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A Latin American Hero
Che Guevara
In 1973, my father was Minister of Labour and went to the International Labour Organisation's World Assembly in Geneva. There he was elected President of the Conference, a great honour to my country and a recognition to the many valuable laws issued by the military dictatorship in favour of Peruvian workers. During the Conference dad was invited to Cuba by the Minister of Labour and the invitation was extended to our family.I was then 23, a complete bourgeois and agreed with dad that nothing could be worse than communism.
Before that, when dad was Air Attaché to the Peruvian Embassy and we lived in Paris, 1969-1971, I met a Cuban student whose story really impressed me. His family was very poor, he had only primary education and worked since he was 10 as a civil construction worker in Havana. He then went to school at night and with great effort entered university. He wanted to be a civil engineer and studied hard for it. While in University he participated only slightly in the revolution and when the revolution threw away Batista most of the Cuban professionals left the country. There were no professors left to teach in the University and the students of 5th year taught those of the 4th year, and so on and so forth.
While Fidel was rebuilding Cuba, France granted Cuba 500 college scholarships and Cuba had to decide what careers and specialities would these scholarships be used for. Cuba had a development plan and decided accordingly that they needed 80 people trained in Geodesics to build roads and bridges, 150 on Medicine, etc.. To choose who would follow those studies in France the main criterion was that the best students in University, with the highest marks in Mathematics should go to study Geodesics. Therefore they picked up very young people who had just entered university, and others, like my friend, who was in his last year of Civil Engineering. They all had to study for 4 years a whole career. When he told me this I told him it was not fair! He had a dream, had worked hard for it and now had to change his whole life and his whole career. His reply was: it is not my dreams that are important but what my country needs me for.
When we went to Cuba we met many people, officers and high rank officials of the Revolution and I looked for my friend. We met and he told me that having returned to Cuba he had volunteered to help in the reconstruction of Vietnam, building roads and bridges and would soon leave to that country. We were very well treated as official guests and met Fidel and his brother Raul, Vilma, Raul's wife, and other important leaders of the Cuban Revolution. Fidel spoke like a philosopher, an erudite and displayed an enormous culture, he was captivating . His brother Raul was more practical and down to earth, a man who loves children and acts like one very often. I saw him struggling with another high commander to throw each other into the swimming pool.
Fidel doesn't have a home, there had been numberless attacks against his life, and he could never have a family because they would live in permanent danger, wherever he went he was escorted by special security men, fully devoted to him, nobody ever knew where and when he would be. I would not like to live that way!
That same year, 5 months later, my sister Armida got married and the Cuban ambassador invited her and my brother in law to spend their honeymoon in Cuba. My sister's wedding coincided with the official visit of Raul Castro to Peru on our National Anniversary and he and his wife were of course invited to my sister's wedding. They went to the wedding with Fidelito, representing his father. It was a lovely party and we danced charming Cuban congas and other tropical dances, it was real fun. Cubans and Peruvians have so much in common that we immediately tune on the same 'frequency', like brothers and sisters.
At midnight Vilma, Raul's wife and a courageous guerrilla leader herself, delighted us with a song about a couple of young lovers who fought together and made love under the moon in the Sierra Maestra never knowing when would they be able to meet again.
Vilma is a beautiful, tall, slender woman who wears no make up and has big tender eyes. Her voice is soft and sweet, a mezzo soprano I guess.
The song went on to describe the spiritual struggle of these young lovers, whether to keep on fighting for their freedom or escaping to live together in a safe place. They discussed these possibilities under the moon and decided that they wanted to be together and proud of having built a free society for their children. They said good bye and the next day when she went to their date she waited in vain, he had been killed.
When she finished her song we were all crying, and I realised how much these people had sacrificed and how hard their lives had really been.
During her honeymoon my sister Armida was often invited by Raul and Vilma to their home, they lived in a normal apartment, like many other people in a 60 year-old building, with 5 rooms because they had their own children, 2 children of Che, and 3 children of Juan Almeyda, another Revolution hero, living with them. Their home was a typical middle class home, without luxuries, but full of life, light, laughter and love.
My family of course tried to reciprocate the kind attentions we received in Cuba and I was the official guide of the Cuban delegation to our museums. A member of the Cuban delegation, a Navy officer, gave me as a present a small book, called 'Socialism and Man in Cuba', written by Che Guevara, and told me that he had refused to join the guerrillas at first because he was an activist of the Catholic youth movement. They were against Batista of course, but did not want violence.
