OPEN LETTER TO WETA THE WASHINGTON, DC LOCAL PBS TELEVISION STATION IN REFERENCE TO CHE GUEVARA.

On Saturday, March 26, 2005, while watching "Viewer Favorites" on your public television station, I was shocked and offended by the singer Eric Burton - formerly of the group "The Animals" - wearing a Che Guevara shirt while performing a song on a segment of your presentation.

As a Cuban American, as a writer and a filmmaker, I am acquainted with the Che as a mass murderer who executed, without trial, many Cubans at La Cabaña fortress in Havana as well as in the Sierra Maestra Mountains before 1959.

OPEN LETTER TO WETA THE WASHINGTON, DC LOCAL PBS TELEVISION STATION

Ms. Sheryl Lahti, Director of Audience Services
WETA Channel 26
2775 South Quincy Street
Arlington, VA 22206
703 998-3407
Slahti@weta.com

Dear Ms. Lahti,

Please read the article below so you can see why the image of Che is so insulting and offensive to Cuban Americans.

Sincerely,

Agustin Blazquez
Writer & filmmaker
Silver Spring, MD
ABIP.USA@verizon.net

cc. Michael Pack and John Prizer of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Humberto Fontova, Myriam Marquez, Orlando Sentinel, NewsMax, LaurenceJarvik OnLine, some U.S. Representatives, Paquito D'Rivera and various publications

Che at the Oscars

by Humberto Fontova*

Did you catch Carlos Santana's grand entrance at the Oscars?

Well, the famed guitarist couldn't contain himself. He stopped for the photographers, smiled deliriously and swung his jacket open. TA-DA! There it was: Carlos' elegantly embroidered Che Guevara t-shirt. Carlos' face as the flashbulbs popped said it all. "I'm so COOL!" he beamed. "I'm so HIP! I'm so CHEEKY! So SHARP! So TUNED IN!"

Tune in to this, Carlos: in the mid 1960's Fidel and your charming t-shirt icon set up concentration camps in Cuba for, among many others, "anti-social elements" and "delinquents." Besides Bohemian (Haight-Ashbury, Greenwich Village types) and homosexuals, these camps were crammed with "roqueros," who qualified in Che and Fidel's eyes as useless "delinquents."

A "roquero" was a hapless youth who tried to listen to Yankee-Imperialist rock music in Cuba.
Comprende, Carlos? Do you see where I'm going with this, Carlos?

Yes, Mr Santana, here you were grinning widely-- and OH-SO-hiply!-- while proudly displaying the symbol of a regime that: MADE IT A CRIMINAL OFFENSE TO LISTEN TO CARLOS SANTANA MUSIC! You IMBECILE!!

True, you didn't hit it big 'till Woodstock in 1969, at a time when Che had already received a heavy dose of the very medicine he gallantly dished out to hundreds of bound and gagged men and boys , some as young as fourteen. This means the first inmates of his concentration camps were probably guilty of the heinous crime of listening mainly to the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, etc. But the regime Che helped set up kept up the practice of jailing "roqueros" well past the time when you were hot on the rock charts, Carlos.

Lest we get carried away with merely laughing at your stupidity, I'll pass along the thoughts from Cuban music legend, Paquito D'Rivera. He wrote his recent letter to you in Spanish. "My command of English wouldn't allow me to fully express my indignation" at your cheeky Oscar gig, he explained. Seems that Mr D'Rivera had relatives among those your t-shirt icon jailed, tortured and murdered. In closing, Mr D'Rivera wishes you good luck in your professional endeavors. He says you'll need it, considering that you'll soon be playing a gig in Miami.

A Cuban gentleman named Pierre San Martin was also among those jailed by the gallant Che. A few years ago he recalled the horrors in a El Nuevo Herald article. "32 of us were crammed into a cell" he recalls. "16 of us would stand while the other sixteen tried to sleep on the cold filthy floor. We took shifts that way. Actually, we considered ourselves lucky. After all, we were alive. Dozens were led from the cells to the firing squad daily. The volleys kept us awake. We felt that any one of those minutes would be our last."

"One morning the horrible sound of that rusty steel door swinging open startled us awake and Che's guards shoved a new prisoner into our cell. His face was bruised and smeared with blood. We could only gape. He was a boy, couldn't have been much older than 12, maybe 14.

"What did you do?" We asked horrified. "I tried to defend my papa," gasped the bloodied boy. "I tried to keep these Communist sons of b**tches form murdering him! But they sent him to the firing squad."

Soon Che's goons came back, the rusty steel door opened and they yanked the valiant boy out of the cell. "We all rushed to the cell's window that faced the execution pit, " recalls Mr San Martin. "We simply couldn't believe they'd murder him!"

"Then we spotted him, strutting around the blood-drenched execution yard with his hands on his waist and barking orders--the gallant Che Guevara." Here Che was finally in his element. In battle he was a sad joke, a bumbler of epic proportions (For details see Fidel; Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant) But up against disarmed and bloodied boys he was a snarling tiger.

"Kneel Down!" Che barked at the boy.

"ASSASSINS!" We screamed for our window. "MURDERERS!! HOW CAN YOU MURDER A LITTLE BOY!"

" I said: KNEEL DOWN!" Che barked again.

The boy stared Che resolutely in the face. "If you're going to kill me," he yelled. "you'll have to do it while I'm standing! MEN die standing!"

" COWARDS!--MURDERERS!..Sons of B**TCHES!" The men yelled desperately from their cells. "LEAVE HIM ALONE!" HOW CAN...?! "And then we saw Che unholstering his pistol. It didn't seem possible. But Che raised his pistol, put the barrel to the back of the boys neck and blasted. The shot almost decapitated the young boy.

"We erupted. We were enraged, hysterical, banging on the bars."MURDERERS!--ASSASSINS!" His murder finished, Che finally looked up at us, pointed his pistol, and BLAM!-BLAM-BLAM! emptied his clip in our direction. Several of us were wounded by his shots."

To a man (and boy) Che's murder victims went down in a blaze of defiance and glory. So let's recall Che's own plea when the wheels of justice finally turned and he was cornered in Bolivia.. "Don't Shoot!" he whimpered. "I'm Che ! I'm worth more to you alive than dead!"

This swinish and murdering coward, this child-killer, was the toast of the Oscars.
                                                                     *******************

*Humberto Fontova is the author of Fidel; Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant, described as "absolutely devastating. An enlightening read you'll never forget." By David Limbaugh. "A remarkable book," says Newsmax' Phil Brennan. "An eye-opener. Fontova explodes myth after myth." Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart says, "Humberto Fontova has done a great service to all those who wish to discover the truth about the only totalitarian dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere." David Horowitz says: "Humberto has performed a valuable service to the cause of decency and human freedom. Every American should read this book."

