Front Page

The spirit of Che rises again

CARACAS/VALLEGRANDE: When the haggard and broken figure was laid out on the slab and displayed to the world it was not just Che Guevara that had died. The dream of socialist revolution in South America was over. But his image and name will continue to inspire millions but on the continent he wanted to transform he was a political failure, a defeated guerilla on the wrong side of history.

Bolivia’s peasants spurned Che’s rebellion, leaving the Bolivian army and the Central Intelligence Agency to capture him on October 8, 1967, kill him the following day, and rid South America of Cuba’s revolutionary spirit. The soldiers reportedly drew straws to determine who would have the honour of shooting Che.

“And so he is dead,” wrote The Guardian’s Richard Gott, one of the few journalists at the scene that day. “As they pumped preservative into his half-naked, dirty body and as the crowd shouted to be allowed t o see, it was difficult to recall that this man had once been one of the great figures of Latin America.”

It was difficult to feel his ideas would die with him, Mr. Gott added. He was right. Forty years later the anniversary of the death is looming and the scene is transformed: the Cubans are back, socialism is back, and Che is officially a hero.

An elaborate ceremony in Vallegrande, the town where his corpse was displayed, will be just one of many government-backed rallies across the Andes and the Caribbean.

“Che is greater and more present than ever,” said Oswaldo ‘Chato’ Peredo, a Bolivian former guerilla whose brother, Roberto, was executed alongside Che.

Portraits of the pair hang in Vallegrande’s main square. Locals speak with reverence of Che’s “Christ-like” corpse. They hold masses for the doctor-turned-guerilla and pray at Che altars in their homes.

Che’s rehabilitation has been borne on the region’s “pink tide” of leftwing governments, especially in Bolivia and Venezuela, where efforts are under way to promote socialism, deepen ties with Havana and roll back Washington’s influence.

President Hugo Chavez echoes Che’s desire to wean people off capitalism by moulding a “new socialist man.” The Argentine-born rebel’s writings have been widely distributed in Venezuela and a government-run work and training scheme was named after him.

Mr. Chavez has devised an ambitious scheme to send Venezuelan oil to Cuba in exchange for 20,000 medical personnel to offer free treatment to Venezuela’s poor.

Some 800 doctors have moved to Bolivia since President Evo Morales, an ally of Mr. Chavez and Fidel Castro, was elected in 2005. Others are on their way to Ecuador now that it also has a socialist president, Rafael Correa. The scheme has widened so that poor patients from as far afield as Brazil, Chile and Nicaragua can fly to Venezuela and Cuba for free treatment.

“They have treated more than 120,000 [Bolivian] patients for free, without any conditions at all,” said Mr. Morales. “What has Cuba asked of us? Have they asked to take ownership of a mine or to be partners in petrol? No, nothing.”

Bolivia’s President contrasted that with U.S. aid, which he said came with strings, such as concessions for corporations that would perpetuate the neo-liberal economics which he blames for impoverishing the region. “One wants to subordinate and impose conditions, the other gives unconditional cooperation.”

Che envisaged violent insurrections against South America’s ruling elites as part of a global fight against U.S. imperialism, with the war in Vietnam just one front. Even Mr. Castro was said to be taken aback at his vehemence.

What Che would make of socialists who take power through elections rather than the gun no one can know. Not even Mr. Chavez, the reddest tinge in the pink tide, advocates Communism. Nor is it certain the tide will endure.

However, there is no doubt it has swept Che back into political battle after decades when he was little more than a handsome face on countless T-shirts and posters. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu