay of Pigs; and perhaps ten fold that again Cubans were lost in the War in Angola. The victorious Castro government declared Guevara "a Cuban citizen by birth"; he divorced his Peruvian wife, Hilda Gadea, and married a member of Castro's army, Aleida March.[›]

Che Guevara with Fidel Castro 
(Havana - April 1961)

In 1959, he was appointed commander of the La Cabaña Fortress prison; during his six months tenure in this post (January 2 through June 12, [1959]) [11], he oversaw the trial and execution of many people including former Batista regime officials, members of the BRAC (Buró de Represión de Actividades Comunistas , "Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities") secret police, alleged war criminals, and political dissidents. Even as early as 1959 he helped organize disastrously failed revolutionary attempts overseas, first in Panama and then in the Dominican Republic (led by Henry Fuerte [12] a.k.a. "El Argelino" and Enrique Jiménez Moya)[13] In these attempts Ramón López (Nené), aide to Comandante Camilo Cienfuegos, died; thus these landings are said by some to have been a purge of "Camilo" loyalists. Later, Guevara became an official at the National Institute of Agrarian Reform [›], President of the National Bank of Cuba[›] (somewhat ironically, as he often condemned money, and showed his disdain by signing Cuban banknotes with his nickname, 'Che'), and Minister of Industries[›], where he helped formulate Cuban socialism, and became one of the country's most prominent figures. His essay El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba (1965), (Man and Socialism in Cuba) advocates the need to shape a "new man" (Hombre Nuevo) in conjunction with a socialist state. Some saw him as the simultaneously glamorous and austere model of that "new man." Others grew to view him as a dangerous incompetent.

Guevara, by his own account, played a key role in bringing to Cuba the Soviet missiles that precipitated the Cuban Missile Crisis, with respect to which he later told the British Daily Worker that, had the missiles had been under Cuban control, they would have fired them against U.S. cities.[14] In his book, Guerrilla Warfare, he advocated replicating the Cuban model of revolution initiated by a small group (foco) of guerrillas without the need for broad organizations to precede armed insurrection. This strategy would later fail fatally in Bolivia.

Disappearance from Cuba

File:Che-onu-1964.jpg
Che Guevara addressing the UN 
(New York City - December 11, 1964)

In December 1964, Che Guevara travelled to New York City as the head of the Cuban delegation to speak at the UN. He subsequently embarked on a three-month international tour during which he visited the People's Republic of China, the United Arab Republic (Egypt), Algeria, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Dahomey, Congo-Brazzaville and Tanzania, with stops in Ireland, Paris and Prague. In Algiers, on February 24, 1965, he made what turned out to be his last public appearance on the international stage when he delivered a speech to the "Second Economic Seminar on Afro-Asian Solidarity" in which he declared, "There are no frontiers in this struggle to the death. We cannot remain indifferent in the face of what occurs in any part of the world. A victory for any country against imperialism is our victory, just as any country's defeat is our defeat." [15][16] He then astonished his audience by proclaiming, "The socialist countries have the moral duty of liquidating their tacit complicity with the exploiting countries of the West." He proceeded to outline a number of measures which he said the communist-bloc countries should implement in order to accomplish this objective. [17][18] He returned to Cuba on March 14 to a solemn reception by Fidel and Raul Castro, Osvaldo Dorticós and Carlos Rafael Rodríguez at the Havana airport. After April 1965 Guevara dropped out of public life and then vanished altogether. His whereabouts were the great mystery of 1965 in Cuba, as he was generally regarded as second in power to Castro himself. His disappearance was variously attributed to the relative failure of the industrialization scheme he had advocated while minister of industry, to pressure exerted on Castro by Soviet officials disapproving of Guevara's pro-Chinese Communist tendencies as the Sino-Soviet split grew more pronounced, and to serious differences between Guevara and the Cuban leadership regarding Cuba's economic development and ideological line. It may also be that Fidel had grown increasingly wary of Che Guevara's popularity and considered him a potential threat. Castro's explanations for Che's disappearance have always been suspect (see below) and many found it surprising that Che never announced his intentions publicly, but only through an undated letter to Castro.