LaurenceJarvikOnline
http://laurencejarvikonline.blogspot.com
A blog about interesting ideas, things, people, and events.
Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Agustin Blazquez is Angry With His Local PBS Station...

Here's why, the Cuban-American filmmaker sent us a copy of his complaint:

Ms. Sheryl Lahti, Director of Audience Services

WETA Channel 26
2775 South Quincy Street
Arlington, VA 22206
703 998-3407
Slahti@weta.com

Dear Ms. Lahti,

On Saturday, March 26, 2005, while watching "Viewer Favorites" on your public television station, I was shocked and offended by the singer Eric Burton - formerly of the group "The Animals" - wearing a Che Guevara shirt while performing a song on a segment of your presentation.

As a Cuban American, as a writer and a filmmaker, I am acquainted with the Che as a mass murderer who executed, without trial, many Cubans at La Cabaña fortress in Havana as well as in the Sierra Maestra Mountains before 1959.

Below I enclose a recent open letter from the famous saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera to the famous guitarist Carlos Santana who sported a Che t-shirt while performing at the last Oscar Awards ceremony.

Below D'Rivera's letter I am enclosing one of my published articles, this one about Che.

It is shocking that your educational public television station is not aware of Che's criminal record and let pass such an insensitive and offensive display of disrespect to Che's victims and the Cuban American community in the U.S. If Mr. Burton had worn a Hitler shirt, he wouldn't have been presented - rightfully so - in order not to offend the Jewish victims and Holocaust survivors.

I think your public television station should apologize.

Sincerely,
Agustin Blazquez
Writer & filmmaker
Silver Spring, MD
ABIP.USA@verizon.net

cc. Michael Pack and John Prizer of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Paquito D'Rivera and various publications

*****************************************************
Open letter to Carlos Santana
by Paquito D’Rivera
March 25-2005

Hello, Santana:

I found out, through our friend Raul Artiles, that you’ll be performing in Miami soon; I find this rather ill-advised, since not too long ago you committed the faux-pas of appearing at the “Oscar Awards” ceremony, brandishing, with pride, an enormous crucifix over a tee-shirt with that archaic and stereotyped image of “The Butcher of the Cabaña,” the moniker given to the lamentable character known as Ché Guevara by those Cubans who had to suffer his tortures and humiliations in that nefarious prison.

One of these Cubans was my cousin Bebo, imprisoned there just for being a Christian. He recounts to me on occasion, always with infinite bitterness, how he could hear, from his cell, in the early hours of dawn, the executions without prior trials or process of law, of the many who died shouting, “Long Live Christ The King!”

The guerrilla guy with the beret with the star is something more than that ridiculous film about a motorcycle, my illustrious colleague, and to juxtapose Christ with Ché Guevara is like entering a synagogue with a swastika hanging from your neck; it’s also a harsh blow in the face of that Cuban youth from the 60’s, who had to go into hiding to listen to your albums which the Revolution, and the troglodite Argentinian and his cohorts, dubbed as “imperialist music” (i.e. Rock & Roll)

I can’t find all the words to express my indignation over your irresponsible attitude, but believe me that in spite of all, as an artist I always wish you luck. And you’re going to need it, Carlos. Especially in Miami.

Sincerely,

Paquito D’Rivera

******************************************************************************
CHE’S MOTORCYCLE FOLLIES © 2004 ABIP
by Agustín Blázquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton

Jaime Costas recently said Che “didn’t know how to ride a motorcycle!” And Jaime would know because he participated in Castro’s 1953 ill-fated assault on the Moncada Barracks and was aboard the Granma expedition with Che Guevara, Castro and his brother Raul to infiltrate into Cuba to fight Batista.

Costas, now in his seventies, made that comment on September 29, 2004, in New York City during the presentation of his book of his memoirs answering a question from the audience about the movie “The Motorcycle Diaries” (Robert Redford, its executive producer, is an unapologetic Castro collaborator). Costas knew Castro, Raul and Che personally for many years.

He added that he “unequivocally” knows that detail because on various occasions he went motorcycling around Havana with Castro and his comrades and “Che never went along with them even when asked to accompany them. All he did was sheepishly wave ‘good-bye’, because he didn’t know how to ride a motorcycle!”

A person present at this presentation commented, “Ah, the mythmaking of the left that ceaselessly lionizes Che! Pretty soon, they'll have him coming down on a cloud!”

Another person acquainted with the history of the Cuban revolution said to me, “It is good to know that but please inform the Harley-Davidson Corporation before they put him [Che] in a commercial.

“I might add that Dr. Guevara, like all his fellow comic-book characters, is essentially mythical, or at least fictional.

“Although he was there in person, Guevara was so disconnected from the actual facts of the so-called Cuban Revolution as to be, in a sense, quite pathetic. He interpreted a Cuban soap opera as if it had been the Iliad.   He projected Mao's epic Long March onto the battle for the provincial capital of Santa Clara, Cuba, in effect a cakewalk made possible by the money with which Julio Lobo and other fellow Cuban magnates bought out Batista's miserable army.

“So, when he tried to replicate that in Bolivia and the Bolivian army fought back - incidentally, in far tougher terrain than Cuba's - Guevara's operation rapidly unraveled and he ended up like a side of beef on the counter of a Bolivian kitchen, a fate none other of his fellow extreme leftie loonies has deemed fit to emulate.

“The problem with Guevara is that he is not a positive, life-enhancing myth, but a completely counterproductive one which feeds the worst and most destructive impulses in the Latin American mind - what I call ‘political sophomorism’ combined with an adolescent's grasp of the world and a nihilistic yearning for martyrdom (and even some good old fashioned Argentine necrophilia). Remember that Guevara's canonization began with that infamous shot of him dead, looking like Christ by Mantegna.

“Guevara was catastrophic for Cuba, and would have been catastrophic for Latin America but for his early transit.

“Guevara is actually laughable, and the sadness of it all is that no one has done to him what Michael Moore did to Bush, that is, a good spoof.

“We treat him like a legend, a Promethean, almost tragic figure, instead of what he really was: a no-good physician, a Mickey Mouse with a beret, an Argentine spoiled youngster that almost by accident walked into - we can no longer say he motorcycled his way into - a political swindle aspiring to be called a revolution.

“Treat him for what he was--he even looked a bit like-- the Cuban Revolution's own Cantinflas.”

This comparison with Cantinflas, the late famous Mexican comic movie star, evoked my memories of when I met Che Guevara in 1963 when I was in the cast of a movie being filmed in Cuba’s Sierra Maestra Mountains.