Here I think it is worthwhile to explain a little what Cuba was like under Batista. Batista was a sergeant placed by the USA as President and had full support of the USA. When the American government interdicted gambling and started a campaign of moralisation, the Mafia went to Cuba. Beaches became private clubs, no Cubans could use them, and all rich Americans went to this haven of gambling, prostitution where they could keep their fortunes tax free. Very few families owned 80% of the island and their estates only produced sugar and tobacco, 85% of the population was illiterate. Women could only find work as maids or prostitutes.
When Fidel went to the Mountains to fight Batista few people followed him, but soon political violence started against all possible followers in the cities, especially university students. That was the trigger that made them join Fidel and his 'bearded ones'. One of the people who arrived with Fidel to Cuba was Che Guevara. You have probably seen most of his life in a documentary.
This Navy officer, Jose Luis Cuza, told me how he had fought in the Sierra, at the Che's orders and had a deep admiration for him. Che never gave instructions to do anything we could not do himself perfectly well. In every attack he was always at the forefront, if someone was hurt, he carried his wounded companion to safety. If there was food shortage he went without eating. And he was very stem and demanding. Extremely honest and righteous. He could not forgive treason nor cheating. And people thought he was too rigid.
An anecdote about Che is quite revealing, he was a doctor and not an economist and yet Fidel appointed him as President of the Central Bank, responsible for the Finances of Cuba. When asked if he was not afraid of making mistakes he said: “en esta revolucion se puede meter la pata, pero no la mano. ‘Meter la pata’ is Spanish slang for making gross mistakes inadvertently, ‘meter’ la mano means stealing.
When Fidel started the revolution he and his men were not communists, they fought for freedom and against Batista, but when Cuza realised that they were now following communist ideas he spoke with Che, Che told him that one day he would understand that history is made of mistakes, but in Cuba it would be made of' honest mistakes'. He then gave Cuza this book and asked him to read it. When Cuza read it he no longer had any doubts and was decorated several times for courage and effort throughout all the war.
An interesting detail is that immediately after the triumph of the Cuban revolution when USA started the blockade against the island, there was a Summit of Presidents of the Americas in Punta del Este. 'There, Che Guevara on behalf of Cuba offered to held democratic elections and allow the existence of free political parties if USA stopped the blockade. The USA, well aware of the fact that in democratic elections Fidel would win, simply refused. Not only that, it was agreed that no other South American country would allow their citizens to travel to Cuba, we all stopped diplomatic relations with these people who spoke our language, had our blood, our beliefs, our same heritage and had been more courageous than all of us. Our passports had a stamp that read "FORBIDDEN TO TRAVEL TO CUBA AND OTHER COMMUNIST COUNTRIES". Only Mexico defied this shame. It was after such meeting that Cuba became Russia's satellite. Russia was the only country which helped Cuba, with food, medicines and weapons to protect itself from USA attacks. And believe me, there were attacks every day ever since, you can see the bullets on the promenade along the sea.
After the triumph of the Cuban revolution, Latin American people suddenly realised that it was possible to become free from injustice, that it was possible to fight and be successful. The history of Latin America is full of bloody revolutions crashed by US puppets and resulting in thousands of innocent people killed. Somoza in Nicaragua is probably among the most famous in the 80's and Stroessner in Paraguay is another clear and recent example of that.
The history of our countries is full of rebellions where peasants were killed like flies because they wanted schools for their children, 3 or 4% of the population held 80 or 90% of the land, mines and raw matters were exploited by foreign companies that paid no taxes and had their own harbours to take away our minerals. We all had this feeling that it was inevitable to live that way. And suddenly a group of young men in Cuba overthrow Batista and become an example of successful courage!
Therefore many young men from our countries went to Cuba to be trained on guerrilla warfare and then try to start our own revolutions to change our histories. In Peru there was a guerrilla movement in 1965, and many revolutionaries were young men from some of our best schools and middle class families, like the poet Javier Heraud, from a rich family, who was killed in the jungle of Peru.
'This group was fought by the Peruvian Army and my father was then the Head of Operations of the Air Force. Most of the Peruvian guerrilla fighters were killed. Rumours had it that Che Guevara was trying to enter Peruvian Territory and there was a lot of intelligence sharing between the Peruvian and the Bolivian Armed Forces.
I tell you all this because Che Guevara later became a symbol, but before that he had already been linked to my country: his first wife was Peruvian, he came here when he was 23, almost as a hippie, with no money, riding his bicycle, and worked as a truck cargo loader to pay for his transportation to the jungle, throughout most of Peru, and later as a doctor in the hospital for Lepers in the jungle of Peru.
In ‘America Television’, one of our television stations, there was a special programme on Che Guevara a week ago, and many people who met him in my country were interviewed, remarkably they all said the two same things about Che: he was a man who loved mankind and he was a very honest man.
