Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as Che Guevara, El Che or just Che was an Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary, political figure, and leader of Cuban and internationalist guerrillas.
As a young man studying medicine, Guevara traveled rough[rough] throughout South America, which brought him into direct contact with the impoverished conditions in which many people lived. His experiences during these trips led him to the conclusion that the region's socio-economic inequalities could only be remedied by revolution, prompting him to intensify his study of Marxism and travel to Guatemala to learn about the reforms being implemented there by President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán.
While in Mexico in 1956, Guevara joined Fidel Castro's revolutionary 26th of July Movement, which seized power from the regime of the dictator Fulgencio Batista in Cuba in 1959. Guevara gained the decisive victory of the campaign at the Battle of Santa Clara, commanding around 300 men against the heavily armed government forces, and was the first of the rebel leaders to enter Havana. In the months following the revolution, Guevara was assigned the role of "supreme prosecutor", overseeing the trials and executions of hundreds of members of the previous regime.[1] He served in various important posts in the new government and wrote on the theory and practice of guerrilla warfare. Guevara was declared a "Cuban by birth" and headed the Cuban delegation to the United Nations in 1964 where he addressed the General Assembly, but he was keen to further the cause of revolution worldwide and frustrated by the deteriorating relationship between Cuba and the Soviet Union.
He disappeared from Cuba in 1965 with the intention of fomenting revolutions in Africa, but his efforts in Congo-Kinshasa failed; despite his attempts at secrecy he was closely monitored by the United States government, and his confrontational nature made it difficult for him to form working relationships. He was forced to withdraw after nine months, after which he travelled in Europe under an assumed identity and then returned briefly to Cuba to lay plans for a revolution in South America. Sometime during 1966 or 1967 he surfaced in Bolivia with a guerilla army of about 50 men. His troops scored a number of early successes against government forces, but, on October 8, 1967, he was captured in a military operation supported by the CIA and the U.S. Army Special Forces.[2] The following day he was summarily executed by the Bolivian Army in the town of La Higuera near Vallegrande,[3] and his handless body buried at an undisclosed location. In 1997 remains identified as those of Guevara were exhumed at an airstrip near Vallegrande and returned to Cuba where they were laid to rest in a specially constructed mausoleum in Santa Clara.
After his death, and despite the ruthlessness, brutality and "excessively aggressive quality" he had displayed, Guevara became an icon of socialist revolutionary movements and pop culture 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."[4]
Notes edit
- ^ "Throughout January, suspected war criminals were being captured and brought to La Cabana daily. For the most part, these were not the top henchmen of the ancien régime;most had escaped before the rebels assumed control of the city and halted outgoing air ans sea traffic, or remained holed up in embassies. Most of those left behind were deputies, or rank and file chivatos and police torturers. The trials began at eight or nine in the evening, and, more often than not, a verdict was reached by two or three in the morning. Duque de Estrada, whose job it was to gather evidence, take testimonies, and prepare the trials, also sat with Che, the "supreme prosecutor," on the appellate bench, where Che made the final decision on the men's fate." Source: Anderson, Jon Lee. Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life, New York: 1997, Grove Press, pp. 386-387.
- ^ Death of Che Guevara National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 5 - Declassified top secret document
- ^
Rostow, Walter W. Memorandum for the President:"Death of 'Che' Guevara", dated 11 October 1967. Online at GWU National Security Archive accessed 08 October 2006.
° Ryan, Henry Butterfield. The Fall of Che Guevara: A Story of Soldiers, Spies, and Diplomats, New York, 1998: Oxford University Press, pp 129–135. - ^ Maryland Institute of Art, referenced at BBC News, "Che Guevara photographer dies", 26 May 2001.Online at BBC News, accessed January 42006.