One afternoon Che came to pay us a visit at the barracks we were staying. I was within a foot from him. And I was utterly disappointed by that unremarkable little man (who was very photogenic) and most women in Cuba at that time were fawning over him as some sort of movie star. Actually, his raggedy mustache was similar to the one sported by Cantinflas. I found him so uninteresting that in the diary I was keeping of those says I dedicated only one sentence to him.

The Washington Times in the Business section on September 25, 2004, pg. C10, published an article about Che paraphernalia being offered for sale. In addition of being offensive to Cuban Americans who knew who Che really was, the article promoted and generated interest in those merchandises among the less informed, insensitive and ignorant Americans. Meanwhile, Hollywood is putting together yet another movie about Che and Benicio del Toro, may be playing him.

I made the comment to an American friend as to how the left in America keeps offending Cuban Americans with impunity. I said, “Can you imagine what would happen if T-shirts, articles, books and movies idolizing Hitler were produced and promoted in the U.S.?”

He replied, “Well of course the neo-nazis have a lot of Hitler stuff you can buy on eBay.”

I said, “The difference between the neo-nazis on eBay and the cult of the criminal Che, is that the later is in the main stream, in the open, from schools to universities and promoted by the media” - even by The Washington Times!

While, admittedly not as romantic as the myth, the reality about Che is that he was unwanted by Castro and did not have any place to go. Castro sacrificed the inept Che for his own personal and political benefit. He eliminated Che from Cuba, enabling the creation of a false admirable myth that he must continuously, actively support in order to maintain and as a result make a lot of good propaganda and money for his regime. Castro turned a liability into an asset.

Che has a long and documented criminal history. It was Che, in the Sierra Maestra Mountains of Cuba, years before Castro’s 1959 triumph, who revealed his fascination with cruelty by asking to be the executioner who kept the troops in line.

At the onset of the revolution on January 1, 1959, Castro appointed Che in charge of La Cabaña fortress in Havana. There, execution squads flourished under Che’s command, assassinating, in mass, those perceived as enemies of the revolution. Che ordered that women and children visiting his prisoners be paraded in front of the execution wall, gruesomely stained with blood and brain parts. All of this was well publicized in Cuba in order to spread fear throughout the population. The surviving ex-prisoners of the infamous La Cabaña fortress remember Che as a “mass murderer.”

The myths that surround Che are much more interesting than the man; problem is, they simply do not resemble reality.

In February 1959, Che began training foreign guerrillas and terrorists in Cuba. His first guerrilla attack (planned with the brothers Fidel and Raul Castro) was to “liberate” Panama in April 1959. But by May 1, he suffered a humiliating defeat by Panama’s National Guard. On June 14, 1959, Fidel Castro sent Che’s guerrillas to the neighboring island of the Dominican Republic to fight against dictator Trujillo. But Che’s guerrillas again failed miserably.

After this second fiasco in June 1959, Castro sent Che to tour third world countries. After his return, Castro put him in charge of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA), Industries Division and later, as President of the National Bank (where he signed the currency “Che”). He proved himself inept for those assignments as well and Castro reassigned him again.

On October 29, 1959, Castro sent Che to communist countries to establish commercial ties, negotiating the initially secret sale of sugar to the Soviet Union. He made trade agreements with Czechoslovakia, China and North Korea, announcing on September 10, 1960, that Cuba “had received arms from Czechoslovakia."

In 1965, Castro sent Che as far away as possible. This time to “liberate” Africa. After Che’s failure in Africa, he was summoned to Havana for two days of secret conversations with Castro. He was then sent back to Africa with 200 Cuban soldiers to help a Congolese leftist group. After he failed there, in late 1965, he secretly returned to Cuba, leaving his soldiers behind. Che was kept hidden all through 1966.

Obviously, Castro needed to carefully get rid of him, but all of his attempts to get Che involved in international wars of “liberation” and get him killed and converted into a martyr had failed.

As secretly as he returned to Cuba, Che left again in September 1966, sent by Castro on another international mission. He went to Prague and then on to Paraguay, where disguised as a businessman, he traveled by plane to Bolivia.

Along with 17 Cubans (clandestinely smuggled into Bolivia), he began organizing a guerrilla movement. But he was able to recruit only 15 Bolivians. By the end of March 1967, Castro stopped supplying Che’s guerrillas. The last contact with Havana was in July 1967.

Denounced by the peasants and Indians in the region (who never supported his intrusion), Che and his guerrillas were finally apprehended by the Bolivian army on October 7, 1967. As we all know Che was executed and Castro at last had the martyr he was longing for. His amputated hand is proudly displayed in the Museum of the Revolution in Havana.

Out of Castro’s way, the cruel and inept Che could be heralded now as a big hero. Finally, Castro was free to create an international legendary myth. Che’s image flooded Cuba and posters began to appear in the domain of the academic left: colleges and universities of the U.S. and the free world in order to attract the romantics and uninformed. As with much communist misinformation, it worked! We still have fools displaying posters and wearing Che’s junk offending his victims.

For heaven sake, there is more hatred from the left in America directed against Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush than against a real bad guy and a mass murderer: Che Guevara.

I have not seen in our learning centers an urge for romantic and misleading presentations about criminals like Charles Manson, David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, etc. Why Che?

© 2004 ABIP
Agustin Blazquez, Producer/director of the documentaries
COVERING CUBA, CUBA: The Pearl of the Antilles, COVERING CUBA 2: The Next Generation & COVERING CUBA 3: Elian presented at the 2003 Miami Latin Film Festival and the 2004 American Film Renaissance Film Festival in Dallas, Texas and the upcoming COVERING CUBA 4: The Rats Below

Author with Carlos Wotzkow of the book COVERING AND DISCOVERING and translator with Jaums Sutton of the book by Luis Grave de Peralta Morell THE MAFIA OF HAVANA: The Cuban Cosa Nostra.

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkyJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2NjY4NzAz

Monday, March 21, 2005

By MIGUEL PEREZ
STAFF WRITER

TARIQ ZEHAWI / THE RECORD

Ernesto "Che" Guevara's image welcoming shoppers to Flamingo's Boutique in Union City. One Cuban-American bought a shirt there, then burned it.

Some people consider Ernesto "Che" Guevara the ultimate Latin American revolutionary leader, a man who gave his life to free the people of the Americas from U.S. imperialism.

Others see him as a coldblooded killer, the man who ran Fidel Castro's firing squads after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

Thirty-eight years after his death, new generations regard Guevara and his familiar beard and beret as mostly a fashion statement.

