Today Che Guevara is a prominent symbol of counter culture and rebellion.
He was a man who had humble beginnings as a young medical student, but after a trip
through South America he was changed by the struggles that he saw.
He would play an important role following the Cuban Revolution, and was a key player
in training the militia forces that repelled the Bay of Pigs invasion.
He brought Soviet nuclear armed ballistic missiles to Cuba, and was in part heavily
involved in the 1962 cuban missile crisis.
However at the age of 39 in 1967 in Bolivia, he would be executed by CIA assisted Bolivian
forces.
But what is the story of the execution of Che Guevara?
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Che Guevara was the eldest of five children, and his family were of Spanish Irish descent.
He was considered a talented young athlete and also a scholar as a child, but in 1953
he completed his medical studies.
After this he spent a lot of holidays travelling around South America, and during these trips
he noticed the huge poverty that many people were suffering from, and he realised that
the only way things could change was through using violent revolution that led to strong
change and bloodshed.
He then focussed on Latin America, and he saw this as one area which needed liberating
and uniting under one united group of countries.
In December 1951, he had took a 9 month journey, and he was accompanied by his friend Alberto
Granada.
They began their trip on motorbike, and it took them from Argentina through Columbia,
Peru and Chile and then they carried on to Venezuela.
Following this Che Guevara then went on to Miami, and he then went back to Argentina
by place.
But in 1953, he went to Guatemala, and at the time Jacobo Arbenz was leading a progressive
regime which was trying to bring social revolution and change.
It was around here that Che Guevara began to be known by this name.
In 1954, the US CIA had supported the overthrow of the Arbenz regime.
This led to Che believing that the Americans would always go against left governments and
that they would be always against what he believed in.
He planned to bring socialism through worldwide revolution to different countries, and he
was a dedicated marxist.
But he then left Guetamala for Mexico, and whilst here he met with two cuban brothers,
Fidel and Raul Castrol.
These two had been exiled, and they were preparing to overthrow the dictatorship that Batista
had in Cuba.
Che Guevara joined Castro’s 26th of July movement, and they landed a force which was
detected by Batista’s army and then they were mostly all killed.
Some of the survivors including Guevara who was wounded reached out and they became the
heart of a guerrilla force.
Over time slowly the rebel forces grew, and they seized weapons from Batista’s soldiers,
and they won further support.
Guevara to begin with was the doctor for the soldiers, but he became one of the closest
allies of Castro.
He was a healer, but he was also a brutal man who would perform executions and order
them if people deserted or betrayed their cause.
Castro’s forces racked up a number of victories, and they entered Havana on the 8th January
1959.
He worked at the La Cabana prison for some time, and he oversaw executions of people
who were believed to have been enemies of the revolution or of his cause.
Guevara at this time became a Cuban citizen, as he had been involved in the revolution
and had fought for Cuba on a number of times.
But at the time his reputation had spread to the West, and many people learned of the
name Che Guevara.
The Americans began to learn about him and his speeches which carried an anti American
rhetoric.
He then became the Head of the Industrial Department of the National Institute of Agrarian
Reform, and also the President of the National Bank of Cuba.
During the 1960s, he was part of crafting government and policies that defined the new
Cuba and he made a number of speeches.
He also wrote a number of books about the new communist ideas emerging about the nation,
but he crafted a vision of a new socialist person who would work for the good of society,
rather than for personal gain or wealth.
He was so busy he often slept in his office, but also spent days doing his bit for cuban
society working in the fields cultivating sugarcane and other crops.
But as time went on, he was worried that Cuba was falling too far under the influence of
the Soviet Union, and was functioning almost as a vassal state.
He was dissillusioned by the Soviets when they removed their missiles from Cuba without
speaking to the cuban government during the missile crisis.
He then looked towards other influences including China.
But then in 1964 he went to New York, and he spoke out against American involvement
in cuban affairs and the numerous incursions into cuban airspace.
He even spoke to the United Nations general assembly about this.
But he then wished to focus on sparking revolution elsewhere.
He then fell from public life in April 1965, and he then spent two years off the grid.
He then had travelled to the Democratic republic of Congo, and Guevara tried to help a battalion
fighting in the civil war.
