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Category: Blogging
"Che's life is an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom. We will always honor his memory."
~ Nelson Mandela
Cuba Celebrates Che's 80th Birthday
Associated Press
June 14, 2008
Top Cuban officials gathered on Friday in Havana to celebrate the 80th birthday of world famous revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara.
Celebrations are planned around the globe and in particular in Latin America where he fought in the Cuban Revolution alongside former Cuban President Fidel Castro and ultimately died at the hands of the Bolivian army in the jungles of Bolivia.
Cuban President Raul Castro attended a ceremony in honour of Guevara which was broadcast on state television.
In his opening remarks at this event Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage said the world was celebrating a ''universal man''.
''The world celebrates the 80th birthday of a universal man; a life, a personality that has become example and guide, icon and myth for the people of many continents,'' Lage said.
''His mark was as short as it was intense, and it would be untruthful to say that the life that began in Argentina ended in Bolivia,'' he added.
Che's widow, Aleida March, also attended the celebrations in Havana.
To this day, Che's iconic image remains one of the most recognised faces on earth and all seems to indicate that it will continue to be so for many years to come.
  Dead for four decades, Che has been everywhere - as much a cultural icon as Charlie Chaplin or Marilyn Monroe, perhaps even more so among a new generation of admirers who've helped turn a devout Marxist into a capitalist commodity.
Of all the pop culture images that surround us, it is Guevara's face - immortalised in the photograph taken by Alberto ''Korda'' Diaz Gutierrez - that often stares at us, from T-shirts and posters, refrigerator magnets and tattoos.
Part political statement and part fashion statement, the image sometimes overshadows the man who along with Fidel Castro helped lead the Cuban revolution and promoted armed uprisings in Africa and Latin America until he was executed after being captured in the jungles of Bolivia.
Che travelled to Bolivia in 1966 with the intention of starting a social revolution.
In October 1967 the Bolivian army, with information provided by the CIA, captured Guevara and a small group of his fighters.
Che, who had been wounded in the fighting, was taken to a school in the village of La Higuera.
Shortly after his detention the order came to execute the captured guerilla.
Almost half-a-century after the triumph of the Cuban revolution, the island is covered with memorials to Che Guevara.
In one of the most familiar images, the massive five-storey tall face of Che stares down upon Havana's Revolution Square.
Billboards, painted walls, posters and photographs can be seen in towns across Cuba.
 The famous picture shot by ''Korda'', is today a marketing bonanza. Taken in Havana on 5 March 1960, the shot captured Guevara - eyes gazing off in the distance - attending a memorial service for dozens who died in an attack on an arms freighter.
Cuba blamed the incident on US-backed counter revolutionaries.
The photo was used publicly in Cuba from time to time, eventually becoming a symbol of national pride and the basis for a drawing of Guevara on Cuban currency.
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Argentina Recognizing Che at Last
Reuters
Jun 14, 2008
A bronze statue of Ernesto "Che" Guevara was unveiled on Saturday in the Argentine city where he was born exactly 80 years ago, the first such monument to the revolutionary in his homeland.
Thousands of students, leftist activists and residents marched through Rosario to pay homage to the long-haired guerrilla fighter, who left his country as a young man to lead armed struggles including Cuba's 1959 revolution alongside Fidel Castro.
"I believe in the revolution, that's why I love Che," said Monica Nielson, 49, wearing a soldier's beret with a single star like that worn by Guevara in a photo that turned him into a 20th Century icon.
"El Che," a national hero in Communist Cuba, is one of Argentina's most famous sons. But he has been slow to get recognition as a national figure at home.
For years after CIA-backed troops executed him in the Bolivian jungle in 1967, he was still too controversial for public recognition in Argentina.
The leaders of the country's 1976-83 "dirty war" dictatorship banned his image, and attackers bombed the middle-class Rosario apartment building where Guevara was born in 1928 after the local council put up a commemorative plaque there.
A handful of high schools bear Guevara's name, and a small museum opened in one of his former homes in 2001. But in a country with a penchant for naming streets and avenues after obscure Spanish viceroys, his absence is notable, said leftist historian Felipe Pigna.
"It's disgraceful that in a city like Buenos Aires ... there's not a single street named after Doctor Guevara," he said.
'Historical figure'
Members of Rosario's socialist city council, which organized Saturday's events, say controversy over Guevara has eased after 25 years of democracy.
"Che is more of a historical figure nowadays," said Horacio Ghirardi, organizer of the tribute in Rosario. "He was always very controversial in the country, especially among the right, which couldn't stand him or even tolerate debate about him."
In Cuba, where a series of acts have taken place during the week to mark Saturday's anniversary, Vice President Carlos Lage praised Guevara as "a mythic icon."
The Cuban commemorations included days of unpaid voluntary labor - something advocated by Che, who is remembered for toiling shirtless on building sites and cutting sugar cane.
Guevara's daughter, Aleida Guevara, arrived in Rosario to cheers and chants of "Viva!" when she visited a makeshift campsite set up for the celebrations, which culminated in the unveiling of the 2.7 tonne, 4-metre statue made out of thousands of donated, melted-down keys.
Guevara was depicted in his typical military uniform, striking a defiant pose.
"It's good for me to see so many young people here. Monuments aren't important, what matters is that we put Che's beliefs into practice," she said.
Several thousand people, some carrying red Communist party flags and banging drums, gathered in Rosario's newly built Ernesto "Che" Guevara plaza, where local officials unveiled the centerpiece statue.
"Che is not only an intellectual, he was the most complete human being of our time – our era's most perfect man."
~ Jean Paul Sartre
This blog wa possible by my great friend "Compañero" http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=33791875
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7:41 AM
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