Guevara's pro-Chinese orientation was increasingly problematic for Cuba as the nation's economy became more and more dependent on the Soviet Union. Since the early days of the Cuban revolution Guevara had been considered an advocate of Maoist strategy in Latin America and the originator of a plan for the rapid industrialization of Cuba which some compared to China's "Great Leap Forward". According to Western "observers" of the Cuban situation, the fact that Guevara was opposed to Soviet conditions and recommendations that Castro seemed obliged to accept might have been the reason for his disappearance. However, both Guevara and Castro were supportive of the idea of a united front, including the Soviet Union and China, and had made several unsuccessful attempts to reconcile the feuding parties.

Following the Cuban Missile Crisis and what he perceived as a Soviet betrayal of Cuba when Kruschev agreed to withdraw the missiles from Cuban territory without consulting Fidel Castro, Guevara had grown more skeptical of the Soviet Union. As revealed in his last speech in Algiers, he had come to view the Northern Hemisphere, led by the US in the West and the Soviet Union in the East, as the exploiter of the Southern Hemisphere. Despite this, he strongly supported the pro-Soviet Communist North Vietnam in the Vietnam War, and urged South Americans to take up arms and create "many Vietnams".

Pressed by international speculation regarding Guevara's fate, Castro stated on June 16, 1965 that the people would be informed about Guevara when Guevara himself wished to let them know. Numerous rumors about his disappearance spread both inside and outside Cuba. On October 3 of that year, Castro revealed an undated letter[19] purportedly written to him by Guevara some months earlier in which Guevara reaffirmed his enduring solidarity with the Cuban Revolution but stated his intention to leave Cuba to fight abroad for the cause of the revolution. He explained that "Other nations of the world summon my modest efforts," and that he had therefore decided to go and fight as a guerrilla "on new battlefields". In the letter Guevara announced his resignation from all his positions in the government, in the party, and in the Army, and renounced his Cuban citizenship, which had been granted to him in 1959 in recognition of his efforts on behalf of the revolution.

During an interview with four foreign correspondents on November 1, Castro remarked that he knew where Guevara was but would not disclose his location, and added, denying reports that his former comrade-in-arms was dead, that "he is in the best of health." Despite Castro's assurances, the fate of Guevara remained a mystery at the end of 1965. Guevara's movements and whereabouts continued to be a closely held secret for the next two years.

Congo

Listening to a shortwave radio are (seated from the left) Rogelio Oliva, José María Martínez Tamayo (known as "Mbili" in the Congo and "Ricardo" in Bolivia), and Che. Standing behind them is Roberto Sánchez ("Lawton" in Cuba and "Changa" in the Congo).
File:CheInCongo.jpg
Che teaching guerrilla tactics to Congolese forces. His plan was to use the liberated zone on the western shores of Lake Tanganyika as a training ground for the Congolese and fighters from other liberation movements. To his left is Santiago Terry (codename: "Aly"), to his right, Angel Felipe Hernández ("Sitaini").

During their all-night meeting on March 14 - March 15 1965, Guevara and Castro had agreed that he would personally lead Cuba's first military action in Africa. Some usually reliable sources state that Guevara persuaded Castro to back him in this effort, while other sources of equal reliability maintain that Castro convinced Che to undertake the mission, as the conditions in many places of Latin America were not optimal. Fidel himself has said the latter is true. The Cuban operation was to be carried out in support of the pro-Lumumba, Marxist Simba movement in the former Belgian Congo (later Zaire and currently the Democratic Republic of the Congo).

In 1965, Guevara was assisted for a time in the former Belgian Congo by guerrilla leader Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who helped Lumumba supporters lead a revolt that was suppressed in November of that same year by the Congolese army, a large group of white mercenaries (see Mad Mike Hoare), and Cuban exile pilots flying tactical support. Guevara dismissed Kabila as insignificant. "Nothing leads me to believe he is the man of the hour," Guevara wrote.[20]

Guevara was 37 at the time and had no formal military training. His asthma prevented him from entering military service in Argentina, a fact of which he was proud, given his opposition to the government. He had the experiences of the Cuban revolution, including his successful march on Santa Clara, which was central to Batista finally being overthrown by Castro's forces.

CIA advisors working with the Congolese army and Cuban exiles were able to monitor Guevara's communications, arrange to ambush the rebels and the Cubans whenever they attempted to attack, and interdict Guevara's supply lines.[21][22] Guevara's aim was to export the Cuban Revolution by instructing local Simba fighters in communist ideology and strategies of guerrilla warfare. The incompetence, intransigence, and infighting of the local Congolese forces are cited by Che in his Congo Diaries as the key reasons for the revolt's failure.[23] Later that same year, ill, suffering from his asthma and frustrated after seven months of hardship, Guevara left the Congo with the Cuban survivors (six of Guevara's column had died). At one point, Guevara considered sending the wounded back to Cuba, then standing alone and fighting until the end in Congo as a revolutionary example; but after being persuaded by his comrades in arms, he left the Congo.

Because Fidel Castro had made public Che's letter[24] to him in which he wrote that he was severing all ties with Cuba in order to devote himself to revolutionary activities in other parts of the world, Guevara felt that he could not return to Cuba for moral reasons, and he spent the next six months living clandestinely in Dar-es-Salaam, Prague and the GDR. During this time he compiled his memoirs of the Congo experience, and also wrote drafts of two more books, one on philosophy[25] and the other on economics[26] Throughout this period, Castro said he continued to importune him to return to Cuba, but Guevara only agreed to do so when it was understood that he would be there on a strictly temporary basis for the few months needed to prepare a new revolutionary effort somewhere in Latin America, and that his presence on the island would be cloaked in the tightest secrecy.

Bolivia

Insurgent

File:Vallegrandescboliviamine02.jpg
Map of Bolivia showing location of Vallegrande


Speculation on Guevara's whereabouts continued throughout 1966 and into 1967. Finally, in a speech at the 1967 May Day rally in Havana, the Acting Minister of the armed forces, Maj. Juan Almeida, announced that Guevara was "serving the revolution somewhere in Latin America". The persistent reports that he was leading the guerrillas in Bolivia were ultimately shown to be true.

A parcel of jungle land in the Ñancahuazú region had been purchased by native Bolivian Communists and turned over to him for use as a training area. The evidence suggests that this training was more hazardous than combat to Guevara and the Cubans accompanying him. Little was accomplished in the way of building a guerrilla army. Former Stasi operative Haydée Tamara Bunke Bider, better known by her nom de guerre "Tania", who had been installed as his primary agent in La Paz was reportedly also working for the KGB, and is widely inferred to have unwittingly served Soviet interests by leading Bolivian authorities to Guevara's trail.[27] On learning of his presence in Bolivia, President René Barrientos is alleged to have expressed the desire to see Guevara's head displayed on a pike in downtown La Paz. He ordered the Bolivian Army to hunt Guevara and his followers down.

Guevara's guerrilla force, numbering about 50 and operating as the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional de Bolivia; English: "National Liberation Army of Bolivia") was well equipped and scored a number of early successes in difficult terrain in the mountainous Camiri region of the country against Bolivian regulars. In September, however, the Army managed to eliminate two guerrilla groups, reportedly killing one of the leaders.

Guevara's plan for fomenting revolution in Bolivia appears to have been based upon a number of misconceptions:

  • He had expected to deal only with the country's military government and its poorly-trained and equipped army. However, after the US government learned of his location, CIA and other operatives were sent into Bolivia to aid the anti-insurrection effort. The Bolivian Army was being trained, and probably directly assisted, by US Army Special Forces advisors, including a recently organized elite battalion of Rangers trained in jungle warfare.
  • Guevara had expected assistance and cooperation from the local dissidents. He did not receive it; and Bolivia's Communist Party, oriented towards Moscow rather than Havana, did not aid him.
  • He had expected to remain in radio contact with Havana. However, the two shortwave transmitters provided to him by Cuba were faulty, so that the guerillas were unable to communicate with Havana. Some months into the campaign, the tape recorder that the guerrillas used to record and decode radio messages sent to them from Havana was lost while crossing a river.[›]

Capture and execution

File:Felix Ismael Rodriguez.jpg
Rodríguez with the captured Che Guevara
(La Higuera, Bolivia - October 9, 1967)
File:Escuela de la higuera 01.jpg
The schoolhouse in La Higuera where Che Guevara was executed at 1:10 PM on October 9, 1967

The Bolivian Special Forces were notified of the location of Guevara's guerrilla encampment by a deserter. On October 8, the encampment was encircled and Guevara was captured while leading a patrol in the vicinity of La Higuera. His surrender was offered after being wounded in the legs and having his rifle destroyed by a bullet. According to soldiers present at the capture, during the skirmish as soldiers approached Guevara he allegedly shouted, "Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead." This claim is disputed, as some soldiers say this story was set loose to show Guevara in a more humiliating light; the "quote" is even more curious because his identity was not immediately known upon his capture. At the time of his capture, Guevara was wearing a Rolex watch he had received as a gift from Fidel Castro. Barrientos promptly ordered his execution upon being informed of his capture. Guevara was taken to a dilapidated schoolhouse where he was held overnight. Early the next afternoon he was executed, bound by his hands to a board. The executioner was a sergeant in the Bolivian army, who had drawn a short straw and had to shoot Guevara. Several versions exist about what happened next. Some say the executioner was too nervous, left, and was forced back inside. Others say he was so nervous he refused to look Guevara in the face and shot him in the side of the throat, which was the fatal wound. The most widely agreed upon account is that Guevara received multiple shots to the legs, so as to avoid maiming his face for identification purposes and simulate combat wounds in an attempt to conceal his execution. Biting his arm to avoid crying out, he was eventually spared his pain and shot in the chest, filling his lungs with blood. Che Guevara did have some last words before his death; he allegedly said to his executioner, "I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man". His body was lashed to the landing skids of a helicopter and flown to neighboring Vallegrande where it was laid out on a laundry tub in the local hospital and displayed to the press. Photographs taken at that time gave rise to legends such as those of "San Ernesto de La Higuera" and "El Cristo de Vallegrande". After a military doctor surgically amputated his hands, Bolivian army officers transferred Guevara's cadaver to an undisclosed location and refused to reveal whether his remains had been buried or cremated.[›]

A CIA agent and veteran of the US invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, Félix Rodríguez headed the hunt for Guevara in Bolivia. Upon hearing of Guevara's capture Rodríguez relayed the information to CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia via CIA stations in various South American nations. After the execution, Rodríguez took Guevara's Rolex watch and several other personal items, often proudly showing them to reporters during the ensuing years.

A side issue connected with the guerrillas was the arrest and trial of Régis Debray. In April 1967 government forces captured Debray, a young French professor of philosophy at the University of Havana who studied in the Ecole Normale Supérieure with Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, and accused him of collaborating with the guerrillas. Debray claimed that he had merely been acting as a reporter, and revealed that Che, who had mysteriously disappeared several years earlier, was leading the guerrillas. As Debray's trial — which had become an international cause célèbre — was beginning in early October, Bolivian authorities on October 11 reported (falsely) that Guevara had been shot and killed in an engagement with government forces on October 9.

On October 15 Castro acknowledged that the death had occurred and proclaimed three days of public mourning throughout Cuba. The death of Guevara was regarded as a severe blow to the socialist revolutionary movements throughout Latin America, and the rest of the third world countries.

In 1997, the skeletal remains of Guevara's handless body were exhumed from beneath an air strip near Vallegrande, positively identified by DNA matching, and returned to Cuba. On October 17, 1997 his remains were laid to rest with full military honours in a specially built mausoleum in the city of Santa Clara where he had won the said decisive battle of the Cuban Revolution thirty-nine years before.

The Bolivian Diary

Also removed when Guevara was captured was his diary, which documented events of the guerrilla campaign in Bolivia. The first entry is on 7 November 1966 shortly after his arrival at the farm in Ñancahuazú, and the last entry is on 7 October 1967, the day before his capture. The diary tells how the guerrillas were forced to begin operations prematurely due to discovery by the Bolivian Army, explains Guevara's decision to divide the column into two units that were subsequently unable to re-establish contact, and describes their over-all failure. It records the rift between Guevara and the Bolivian Communist Party that resulted in Guevara having significantly fewer soldiers than originally anticipated. It shows that Guevara had a great deal of difficulty recruiting from the local populace, due in part to the fact that the guerrilla group had learned Quechua rather than the local language which was Tupí-Guaraní. As the campaign drew to an unexpected close, Guevara became increasingly ill. He suffered from ever-worsening bouts of asthma, and most of his last offensives were carried out in an attempt to obtain medicine.

The Bolivian Diary was quickly and crudely translated by Ramparts magazine and circulated around the world. Fidel Castro has denied involvement in this translation. There are at least four additional diaries, those of: Israel Reyes Zayas (Alias "Braulio"), Harry Villegas Tamayo ("Pombo"), Eliseo Reyes Rodriguez ("Rolando")[28] and Dariel Alarcón Ramírez ("Benigno"). These additional documents reveal additional aspects of these events.

