Our Che
by Ike Nahem, 2007.

Che died defending no other interest, no other cause than the cause of the exploited and the oppressed of this continent. Che died defending no other cause than the cause of the poor and the humble of this earth. – Fidel Castro, October 18, 1967

On October 9, 1967 the highest levels of the United States government transmitted orders to CIA-operative Felix Rodriguez who passed them on to Washington’s flunkies in the Bolivian military dictatorship. The orders were to murder Ernesto Che Guevara – a wounded combatant captured in battle. They proceeded to display Che’s mutilated corpse to gawking journalists and selected spectator-voyeurs before burying his remains in what they planned on forever being a secret, unmarked grave. Above all, the imperialist decision-makers understood there could be no trial, even a phony formality in their own rigged courts, for Ernesto Che Guevara. As Fidel Castro stated in his extraordinarily powerful and moving tribute to Che given before one million Cubans on October 18, 1967, the imperialist “thugs, oligarchs, and mercenaries” shamelessly conceded why they murdered the wounded and disarmed Che. “…They explain why they did it. They assert that Che’s trial would have been quite an earthshaker, that it would have been impossible to place this revolutionary in the dock.”

By murdering Che in cold blood and then clandestinely dumping his body, the imperialist gangsters hoped and expected that Che’s physical extermination and hidden bones would be “the end of the story,” that is, the end of Che’s historic political impact and significance.

As they clinked champagne glasses – and this is literally true – in the offices of the National Security Agency of the Lyndon Johnson White House upon hearing confirmation of Che’s death, Washington’s political officers truly thought that Che would be quickly forgotten, at most faintly remembered as a minor historical footnote. How different reality turned out!

It is quite clear that today, 40 years later, the life and example of Ernesto Che Guevara resonates greater than ever with each new generation of youth and working people, particularly throughout the Americas, and with all who understand that a better world is possible and who are ready to fight for it. More than any other figure in contemporary history Ernesto Che Guevara embodies the uncompromising anti-imperialist struggle for social justice, social equality, and national liberation…by any means necessary.

40 years after his cowardly assassination by imperialism, the specter of Che Guevara continues to haunt the imperialist world. We see today a concerted campaign to throw mud and slander, disinformation and half-truths, on the memory and example of Che. As we move closer to the 40th Anniversary of Che’s death, we can expect to see the big-business media and publishing houses churn out op-ed pieces, new books[1] (there’s already a few out), and films that rewrite and distort history to demonize Che.

They do this precisely because Che’s legacy is so powerful, because his ideas and example have become a material factor in world politics, intertwined with the Cuban Revolution – which he was a both a product of and central creator – which grows stronger, more politically attractive, and weightier in world politics today. Socialist Cuba is the only state power in today’s world with a foreign policy that promotes international solidarity, an internationalism based on the interests and struggles of the working people of the world.

CONTINUE HERE

First posted by Tio at Bala Fria
Original Source: ZNet

 

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