Guevara's image has appeared on T-shirts and other garments for years, but his status as a cultural icon has taken on new significance since the 2004 film "The Motorcycle Diaries," which followed the Argentinian's journey around South America before the revolution.

Increasingly, when young Latinos wear his image, older Cuban-Americans are offended - to the point of shouting matches that threaten to erupt into fistfights.

One recent afternoon, 73-year-old Carlos Barberia was waiting for a bus on Bergenline Avenue in Union City when he spotted a Guevara T-shirt on a sidewalk rack. He bought the shirt - and promptly set it on fire with a burning newspaper.

"Che Guevara killed my father," he told a police officer, explaining his outburst. "He had my father shot by a firing squad in Cuba."

The officer turned out to be Cuban, too. "He told me, 'I have not seen anything' and he walked away," Barberia says.

But the shopkeeper who sold the T-shirt says he thinks Cubans like Barberia are "crazy." Jorge Posadas, who is Mexican, says he's had many confrontations with Cubans who ask him to stop selling Guevara merchandise at his Flamingo's Boutique.

"They tell me he was an assassin and I tell them that was his problem and I don't care," he says. "I tell them this is a store, not a political party or a government, and that I sell whatever people want to buy."

For emphasis, he adds that if his clients were interested in Osama bin Laden shirts, he would sell them, too.

Another Union City merchant was more sensitive. Sang Lee, manager of the Young Star boutique, removed all Guevara merchandise after Cubans complained.

"My boss was under the misunderstanding that the Cubans would like those shirts," Lee explains. "We depend on the community and if they are offended by something we sell, we're not going to sell it."

Young Star's response was appreciated. "They showed us respect," said Sergio Alonso, a Cuban-American. "So next time we buy a shirt, where do you think we're going to go?"

Despite the Cuban wrath, Posadas' business seems unlikely to suffer. He says he has many young customers, a good number of whom "don't even know who Che was, but they have seen people wearing it and they buy it because they think it looks cool."

'The image of hatred'

For others, wearing a Guevara garment is more than fashion. It's a statement.

"El Che is a revolutionary symbol," said Douglas Fuentes, 38, "and I consider myself a revolutionary."

Fuentes' Palisades Park apartment is a gallery of Guevara paraphernalia - posters, photos, coins, medals, refrigerator magnets - all with Guevara's face. He drives a van covered with Guevara's likeness. Almost all his clothing has some representation of Guevara. When he takes off his shirt, the image remains - on his tattooed back.

Fuentes says he has idolized the guerrilla leader since his youth in El Salvador. His favorite slogan is "Seremos como El Che" - We will be like Che. His hair down to his shoulders, Fuentes admits he even tries to look like his hero, who was killed while trying to start a revolution in Bolivia in 1967.

Just eight miles away, the walls of the Union City headquarters of the Association of Former Cuban Political Prisoners are covered with very different images: the photographs of Cubans executed by firing squads under Guevara's command.

Here, the Cuban old guard ridicule Guevara fans as "useful fools" - a vintage Communist term that described gullible people who fall for the romantic appeal of leftist firebrands.

"There is something wrong with a society in which people wear shirts with the image of someone who preached hatred and enjoyed killing," says Armando Alvarez of West New York, who was at the hall for a meeting of anti-Castro organizations.

"It's like wearing a Hitler shirt," Alvarez adds. "Che always said that to be a good revolutionary, you had to hate. And so when they wear the image of Che, they wear the image of hatred."

Standing by Che

On the subject of Che Guevara, Fuentes and Cuban-Americans are like oil and water. Fuentes tells of the countless times he has been confronted by Cubans who feel offended by his clothing, from "the woman who shouted at me from her Mercedes" to "the Cuban judge who insulted me because I brought Che's image into his court."

He says that when Cuban-Americans get too combative, "I ask them why they are fighting with me, why don't they go fight in Cuba?"

Cuban-Americans counter with stories about the firing squads under Guevara's command at La Cabaña, the imposing Spanish fortress overlooking Havana Bay, where "enemies of the revolution" were executed in early 1959.

"There are many stories about the mothers who went to La Cabaña to inquire if their sons had been executed," Alvarez says. "When officers told them that their sons were to be executed in a few days, Che would say, 'Let's execute him right away so that she doesn't have to come back.'Ÿ"

Fuentes argues that the revolution had to eliminate its enemies. "Show me the revolution where people don't die," he says. "It's logical, they had to exterminate those from the previous government who represented a threat to the stability of the country."

Fuentes wants to turn his Guevara collection into a business, but one without a fixed address. He plans to sell merchandise on the Internet and through kiosks at Hispanic festivals. He won't open a storefront "because they might burn the place down."

Blood at La Cabaña

Carlos Barberia, a popular bandleader in Cuba and in exile, fled Havana in December 1959 when an airline friend got him a plane ticket to New York. Now he sells radio ads.

He recalls exactly when he started to hate Guevara. It was in the kitchen of the Havana Hilton Hotel, where Barberia was performing with his Kubavana Orchestra. It was also the temporary headquarters of Castro's guerrillas, who had come down from the Cuban mountains on Jan. 1, 1959, and declared victory.

"We would meet in the kitchen because we were all trying to get something to eat, but then we would talk," Barberia recalls. "And it was all fine until the day I told Fidel, with Che listening, that more blood was being spilled after the revolution than before."

It was a clear reference to Guevara's firing squads. The following morning, Barberia was summoned to a meeting with Guevara at La Cabaña.

"He met me at the officers' club, which was a beautiful place," Barberia says. "I had performed there many times. It had a glass wall overlooking the courtyard. But it was made that way for the time when La Cabaña was for tourists. Now the courtyard was used by the firing squad."

Barberia said Guevara asked him to join him for breakfast - then ordered two rare steaks and told Barberia to watch the courtyard.

"They brought four guys out, but when they shot the first one, I got up and I walked away," Barberia says. "A few days later, Che told Fidel, right in front of me, that |I must be gay or something, because I couldn't stand the sight of blood."

Weeks later, when Barberia was warned by a friend that Guevara's people were investigating him, the musician went into hiding.

"He knew I was against the regime and he was going to have me arrested," Barberia says, looking anguished. "When they couldn't find me, they took my father and had him shot."

E-mail: perez@northjersey.com

6668703

Tomado de:

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/us-cuba/diaz-verson.htm

...Mr. SOURWINE. What can you tell us about an organization known as the American-Caribbean Junta? < style="font-weight: bold;">

Mr. DIAZ-VERSON. The Soviet Union created in 1946 at the end of the last war, an organization which was named "Junta of Latin American Liberation," which had its headquarters in Prague, and which had a delegate from each of the Latin American countries. Later it was divided. There was created a junta or council of the Central American and the Caribbean with headquarters in Mexico, and presently if now functions in Havana. At the same time they created a Council of Liberation of South America, which was divided into the Pacific zone and the Atlantic zone. That Council of Liberation of Central America and the Caribbean is what took the place of the old Secretariat of the Caribbean which was owned by the Communists.

