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Whose Che?

By Rodrigo Acuña - posted Thursday, 11 October 2007


Yet, for all his faults, it is not difficult to understand the factors that shaped Guevara. And one need not share his view of how the world should work (and I certainly don't).

Before Guevara became a Comandante in Castro's guerilla army and as highlighted in the recent film The Motorcycle Diaries, the medical student travelled widely throughout Latin America, coming face to face with the severe poverty endured by peasants and labourers. In 1952, Guevara and his friend Alberto Granados were arrested and interrogated in Bogotá, Colombia - at the time under the dictatorship of Laureano Gómez - simply because the authorities suspected they may be potential subversive agents. They were only released after local students convinced the authorities this was not the case.

In Guatemala in 1954, Guevara witnessed a moderate social democratic regime demonised by the local press and then violently overthrown by the United States. The country eventually plunged into a brutal dictatorship after a civil war which saw roughly 200,000 dead civilians - most murdered through US-backed State terror.

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When the vagabond doctor met the Castro brothers in Mexico in the mid-1950s, Guevara found a project he could wholeheartedly support and once triumphant, would not allow to be overthrown through force.

So what can be said about Guevara's views on the use of violence? For one thing, his point on the need for progressive or Left-wing governments in Latin America to be able to resort to violence still seems relevant today - were it not, a little US-backed coup in Venezuela in 2002 could not have been repelled.

Guevara's support for the death penalty and his role in the executions at La Cabaña barracks are by far the most contentious. Writing in Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara, the Mexican intellectual Jorge Castañeda states:

Guevara's responsibility for the events at La Cabaña - though it cannot be diminished, as Che himself never tried to do - must nonetheless be seen within the context of the time. There was no bloodbath; nor were innocent people exterminated in any large or even significant numbers. After the excesses of Batista, and the unleashing of passions during those winter months, it is surprising that there were so few abuses and executions.

By 1997, the year the book was published, Castañeda had already made a Christopher Hitchens-like political conversion from Left to Right - but even he can respect certain facts.

John Lee Anderson in his biography of Guevara writes that most of Batista's thugs were “sentenced in conditions … above board, if summary affairs, with defence lawyers, witnesses, prosecutors, and an attending public”.

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By the time Guevara reached Bolivia in 1967, most credible accounts have the guerrilla leader giving his captives appropriate medical attention, in a dignified manner. And he often called off attacks when he realised he was again going to be fighting a group of poorly trained 17-year-old boys.

Even though most Latin Americans today do not embrace Guevara's views of guerrilla warfare, or of a one Party State, his calls for actions are still revered because they were based on real and ongoing problems such as the region's abysmal poverty, an almost complete inability by elites to accept some degree of social accountability, or the United States' tumultuous record of interventions.

One need not be a Marxist to understand these points.

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First published in New Matilda on Ocotber 10, 2007.



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About the Author

Dr Rodrigo Acuña is a educator, writer and expert on Latin America. He has taught at various universities in Australia and has been writing for over ten years on Latin American politics. He currently work as an independent researcher and for the NSW Department of Education. He can be followed on Twitter @rodrigoac7.

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