The intellectual and artistic

Guevara started playing chess by the age of 12.[29] After the victory of the Cuban revolution, his fondness for chess was rekindled, and he attended and participated in most national and international tournaments held in Cuba.[30]

During his adolescence he became passionate about poetry and he wrote poems throughout his life. His favorite poet was Chilean Pablo Neruda; a volume of Neruda's poetry was found in his knapsack after he was captured.

He was also an avid photographer and spent many hours photographing people and places. In later travels he enjoyed photographing archaeological sites. The numerous photographs taken by and of him and other members of his guerrilla group that they left behind at their base camp after the initial clash with the Bolivian army in March 1967 provided the Barrientos government with the first proof of his presence in Bolivia.

Legacy

Hero

File:Che guevarra havana.jpg
Monumental image on Cuban Ministry of the Interior, based on Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick's graphic of Alberto Korda's March 1960 photo. During Che's tenure as Minister of the Ministry of Industries (MININD) from 1961 to 1965, this building was the MININD's headquarters and his office was on the top floor.
Che Guevara's Monument and Mausoleum

While pictures of Guevara's dead body were being circulated and the circumstances of his death debated, his legend began to spread. Demonstrations in protest against his execution occurred throughout the world, and articles, tributes, and poems were written about his life and death. Even liberal elements that had felt little sympathy with Guevara's communist ideals during his lifetime expressed admiration for his spirit of self-sacrifice. He is singled out from other revolutionaries by many young people in the West because he rejected a comfortable bourgeois background to fight for those who were deprived of political power and economic stability. And when he gained power in Cuba, he gave up all the trappings of high government office in order to return to the revolutionary battlefield and ultimately, to die.

Especially in the late 1960s, he became a popular icon symbolizing revolution and left-wing political ideals among youngsters in Western and Middle Eastern culture. A dramatic photograph of Guevara taken by photographer Alberto Korda [31] soon became one of the century's most recognizable images, and the portrait was simplified and reproduced on a vast array of merchandise, such as T-shirts, posters, and baseball caps. Guevara's reputation even extended into theatre, where he is depicted as the narrator in Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Evita. This portrays Guevara as becoming disillusioned with Eva Perón and her husband, President Juan Domingo Perón, because of Perón's increasing corruption and tyranny. The narrator role involves creative license, because Guevara's only interaction with Eva Perón was to write her a letter in his youth, asking for a Jeep.

Guevara's remains, along with those of six of his fellow combatants during the guerrilla campaign in Bolivia, have rested since 1997 within a special mausoleum in the Plaza Comandante Ernesto Guevara in Santa Clara, Cuba.[›] Some 205,832 persons visited the mausoleum in 2004, of whom 127,597 were foreigners. Among the tourists visiting the site were people from Argentina, Canada, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Africa, the United States, and Venezuela. Also inside the mausoleum is the original letter [32] Guevara wrote to Castro in which he stated he would leave Cuba to continue to fight abroad for the cause of the revolution and renouncing all posts and his Cuban citizenship.

Called "the most complete human being of our age" by the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, Che's supporters believe he may yet prove to be the most important thinker and activist in Latin America since Simón Bolívar, leader of the South American independence movement and hero to subsequent generations of nationalists throughout Latin America.

Critique of hero

Those opposed to this hero cult point to what they see as the less savory aspects of Guevara's life, particularly his enthusiasm about executing opponents of the Cuban Revolution. This enthusiasm shows in his own writing, some of which is quoted in an article by Alvaro Vargas Llosa, one of his many detractors. For example, in his "Message to the Tricontinental" he writes of "hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine."[33]