Mr. SOURWINE. Do you say that this Junta of Liberation, which was formed and controlled by Moscow, was responsible for placing "Che" Guevara next to Castro?

Mr. DIAZ-VERSON. "Che" Guevara was put in by the junta, and the importance of "Che" Guevara in the Castro government reveals that it has a great protection from outside.

Mr. SOURWINE. Do you know of any connection that "Che" Guevara had with a radio station under the name of "Red Star"?

Mr. DIAZ-VERSON. The Red Star had a very brief life. It came into life in Santa Clara, Cuba, on the 26^th of December of 1958, and it closed the 2d of January of 1959. Through the station "Che" Guevara spoke from Santa Clara on a 20 meter frequency and, at Havana, Carlos Franqui, who is now the director of the Revolucion newspaper....

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/us-cuba/diaz-lanz-hearing.htm

Mr. SOURWINE. Do you know of any other instances where a man was punished by Castro without having committed. any crime?

Major DIAZ. Well, Sir, there is a captain who was in an investigation of the Communist activities in Cuba during the former government and before that too. He was a man who had a lot of knowledge about the Communists, not only in Cuba, out of Cuba too. And they--not exactly they, Guevara, you know, Commander Guevara took him and put him in jail, and after that they shoot him from the war, right away after the revolution was finished, the first day, without any trial.

Mr. SOURWINE. This was a man who had been for many years in charge of anti-Communist activities for the Cuban Government?

Major DIAZ. Yes, Sir.

Mr. SOURWINE. And he was shot without a trial?

Major DIAZ. Yes.

http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/us-cuba/diaz-balart.htm

Mr. SOURWINE. Do you know Vera Lestovna de Zalka?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Yes.

Mr. SOURWINE. Who is she?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Not personally.

Mr. SOURWINE. Not personally. Who is she?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. I think she is a, very high ranking member of the Communist machinery in America, in Latin America, through the diplomatic ways.

Mr. SOURWINE. Do you know this to be true?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. I cannot assure, you; I think. I have the impression. To me it is sure, but not to tell officially to the committee.

Mr. SOURWINE. Does she have diplomatic connections?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Pardon Me?

Mr. SOURWINE. Does she have diplomatic connections?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Yes; I think she is the wife of a Hungarian Ambassador in South America.

Mr. SOURWINE. Do you know what country?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. I think this is in Argentina. All that story has been published in the very well-known magazine, Vanguardia, by one of the ranking Communist writers of South America, Mr. Rudolfo Alvenas.

Mr. SOURWINE. Do you know of any connection between Fidel Castro and this woman?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Not. exactly. I know the connection of Fidel Castro throughout Latin America. Maybe, I think that Fidel Castro now is more important than any other agent in Latin America.

Mr. SOURWINE. Do you recall giving us the names of two Russians whom you said arrived in Cuba in May 1959, to inaugurate a new type of labor movement in South America?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Yes, I recall that. That was almost a year ago.

Mr. SOURWINE. Who were those two Russians?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. I think the name Timofei, and another name I do not recall, because I do not have a very good memory fo Russian names.

Mr. SOURWINE. One, name you gave us is Eremev Timofei?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. That is right.

Mr. SOURWINE, And the other name you gave us Ivan Arapov?,

Mr. DIAZ BALART. I think so; yes.

Mr. SOURWINE. Did you or didn't you?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Pardon me?

Mr. SOURWINE. Did you give us those names?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. Yes.

Mr. SOURWINE. How did you know of the arrival of those two Russian in Cuba ?

Mr. DIAZ BALART. I was informed by my underground movement that they were in a specific hotel, for one of the people that was serving them was a member of my movement.

Humberto Fontova
Tuesday, June 25, 2002

hfontova@earthlink.net

Mike Tyson used to end fights with his arms upraised in triumph. Then he got a Che Guevara tattoo. Now he ends fights on the ground, a bloodied mess, battered and bowed, pounded almost beyond recognition. Lewis didn’t just defeat him, he stomped him. It was a hideous thing to watch, even if you loathe Mike Tyson.

Tyson was jinxed by that Che tattoo. There’s no other explanation. Somebody should have enlightened mighty Mike about the real Che Guevara. Che was hell on smiting his enemies, all right – thousands of them - but only when they were bound, gagged and blindfolded. I’m afraid the Boxing Federation doesn’t allow that. In anything like a fair fight Che was consistently routed, stomped and humiliated.

Ineptitude in combat defined Che Guevara. In every conflict he was pounded like a gong. When he whimpered to his American-trained captors in Bolivia, "Don’t shoot! I’m Che. I’m worth to you more live than dead!” he had a point.

We blew it by not kidnaping him from the Bolivians in time and using him like Luddendorff used Lenin in WWI. Recall that the Germans shipped Lenin through their lines into Russia "like a sealed bacillus” (in Churchill’s phrase) to infect the Russian army, to demoralize and incapacitate it, thereby shutting down the Eastern front.

It worked like a charm. The mighty Che, air-dropped into Vietnam’s Central Highlands with bundles of his "Lessons in Guerilla War” in October 1968, would have crippled the V.C. worse than 10 operation Rolling Thunders.

We’d had the boys home by Christmas. No Tet. No Cambodian invasion. Upon graduating from Che’s Academy of Guerilla War the V.C. would have become black-Pajamad Beavis and Butt-heads. In a month they’d all be bedraggled and lost, starving and bickering, enraging the peasants, blundering into ambush after ambush.

We’d have cleaned house in two months, maybe even without employing the firepower and cojones of Al "To Hell and Back” Gore.

Actually I dream here. Halfway through the first page of Che’s legendary book the V.C. would have impaled Che on Pungy sticks as a CIA agent – a very stupid one, trying a transparent ruse to get them all killed.

Cuban-American fighters who faced Che at the Bay of Pigs and later in the Congo still laugh. The Bay of Pigs invasion plan included a ruse where a little boat packing a huge fireworks show and tape recording of battle sounds landed in extreme western Cuba as a diversion.

Sure enough. The wily Che immediately recognized this as an Anzio type "second front.” He snapped on his holster, cocked his beret at just the right angle, scowled for the camera and rushed over with a few thousand troops. He spent the whole battle there. It was the only thing in the invasion that went according to plan.