He then resigned from his role inside of the cuban government and even gave up his citizenship.
His efforts in Congo were a falling, but he then ended up in Europe near to Prague.
But then he travelled to Bolivia in Autumn 1966, and he was disguised by the fact he
was bald and had no beard.
He wanted to lead guerrillas in the region of Santa Cruz.
The group had some victories to begin with, and but they were running away from the Bolivian
army often.
But on the 8th October 1967, the group were almost wiped out by special forces from the
Bolivian Army who were helped by the CIA.
In this attack Guevara was wiped out.
Declassified files than mention what happened in his final moments.
There was a hoot out and it was said, ‘Stretched out on a blanket, Che is carried by four soldiers
to La Higuera, seven kilometers away.
Sarabia is forced to walk behind with his hands tied against his back.
Just after dark the group arrives in La Higuera and both Che and Sarabia are put into the
one-room schoolhouse.’
He had been captured, but then they had to work out what to do with him.
It was said, ‘Félix Rodríguez arrives by helicopter in La Higuera, along with Colonel
Joaquín Zenteno Anaya.
Rodríguez brings a powerful portable field radio and a camera with a special four-footed
stand used to photograph documents.
He quietly observes the scene in the schoolhouse, and records what he sees, finding the situation
"gruesome" with Che lying in dirt, his arms tied behind his back and his feet bound together,
next to the bodies of his friends.
He looks "like a piece of trash" with matted hair, torn clothes, and wearing only pieces
of leather on his feet for shoes.
In one interview, Rodríguez states that, " I had mixed emotions when I first arrived
there.
Here was the man who had assassinated many of my countrymen.
And nevertheless, when I saw him, the way he looked....I felt really sorry for him."
At 10 am, ;The Bolivian officers are faced with the question of what to do with Che.
The possibility of prosecuting him is ruled out because a trial would focus world attention
on him and could generate sympathetic propaganda for Che and for Cuba.
It is concluded that Che must be executed immediately, but it is agreed upon that the
official story will be that he died from wounds received in battle.’
Then Rodríguez realizes that he cannot stall any longer when a school teacher informs him
that she has heard a news report on Che's death on her radio.
Rodríguez enters the schoolhouse to tell Che of the orders from the Bolivian high command.
Che understands and says, "It is better like this ... I never should have been captured
alive."
Che gives Rodríguez a message for his wife and for Fidel, they embrace and Rodríguez
leaves the room.’
According to one source, the top ranking officers in La Higuera instruct the noncommissioned
officers to carry out the order and straws are drawn to determine who will execute Che.
Just before noon, having drawn the shortest straw, Sergeant Jaime Terán goes to the schoolhouse
to execute Che.
Terán finds Che propped up against the wall and Che asks him to wait a moment until he
stands up.
Terán is frightened, runs away and is ordered back by Colonel Selich and Colonel Zenteno.
"Still trembling" he returns to the schoolhouse and without looking at Che's face he fires
into his chest and side.
Several soldiers, also wanting to shoot Che, enter the room and shoot him.’
In total it was reported that Guevara was shot 9 times by Tera including 5 in the legs.
His last words were, ‘I know you have come to kill me, shoot coward, you are only going
to kill a man.’
Following the execution Che Guevara’s body was placed to the landing skids of a helicopter
and flown to Vallegrande.
Many witnesses saw his body, and it was put on display and many people filed past his
remains.
Some took locks of his hair as relics, and days later Castro acknowledged that Guevara
was dead.
He said, ‘If we wish to express what we want the men of future generations to be,
we must say: Let them be like Che!
If we wish to say how we want our children to be educated, we must say without hesitation:
We want them to be educated in Che's spirit!
If we want the model of a man, who does not belong to our times but to the future, I say
from the depths of my heart that such a model, without a single stain on his conduct, without
a single stain on his action, is Che!’
After his death, Che Guevara lived on as a powerful symbol of defiance and revolution,
and he’s considered today an icon.
Some consider him to have been a brutal and cruel man, who was more than happy to take
violent action to launch and spark revolution.
But others have a romanticised image of him, being someone who tried to fight for a fairer
society in certain countries.
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