Source Notes

  1. ^ BBC News,"Che Guevara photographer dies", 26 May 2001.Online at BBC News, accessed 4 January2006.
  2. ^ Rosario de Santa Fe website,"Rosario de Santa Fe Argentina". Online, accessed 4 January2006.
  3. ^ Anderson, Jon Lee. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, New York: 1997, Grove Press, p. 28
  4. ^ Book Review on amazon.co.uk site,"The man he once was", 17 August 2002. Online, accessed 4 January2006.
  5. ^ Ernesto Che Guevara, "El cachorro asesinado" in "Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria". Online at patriagrande.net, accessed 5 January2006.
  6. ^ El Nuevo Herald Digital (attrib.),"Como asesinaba el Che Guevara", 28 December 1997. Online at Futuro de Cuba, accessed 4 January2006.
  7. ^ Fidel Castro, "The 40th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution", 1 January 1999. Online at The New Humanist, accessed 4 January2006.
  8. ^ CNC TV,"Recuerdan famosa victoria del Ejercito Rebelde en Guisa", 1 December 2005. Online at Google's Cache, retrieved 30 December2005.
  9. ^ Radio Bayamo,"Batalla de Guisa, noviembre de 1958: La puerta de la victoria", 30 November 2004. Online at Google's Cache, retrieved 19 December2006.
  10. ^ Cuban Aviation,"1958: The last operation of the FAEC against the guerrilla". Online at Cuban Aviation, accessed 4 January2006.
  11. ^ Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, New York: 1997, Grove Press, p. 372 and p. 425
  12. ^ Puerto Padre website, "Cronologia" ( List of anniversaries ) Online at Puerto Padre website, accessed 4 January2006.
  13. ^ Peña, Emilio Herasme," La Expedición Armada de junio de 1959", 14 June 2004.Online at 'Listín Diario (Dominican Republic), accessed 4 January2006.
  14. ^ Jon Lee Anderson, Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, New York: 1997, Grove Press, p. 545.
  15. ^ Ernesto Che Guevara, (editors Rolando E. Bonachea and Nelson P. Valdés), Che: Selected Works of Ernesto Guevara, Cambridge, MA: 1969, p. 350.
  16. ^ Ernesto Che Guevara, "English Translation of Complete Text of Algiers Speech", Online at Sozialistische Klassiker, accessed 4 January2006.
  17. ^ Ernesto Che Guevara, (editors Rolando E. Bonachea and Nelson P. Valdés), Che: Selected Works of Ernesto Guevara, Cambridge, MA: 1969, pp. 352-59.
  18. ^ Ernesto Che Guevara, "English Translation of Complete Text of Algiers Speech", Online at Sozialistische Klassiker, accessed 4 January2006.
  19. ^ Ernesto Che Guevara, "Che Guevara's Farewell Letter", 1965. English translation of complete text: Che Guevara's Farewell Letter at Wikisource.
  20. ^ BBC News,"Profile: Laurent Kabila", 26 May 2001. Online at BBC News, accessed 5 January2006.
  21. ^ African History Blog, "Che Guevara's Exploits in the Congo", Che Guevara's Exploits in the Congo Online at African History, accessed 5 January2006.
  22. ^ Mad Mike Hoare Site, "Mad Mike". Online at Geocities.com, accessed 5 January2006.
  23. ^ Ireland's Own, "From Cuba to Congo, Dream to Disaster for Che Guevara". Onine at irelandsown.net, accessed 11 January2006.
  24. ^ Ernesto Che Guevara, "Che Guevara's Farewell Letter", 1965. English translation of complete text: Che Guevara's Farewell Letter at Wikisource.
  25. ^ Ernesto Che Guevara, Apuntes Filosóficos, draft.
  26. ^ Ernesto Che Guevara, Notas Económicas, draft.
  27. ^ Major Donald R. Selvage - USMC, "Che Guevara in Bolivia", 1 April 1985. Online at GlobalSecurity.org, accessed 5 January2006.
  28. ^ Major Donald R. Selvage - USMC, "Che Guevara in Bolivia", 1 April 1985. Online at GlobalSecurity.org, accessed 5 January2006.
  29. ^ Digital Granma Internacional,"Simultaneous chess game on 37th anniversary of Che’s death", 13 October 2004. Online at Granma International English Edition, accessed 5 January2006.
  30. ^ chessgames.com, "Miguel Najdorf vs Ernesto Che Guevara". Online at chessgames.com, accessed 5 January2006.
  31. ^ BBC News,"Che Guevara photographer dies", 26 May 2001.Online at BBC News, accessed 4 January2006.
  32. ^ Ernesto Che Guevara, "Che Guevara's Farewell Letter", 1965. English translation of complete text: Che Guevara's Farewell Letter at Wikisource.
  33. ^ Alberto Vargas Llosa, "The Killing Machine: Che Guevara, from Communist Firebrand to Capitalist Brand", 11 July 2005. Online at the New Republic, accessed 5 January2006.

Content Notes

^ Birthdate: While June 14, 1928 is Guevara's official date of birth, it may not be the actual date of birth. The official story is that he was born eight months after his parents married; several sources suggest that he was born earlier (the date May 14 is the most prevalent), and that his mother was already pregnant at the time of her marriage.

^ Surname: Re origin of the surname Guevara -- "Basque: Castilianized form of Basque Gebara, a habitational name from a place in the Basque province of Araba. The origin and meaning of the place name are uncertain; it is recorded in the form Gebala by the geographer Ptolemy in the 2nd century ad. This is a rare name in Spain." Dictionary of American Family Names, Patrick Hanks, ed., London: 2003, Oxford University Press

^ Galway: The Lynch family was one of the famous 14 Tribes of Galway. The misconception exists that Ana María Isabel Lynch was born in Ireland, whereas she was actually born (1868) in San Francisco, California, USA where her father, Francisco Lynch, had travelled from Argentina during the Gold Rush years. Francisco had married a young Californian widow, Eloísa Ortiz, ca. 1860 and they had several other American-born children in addition to Ana Isabel. The man Ana Isabel would eventually marry, Roberto Guevara Castro, had also been born in California, USA of an Argentine father and a Californian mother of Spanish aristocratic descent, but Ana Isabel and Roberto did not meet until both of their families had returned to Argentina. During Che's childhood, listening to his Grandmother Ana Isabel's tales of frontier life in California was one of his greatest delights.

^ Knapsack: "Quizás esa fue la primera vez que tuve planteado prácticamente ante mí el dilema de mi dedicación a la medicina o a mi deber de soldado revolucionario. Tenía delante de mí una mochila llena de medicamentos y una caja de balas, las dos eran mucho peso para transportarlas juntas; tomé la caja de balas, dejando la mochila ..." (English: "Perhaps this was the first time I was confronted with the real-life dilemma of having to choose between my devotion to medicine and my duty as a revolutionary soldier. Lying at my feet were a knapsack full of medicine and a box of ammunition. They were too heavy for me to carry both of them. I grabbed the box of ammunition, leaving the medicine behind ...".) First published in an article in Verde Olivo, La Habana, Cuba, February 26 1961. Subsequently published in the book, Guevara, Ernesto Che. Pasajes de la Guerra Revolucionaria, La Habana, Cuba: 1963, Ediciones Unión.

^ Children:

With Hilda Gadea (married 8 August 1955; divorced 22 May 1959) : one daughter, Hilda Beatriz Guevara Gadea, born 15 February 1956 in Mexico City; died 21 Aug 1995 in Havana, Cuba

With Aleida March (married 2 June 1959):

  • Aleida Guevara March, born 17 November 1960
  • Camilo Guevara March, born 20 May 1962 in Havana Cuba
  • Celia Guevara March, born 14 June 1963 in Havana, Cuba
  • Ernesto Guevara March, born 24 February 1965 in Havana, Cuba

With Lidia Rosa López (extramarital): one son, Omar Pérez, born 19 March 1964 in Havana, Cuba

^ INRA: appointed Director of the Industrialization Department of the National Institute for Agrarian Reform on October 7 1959

^ BNC: appointed President of the National Bank of Cuba on November 26 1959

^ MININD: appointed Minister of Industries on February 23 1961

^ Message: For example, on August 31 1967 Che wrote in his diary "Hay mensaje de Manila pero no se pudo copiar.", i.e. "There is a (coded radio) message from Manila ('Manila' being the code name for Havana) but we couldn't copy it." The content of this message has not been revealed, but it may have been of critical importance since by then Castro and the other Cubans who were directing the guerrillas' support network from Havana had to be aware of their dire straits.

^ Amputation: Castañeda, Jorge G., Che Guevara: Compañero, New York: 1998, Random House, pp. xiii - xiv; pp. 401-402. Guevara's amputated hands, preserved in formaldehyde, turned up in the possession of Fidel Castro a few months later. Castro reportedly wanted to put them on public display but was dissuaded from doing so by the vehement protests of members of Guevara's family.

^ Mausoleum: On December 30 1998 the remains of ten more of the guerrillas who had fought alongside Guevara in Bolivia and whose secret burial sites there had been recently discovered by Cuban forensic investigators were also placed inside the "Che Guevara Mausoleum" in Santa Clara.

