40 years after Che’s death

As recorded in this item on the BBC web site, today is the 40th anniversary of the summary execution of the Argentinian revolutionary Che Guevara following his capture the previous day by Bolivian army forces. Today Che’s body lies in the town of Santa Clara in Cuba.
The next holiday for Vee and me – not till Spring 2008 – will be to Cuba and our tour will visit the mausoleum and museum in Santa Clara. Vee has always had a special affection for Che which has nothing to do with his politics. Her brother died of asthma when he was only 21 and Che was asthmatic.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 7:30 am and is filed under History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

4 Comments

  • Janet
    October 9th, 2007 at 6:40 pm

    So you’ve decided on Cuba rather than the Antarctic for the next holiday then?

  • Roger Darlington
    October 9th, 2007 at 6:54 pm

    Yeh – cheaper, warmer and more political.

  • Nick
    October 12th, 2007 at 12:30 am

    “To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary… These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.”
    — Che Guevara
    He was responsible for hundreds of such extra-judicial killings, when he served as one of Castro’s executioners. No mention of this, though, on the BBC’s nauseatingly fawning Che: The icon and the ad.

  • Roger Darlington
    October 12th, 2007 at 8:23 am

    Good point, Nick.
    Che has an incredibly romantic image in political iconography, but I saw a television programme quite recently which showed that he was a hard and brutal man in pursuit of a cause where he felt that the end justified some terrible means.