Later many of these Cuban-American BOP vets itched to get back into the fight (but with ammo and air-cover this time). The CIA obliged and sent them with ex-marine Rip Robertson to the Congo in '65. There they linked up with the legendary mercenary "Mad Mike” Hoare, and his "Wild Geese.”

Here’s Mike Hoare’s opinion, after watching them in battle, of the men routinely smeared by the Beltway media as cheap mafiosi, bumblers and cowards, of the outfit the Church Commission and Clinton regime disparaged and emasculated: "These Cuban-CIA men were as tough, dedicated and impetuous a group of soldiers as I’ve ever had the honor of commanding. Their leader [Rip Robertson] was the most extraordinary and dedicated soldier I’ve ever met.”

Saved From Cannibals

Together Mad Mike, Rip and the Cubans made short work of the alternately Chinese and Soviet-backed "Simbas” of Laurent Kabila who were murdering, raping and munching (many were cannibals) their way through the defenseless Europeans still left in the recently abandoned Belgian colony.

Forget Frank Church and the Clintonites. Ask the hundreds of Europeans rescued from butchery (literally!) by these men. You’ll hear a different song, believe me. You can read about their exploits in Hoare’s book, "Congo Mercenary,” and in Enrique Ros’ "Cubanos Combatientes” (sadly, available only in Spanish).

Kabila made Idi Amin look like Gandhi. Castro, itching to be rid of this nuisance, sent Che (code-named "Tatu”) and a force of his rebel army "veterans” to help these cannibals. The Congolese reds, unfamiliar with the Che’s true record, accepted Tatu gratefully.

The masterful "Tatu’s” first order of business was plotting an attack on a garrison guarding a hydroelectric plant in a place called Front Bendela on the Kimbi River in Eastern Congo. His masterstroke was to be an elaborate ambush of the garrison.

The wily Tatu was stealthily leading his force into position when they heard shots. Whoops!... Hey?! What THE?! Ambushers became ambushed–and by the same garrison he thought was guarding the plant. Che lost half his men and barely escaped with his life.

Some Ally

His African allies started frowning a little more closely at Tatu’s c.v., and asking a few questions. (But in Swahili, which he didn’t understand.)

Thing was, any teen gang member in East L.A. or south Bronx has 10 times the battle experience and savvy of any of these strutting Fidelista "Comandantes.” Imagine the Germans atop Monte Cassino outnumbering and outgunning the Allies ten to one in early '44. Hell, they’d STILL be there. It was a defender's dream.

Well, the brilliant Tatu and his comandantes had that very set-up in a place called Fizi-Baraka in eastern Congo for their second clash with the mad dogs of Imperialism. Mad Mike and his CIA allies sized the place up and attacked. Within one day the mighty Che’s entire force was scrambling away in panic, throwing away their arms, running and screaming like old ladies who had a rat run up their leg.

Teen 'Rebels'

One of the most hilarious and enduring hoaxes of the 20th century was the "war” fought by dauntless Che and the Castro rebels against Batista. But I hear it was a kick - a fun way for adolescents to harass adults, loot, rustle a few cows, and play army on weekends with real guns, maybe even getting off a few shots, usually into the air.

What 17- or 18-year-old male could resist? Petty delinquency became not just altruism here, but downright heroism. How many punks get such a window of glory? Normally these stunts land you in reform school. In Cuba in 1958 it might get your picture in the New York Times:

"Comandante Humberto 'El Guapo' Fontova shown here relaxing with a bottle of rum and a grateful senorita after smiting the Fascist hordes of the Tyrant Batista in the ferocious Battle of Santa Clara, described by senior correspondent Herbert Matthews as 'bloodier than Stalingrad!'”

Here’s an insider account of one such "battle” from "Comandante” William Morgan as recounted to Paul Bethel after the glorious victory. Bethel was press attache in Cuba’s U.S. embassy in 1959. It’s in Bethel’s superb and meticulously researched book "The Losers":

"We had a helluva time Paul! We used a short-wave radio to broadcast the battle. Eloy and I yelled fake battle commands into the mike while a few of the muchachos shot BARs and pistols into the air for the sound effects. We really whooped it up!”

Here’s another insider account from Bethel’s book about a "famous battle.” This one features Che the Lionhearted himself and his invincible "Column” on their Long March through Las Villas province:

"Guevara’s column shuffled right into the U.S. agricultural experimental station in Camaguey. Guevara asked manager Joe McGuire to have a man take a package to Batista’s military commander in the city. The package contained $100,000 with a note. Guevara’s men moved through the province almost within site of uninterested Batista troops.”

This was part of the famous "Battle of Santa Clara” where Che "Blood 'n' Guts” Guevara earned his eternal fame. Skip Dave Barry one Sunday and instead read the New York Times version of this historic military engagement. You’ll laugh louder. Here’s the headline in that "Newspaper of Record” for Jan 4, 1959 (and like Barry, I swear I’m not making this up):

"One Thousand Killed in 5 days of Fierce Street Fighting! .... Commander Che Guevara appealed to Batista troops for a truce to clear the streets of casualties! ... Guevara turned the tide in this bloody battle and whipped a Batista force of 3000 men!”

Funnier Than Geraldo

We laugh at Geraldo Rivera’s buffooneries in Afghanistan. Hell, next to NYT reporters, Geraldo looks like Ernie Pyle.

To give them credit, most of Castro’s comandantes knew their Batista war had been a gaudy clown show. After the glorious victory they were content to run down and execute the few Batista men motivated enough to shoot back (most of these were of humble background), settle into the mansions stolen from Batistianos, and enjoy the rest of their booty. Che’s pathological power of self delusion wouldn’t allow him to do this. And he payed the price.

Statistically speaking, a nocturnal stroll through Central Park offers more peril than Castro’s rebels faced from the dreaded army of the beastly Fulgencio Batista. According to Bethel, the U.S. embassy was a little skeptical about all the battlefield bloodshed and heroics and investigated. They ran down every reliable lead and eyewitness account of what the New York Times called a "bloody civil war with thousands dead in single battles!”

They found that in the countryside, in those two years of "ferocious” battles, the total casualties on BOTH sides actually ran to 182. New Orleans has an annual murder rate DOUBLE that.

Alas, the Viet Cong took their lessons from guerrilla leaders who – get this, Che groupies – actually fought in a guerrilla war. Yes, where people shoot back and everything. Che eventually tried his hand at this novelty and ... well. We saw what happened. He was run out of Africa with his tail between his legs in months. Then in Bolivia he and his merry band of bumblers was betrayed, encircled and decimated in short order.