References

Printed Matter

  • Alarcón Ramírez, Dariel ("Benigno"). Memorias de un Soldado Cubano: Vida y Muerte de la Revolución. Tusquets Editores S.A. Barcelona, 1997 ISBN 848319942
  • Alarcón Ramírez, Dariel dit "Benigno". Le Che en Bolivie. Éditions du Rocher, 1997. ISBN 2 268 02437 7
  • Anderson, Jon Lee. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. New York: Grove Press, 1997. ISBN 0802116000.
  • Castañeda, Jorge G. Che Guevara: Compañero. New York: Random House, 1998. ISBN 0679759409
  • Castro, Fidel (editors Bonachea, Rolando E. and Nelson P. Valdés) Revolutionary Struggle. 1947-1958. MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, 1972. ISBN 0262020653
  • Fuentes, Norberto. La Autobiografia De Fidel Castro ("The Autobiography of Fidel Castro"). Mexico D.F: Editorial Planeta, 2004. ISBN 8423336042, ISBN: 9707490012
  • George, Edward. The Cuban Intervention In Angola, 1965-1991: From Che Guevara To Cuito Cuanavale. London & Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass Publishers, 2005. ISBN 0415350158
  • Guevara, Ernesto "Che" (editors Bonachea, Rolando E. and Nelson P. Valdés), Che: Selected Works of Ernesto Guevara, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1969. ISBN 0262520168
  • Guevara, Ernesto "Che" (editor Waters, Mary Alice), Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War 1956-1958. New York: Pathfinder, 1996. ISBN 0873488245. (See reference to "El Viscaíno" on page 186).
  • Matos, Huber. Como llegó la Noche ("How night arrived"). Barcelona: Tusquet Editores, SA, 2002. ISBN 8483109441.
  • Morán Arce, Lucas. La revolución cubana, 1953-1959: Una versión rebelde ("The Cuban Revolution, 1953-1959: a rebel version"). Ponce, Puerto Rico: Imprenta Universitaria, Universidad Católica, 1980. ISBN B0000EDAW9.
  • Rodriguez, Felix I. and John Weisman. Shadow Warrior/the CIA Hero of a Hundred Unknown Battles. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989. ISBN 0671667211.
  • Rojo del Río, Manuel. La Historia Cambió En La Sierra ("History changed in the Sierra"). 2a Ed. Aumentada (Augmented second edition). San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Texto, 1981.

Web Sites

Documentary sites

Works by Guevara, photos of Guevara, etc.

Forums

Photographs

Published Works

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Che Guevara.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Che Guevara.
English Wikisource has original text related to this article:
  • Self-Portrait: Che Guevara, Ocean Press, 320pp, paperback, 2005
  • The Diary of Che Guevara, Amereon Ltd,
  • The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey, Perennial Press, ISBN 0007182228.
  • Back on the Road: A Journey to Central America (Harvill Panther S.), The Harvill Press, paperback, ISBN 0802139426.
  • The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo, Grove Press, paperback.
  • Bolivian Diary, Pimlico, paperback, ISBN 0712664572
  • Guerrilla Warfare, Souvenir Press Ltd, paperback, ISBN 0285636804.
  • Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War, Monthly Review Press, paperback, 1998
  • Che Guevara Speaks, Pathfinder, paperback
  • Che Guevara Talks to Young People, Pathfinder, paperback
  • Che Guevara Reader: Writings on Guerrilla Warfare, Politics and History, Ocean Press, paperback
  • Critical Notes on Political Economy, Ocean Press, paperback
  • Our America and Theirs, Ocean Press (AU), paperback, ISBN 1876175818.
  • Manifesto: Three Classic Essays on How to Change the World, Consortium, paperback
  • Socialism and Man in Cuba: Also Fidel Castro on the Twentieth Anniversary of Guevara's Death, Monad, paperback

Published works that are available as downloads

Writings about Che Guevara

Trivia

In the movies

Movies and actors who have portrayed Che Guevara:

In video games

  • Che Guevara's exploits during the Cuban Revolution were very loosely dramatized in the 1987 video game Guevara, released by SNK in Japan and "converted" into Guerrilla War for Western audiences, removing all references to Che but keeping all the visuals and a game map that clearly resembles Cuba. Original copies of the "Guevara" edition of the Japanese Famicom edition go for high amounts on the collectors' market.
  • In Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, a figure leading a Indonesian rebel force know as Darah Dan Doa named Suhadi Sadono bears a striking resemblence to Guevara. During a between mission cut scene in the form of a news report, a girl in Paris is seen wearing a t-shirt with a image of Sadono printed on it. This is most likely an allusion to the famous image of Guevara printed on t-shirts.
  • In "Counterstrike: Source", the level "CS_Havana" portrays Che's photo on the walls of the town

See also

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