All this introduction, may sound like a chaotic ramble, but is meant to tell you that Che was not an Argentinean doctor, was not a Cuban asthmatic fighter, was not a blood thirsty soldier, was not a terrible economist, he was the Latin American ideal of our century, a man whose dreams had no borders and who died fighting for his ideals of a better world for all people.
When Fidel started to obey all Russian instructions Che did not agree. When he came to Peru at 23, he was an avid reader, who got in touch at the same time with the real sufferings of the poor in South America during his trips on trucks, hitch hiking and walking; with great world philosophers through their books; and with important thinkers and political minds in our countries. He did not meet political leaders, he met the people who created the main schools of thought of liberal ideas in South America.
In Peru there were at that time two great trends. That of Jose Carlos Mariategui who founded the first socialist party and the first socialist union of workers, who was the first to do a social analysis of Peruvian history and problems. The other one was the social democrat, like the Mexican PRI. Both lines were against the military dictatorship of Odria, who exiled all social democrats and treated socialists with tortures, death and prison. He castrated the worker who was then the elected president of the workers of Peru and imposed a reign of terror, worthy of comparison only to that of Pinochet (we are talking about the 1950s).
Throughout his later years in other countries and his rich experience in Cuba, it is said that Che became a Trotskist. As you know Trotsky opposed Lenin's theory about who should rule the communist party. Trotsky had been elected by all the Soviets during the Russian Revolution, and Lenin believed that the elite or party leaders should rule all the Soviets. But, more importantly, Trotsky was convinced that for revolutions to preserve their pure ideals and continue having man as the main objective, revolutions had to be permanently in a process of change. To stop and create rigid structures could only kill a revolution
That is the reason why Che was said to be a Trotskist . He did not want socialism to stop and fossilise itself.
If he was right or wrong we cannot judge, at least I cannot judge him, what is always in my mind and in my heart is that there was once a young, handsome, intelligent man who could have lead a normal provincial life, made a very good living with his medical practice, or perhaps could have become a weak victim of asthma and live self-centred on his problems.
Instead he fought his disease, walked and travelled miserably throughout our continent, sleeping in the poorest huts, working hard for his food and transportation as any illiterate does in my country. When he worked as a doctor it was with the lepers, those pariah of all societies.
He read but his reading was not a theoretical treat nor a way of making his spirit richer. He put into practice what he thought was correct and decided to get involved in the struggle for freedom of countries that were not his own. He was in prison several times, his Peruvian wife who encourage him to join Fidel was also imprisoned and Che could only see his Peruvian daughter occasionally.
Che gave up his career as a doctor when, during their first skirmish and having just overcome an attack of asthma, someone called for the doctor. His medicine bag was at the same distance as his rifle, there was more danger from soldiers than from a wound. He took his rifle and never felt sorry about it.
When he came to Bolivia he did not get support from the local population and the peasants gave information to the soldiers about Che and his men. Why? In his diary Che explains that the Bolivian communist party refused to help him because he did not accept to put himself under the orders of the Party structure. Was this the only reason? If he had known the territory better would he have been successful?
With Che died other Peruvians, like Pablo Chang, of Chinese descent, and others whose relatives, friends or acquaintances were interviewed on the television programme I mentioned before. Many people said many things about them all, in favour and against.
But there were two words always said by all the people who participated in this special programme on Che Guevara, two words about Che Guevara and about those who died with him. Those two word were ‘love’ and ‘honesty’.
In this special programme they showed Che's body. He who had seen life with love and hope died with his eyes wide open, he who had been courageous and brave died without the slightest sign of fear in his face, and the reporter had a very fair conclusion. Legend has it that Che's last words were to the soldier who shot him: 'shoot, you are killing a Man'. And the reporter added: "a Man about whom Garcia Marquez could well have said: 'there was never a more beautiful corpse'".
I hope this will help you understand a little bit more about us, Latin Americans, the way we feel, the mistakes we make, the love-hatred dilemma that runs strongly in the origin of our peoples.
I would feel very happy if younger people read this too, because sometimes I feel that the end of this unhappy millennium is bringing too much selfishness, too much indifference and is nurturing among the youth the idea that only their pleasure is important. We, adults, of course are to blame for allowing such 'values' to be embodied in the minds of our children. And I think that it is not a coincidence that in the final years of this millennium the body of Che Guevara has been finally revealed to the world. I only wish that the admiration of current youth for his lovely face be followed by some interest or curiosity about such a Man, so that in effect he will never die.
Looking around the Internet I found several Web-pages on Che, in many languages, both in favour and against him, there was also an interesting page by a university professor with bibliography on Che Guevara.
This then, is a tribute from a Peruvian to a great Latin American hero.
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