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Who was Che Guevara?
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
More than a mortal, more than a revolutionary, Che Guevara is pure mystique,
a pop-culture phenom born of a cool graphic image.
Che, the brand, has been unparalleled in its reach across cultures and
purposes, from the militant to the materialistic to the rampantly
mundane, emblazoned on every imaginable surface: T-shirts, posters, belt
buckles, lighters, lip gloss, curtains, shot glasses, skateboards,
action figures, nesting dolls, tattoos, maracas, bikinis. He's Hello Kitty -
with a body count.
Che, the brand,
beamed from the cover of a CD holder sold at Target, on infant onesies
at the Burlington Coat Factory, even on a revolutionary flag at a Barack
Obama campaign office in Houston. (Burlington and later Target pulled
its Che merchandise after protests led by young Cuban-Americans at
babalublog.com,
a popular Miami-based Web site. Obama's camp issued a brief statement in
February saying the office in question was "funded by volunteers" and
not an official headquarters.)
Che, the
revolutionary, was far less successful. Despite his critical role in the
rebel takeover of Cuba in 1959 and his firebrand writings, the medical
student-turned-guerrilla failed at every other revolt he endeavored. His
last mission led to his capture and death in Bolivia in 1967 at age 39.
He would have been 80 last week.
But there was one
guerrilla mission he excelled at, notoriously so. As warden at La Cabana
fortress prison in the months following the Castro takeover, he became
the revolution's chief executioner. How many "enemies of the revolution"
faced his firing squad during the first six months of 1959 ranges
between 160 and more than 500. That stint earned him the nickname of the
"Butcher of Cabaña." CHE AT A GLANCE BORN:
Ernesto Guevara de la Serna in Rosario, Argentina, on June 14, 1928.
DIED:
October 1967 in La Higuera, Bolivia, after his capture by the Bolivian
army and CIA operatives.
EARNED HIS GUERRILLA
STRIPES:
Alongside Fidel Castro in the Cuban revolution, from 1956 to '59, when
rebels overthrew the government of strongman Fulgencio Batista.
JACK OF ALL TRADES:
In the early years of the Cuban revolution, Guevara served as jail
warden, minister of industry and - ironically for a militant who once
urged "the struggling masses" to rob banks - as president of the
National Bank of Cuba, during which time he issued bank notes signed "Che."
Guevara was one of the architects of Cuba's totalitarian police state.
FAILED GUERRILLA
MISSIONS:
The rebel who wrote the ultimate guerrilla manual in his 1960 handbook,
Guerrilla Warfare, embarked on several botched missions.
His secret operation
to organize rebels in the Congo was so disastrous, the Castro government
deep-sixed the details for years. Guevara left the Congo for his doomed
- and final - mission, in Bolivia.
'KILLING MACHINE':
Guevara described his guerrilla self as "bloodthirsty" and "violent" and
a "coldblooded killing machine." These were traits he put into action
during the bloody rebel uprising of the late 1950s, with point-blank
executions and other displays of brutality. QUOTABLE CHE On what a good
guerrilla must have:
"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." (From Message to the
Tricontinental, 1967.) On the role of
women in a guerrilla force:
"It is very pleasant
for the soldier enduring the harsh conditions of life to count on a
well-seasoned meal: besides, it's easier to keep a woman in her domestic
chores." On black
people:
"The Negro is
indolent and a dreamer, spending his meager wage on frivolity and drink;
the European has a tradition of work and saving." (Guevara in his
Motorcycle Diaries, on black Venezuelans he encountered during his
legendary travels.) On targeting
the United States:
"If the rockets had
remained, we would have used them all and directed them against the very
heart of the United States, including New York, in our defense against
aggression." (Guevara to the Daily Worker of London in the wake
of the Cuban missile crisis.)
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