Dissed by Mao

Real guerrillas had Che’s number. Mao refused to see him when he visited China. He had him cool his heels in a reception room for two hours, then stood him up. He knew.

Che the Lionhearted’s image is still ubiquitous on college campuses. But in the wrong places. He belongs in the marketing, PR, advertising –and especially - psychology departments. His lessons and history are fascinating and valuable, but only in light of Sigmund Freud or P.T. Barnum. One born every minute, Mr. Barnum? If only you’d lived to see the Che phenomenon. Actually, 10 are born every second.

Here’s a "guerilla hero” who in real life never fought in a guerilla war. When he finally brushed up against one, he was routed.

Here’s a cold-blooded murderer who executed thousands without trial, who claimed that judicial evidence was an "unnecessary bourgeois detail,” who stressed that "revolutionaries must become cold-killing machines motivated by pure hate,” who stayed up till dawn for months at a time signing death warrants for innocent and honorable men, whose office in La Cabana had a window where he could watch the executions -and today his T-shirts adorn people who oppose capital punishment!

'Greens' Love This Polluter

Here’s communist Cuba’s first "Minister of Industries” whose main slogan in 1960 was "Accelerated Industrialization!” whose dream was converting Cuba (the hemisphere actually) into a huge bureaucratic-industrial ant farm - and he’s the poster boy for greens and anarchists who scream and rant against industrialization!

Here’s a sniveling little suck-up, teacher's pet and momma’s boy who was the constant pride of joy of his teacher (Alberto Bayo) and parents (the most obnoxious sort of Limousine Bolsheviks) – and he’s idolized by millionaire delinquents such as Rage Against the Machine!

Here’s a humorless teetotaler, a plodding paper-pusher, a notorious killjoy and all around fuddy duddy – and you see his T-shirt on MTV’s Spring Break revelers!

Perhaps competent psychologists (if any exist) will explain this some day.

Che excelled in one thing: mass murder of defenseless men. He was a Stalinist to the core, a plodding bureaucrat and a calm, cold-blooded -but again, never in actual battle – killer. And there was an actual method to this murderous madness.

Recall that in 1940 Stalin’s commissars rounded up the Polish officer corps, herded them into the Katyn Forest and slaughtered them to a man. Stalin didn’t want any Polish contras messing up his plans. These officers would have led them. So his men dug a huge mass grave and lined up the Polish officers. The Russian pistol barrels went up against the back of the neck:

POW! ... Thump. Fifteen thousand shots later the deed was done and the dirt replaced. Any contra problem was nipped in the bud.

Che followed suit in Cuba. As a communist flunkie in Guatemala he’d seen the Guatemalan officer corps rise up against the communist Arbenz government in '54. (And you pinko professors please stifle the noise about Arbenz as harmless "social democrat” and "nationalist” victimized by the fiendish United Fruit Co., OK? When ousted, Arbenz sought refuge in Czechoslovakia, not Sweden.)

Beloved Mass Murderer

Anyway, Che didn’t want a repeat in Cuba.. Upon entering Havana in January 59 he started rounding up all Army officers. Then - FUEGO!! - his firing squads got busy – real busy. By his own count, Che sent 2,500 men to "the wall.”

The "Cuban Katyn” I call this slaughter. The reds called these executed men "war criminals” and the Beltway press naturally parroted the charge. Nothing new here.

The New York Times’ (Pulitzer-winning, no less) reporter Walter Duranty had parroted Stalin and Beria’s charges against the victims of the 1930s show trials, too. Later, they, along with Chris Dodd, Ted Kennedy and Tip O’Neill, labeled Nicaragua’s contra’s "war criminals.” But today Nicaragua is free because of them.

Che’s true legacy is simply one of terror and murder. That dreaded midnight knock. Wives and daughters screaming in rage and panic as Che’s goons drag off their dads and husbands - that’s the real Che’s legacy.

Desperate crowds of weeping daughters and shrieking mothers clubbed with rifle butts outside La Cabana as Che’s firing squads murder their dads and sons inside - that’s the real Che legacy.

Thousands of heroes yelling "Viva Cuba Libre!” and "Viva Christo Rey!” before firing squads of murderous drunks whom they’d have stomped in open battle - that’s the real Che legacy.

Secret graves and crude boxes with the bullet-riddled corpses delivered to ashen-faced loved ones - that’s the real Che legacy.

And let’s not forget the craven, "Don’t shoot! I’m Che. I’m worth more to you live than dead!” (Then why didn’t he save his last bullet for himself?) Perhaps the defiant yells of the men he murdered actually affected Che the Lionhearted?

By 1960 he started ordering that his victims’ mouths be taped shut. Perhaps there was a trace of human emotion in this icy dolt after all? Genuine bravery and defiance unnerved him.

When the wheels of justice finally turned, Che was revealed as unworthy to carry his victims' slop buckets. He learned nothing from their bravery. He could only beg for his life. So yes, the craven request when cornered in Bolivia is also the real Che legacy.

So anyway, friends, I hope you’ll excuse all the champagne corks that popped in Cuban-American households back in October 1967 when we got the wonderful news. Yes, our own compatriots serving proudly in the U.S. Special Forces had helped track down the murderous, cowardly and epically stupid little weasel named Che Guevara in Bolivia. Then he got a major dose of his own medicine.

Justice has never been better served.

Che the Idol

It was Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet dictator, who first warned the world of the “cult of personality”, that irrational and emotional process of lionization that transforms a man into a myth. Khrushchev was warning the Soviet Union of the cult that had formed around Joseph Stalin, a cult that distorted Stalin’s image from that of a mere mortal into an infallible authority, a spiritual figurehead, the Christ of communism. In much the same way, Ernesto “Che” Guevara has become a mythical and moral leader for the radical left in America. They wear his image proudly on the chests of their shirts, his face adorns their dorm room walls and his memory remains sacred in their hearts.

The statist left has adopted the image of Che as their own, making him a mascot of their movement. No so-called “peace” rally would be complete without a poster or placard extolling the Argentinean-born revolutionary. Uncritically they accept the man and the myth as a symbol of the “social justice” they agitate for, a pious-like leader and mentor for their ambitious and righteous project of re-shaping the world according to their orthodoxy.

The legend of Che, a socialist who realized the dream of collectivism, appears to be inseparable from their statist fantasies. Che is an icon from the now seemingly bygone world they once celebrated in which socialism engulfed the better part of the globe and statist radicals were making headway here at home. These sentiments are evident in the demonstrative light in which Che is regarded in today.

In the 1999 Time Magazine list of the 100 most important people of the 20th century, Ariel Dorfman remarks that Che was “an adventurer who…broke down limits without once betraying his basic loyalties” calling him a “hero” who “provides the restless youth of our era with…a fierce center of moral gravity” and calling him “Christ-like.” In the movie The Motorcycle Diaries which received rave reviews at the Sundance Film Festival, Che was glorified as a humanitarian and rebel against authority. The popular band Rage Against the Machine whose videos can be found on MTV have put his image on their T-shirts and posters. Jean-Paul Sartre, the French philosopher called Che \"the most complete human being of our age.\" “He is a romantic. He had a political consciousness that changed Latin America” gushed García Bernal, the actor who played Che in the Showtime mini-series Fidel and in The Motorcycle Diaries in a Los Angeles Times interview. But who was the man behind the legend? Who was the real Che?

Che’s Repression

Che was more than just a guerilla and fiery orator. He was also a leader at the helm of the new communist government in Cuba. Che and Castro were the chief engineers of this new social experiment. While Che held many formal positions, from the head of the central bank, to manager of Cuba’s central planning committee, he was most importantly Castro’s unofficial right-hand man and most enthusiastic advocate.

As soon as Che and Castro took power in Cuba, they began to break the promises that had fueled the rebellion against the Batista regime. By June of 1959, just 6 months after the rebel victory over Batista, Castro announced that elections would be postponed indefinitely. When asked why, he simply quipped “Elections? What for?” At the same time, and as always with Che’s backing, he suspended the 1940 constitution which guaranteed many fundamental rights. The French writer Jeannine Verdès-Laroux commented “the totalitarian nature of the regime was inscribed there from the very beginning.” In the years following the revolution new laws banned the freedom of association, the right to free speech and the free press would be abolished, replaced by strict speed codes and a party run press directed from the top. The new regime also deported dissidents and priests, closed colleges and spied on students, and persecuted artists and Christians. The functionality and power of formerly independent unions were taken over by the ministry of labor while the government seized massive amount of private property without regard for property rights. The once independent judiciary was put under control of the executive. On May Day in 1960 Castro announced there would be no elections in Cuba- ever. Castro and Che were now full-fledged tyrants, capable of ruling by decree. This led way to their ability to set up forced labor camps, similar to those used by the Soviets and Nazis.

Various groups have estimated that Cuba held between 15,000 and 500,000 or so political prisoners between 1959 and the 1980s and murdered about 20,000 Cubans. To this day no one knows the exact figure however, because of the regime continues to restrict the flow of information in and out of the country. This is the “social justice” Che helped bring to Cuba.

Che the Mass Murderer

For a man who claimed to be liberating the peasants of Latin America, Che spent an awful lot of his time obliterating them. From very early on Che had learned the value of violence to maintain order and consolidate power. As part of a rebel detachment fighting the Batista regime in Cuba, Che had a child who had stolen some food immediately executed without trial. After the 1959 rebel victory in Cuba over the Batista regime, various foreign presses reported that over 600 Batista supporters were killed in mass executions. Che was later made the supreme prosecutor of the new state’s “cleaning commission” and sent hundreds to their deaths at La Cabana prison while Fidel Castro’s brother and Che comrade Raul Castro rounded up POWs and massacred them. Historian Jorge Castañeda charges that these executions “were carried out without respect for due process” The Cuban human rights activist Armando Valladares who was imprisoned at the La Cabana prison claims that Che took “personal interest” in the torture and execution of some political prisoners.

While many of the anti-Batista revolutionaries favored democratic socialism or western democracy, Che and Castro favored soviet style communism. After the revolution toppled the Batista regime, the jockeying for power began. Che was vicious in his strategy against the democrats, deporting them, jailing them, sending them to concentration camps and executing them. In Che’s Cuba you could be put up against the wall simply for passing out anti-communist literature, a tactic Che referred to as “justice at the service of future justice” Regis Débray, Che’s Bolivian companion described him as “an authoritarian through and through”

Che was ambitious however, and thusly desired to obliterate more than just his political rivals and own innocent people. During the Cuban missile crisis, Che demanded that nuclear war be unleashed on the United States. He told British reporter Sam Russell that “if the [nuclear] missiles had been under Cuban control [during the Cuban missile crisis], they would have fired them off.” Reportedly, he was disappointed when Khrushchev decided to draw back his weapons in the missile crisis. \"If the weapons had been left, we would have used them against the heart of the USA\" he remarked.

Creating a Just Society

Historical analysis shows that Che was instrumental in setting up the Cuban concentration camps, hence the Nazi SS Death’s Head skull which adorns the beret of the Che figure on the cover of this magazine. The corrective work camps housed both political dissidents and so-called social “deviants” such as homosexuals and other social outcasts. Samuel Farber, a writer raised in Cuba contends that “Che Guevara played a key role in inaugurating a tradition of arbitrary administrative, non-judicial detentions [concentration camps]…for the confinement of dissidents and social ‘deviants.’” Che comrades like Regis Débray admit Che was the engine behind the idea. One of Che’s chief policies for the new Cuba included sending “people who have committed crimes against revolutionary morals” to the forced labor camps to be re-educated.

It was Che’s hatred of the individual that led him to squeeze out any semblance of independent thought from Cuba. He trusted in the collective: collective redistribution, or socialism and collective justice, or social justice. In a July 1960 speech, Che told a crowd of students and workers that “individualism…must disappear in Cuba” saying that the proper “utilization” of the individual is for the “absolute benefit of the community.” Men were mere components in Che’s socialist nightmare. It was this attitude that lead Che to lash out against all and any who disagreed with his orthodoxy and his vision of a socialist super state which would ensure social justice for all and freedom for none. He wasn’t just socializing the economy. He was socializing the people.

Che’s new order required indoctrinating Cuban society according to his vision of “revolutionary morality”. This new morality transformed individual Cubans into what Che called the “new man”, mere vessels of the collective, devices under absolute control, working in the absolute interest the state. In this way the state could control the minds of Cubans and target them absolutely in one direction and at one enemy. Like Hitler, Che used hatred to focus the energies of the masses. \"Hatred as an element of struggle” Che remarked in his essay Two, Three, Many Vietnams, “unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine [emphasis mine]” This is ultimately what Che advocated, the creation of an organic machine, filled with killers and under his control, bringing his brand of social justice to the world.

Che’s Legacy

Che’s legacy is one of repression, terror, murder and destruction. One in which children lost their parents, patriots lost their country and tens of thousands lost their lives. Yet so many who claim to be supporters of peace seem are so enthralled with the cult of Che. So what makes the life and actions of Che so compelling?

Che is a hero to the statist left, not in spite of what he did, but because of it. Because he implemented the ultimate form of social collectivism. What Che represents is what the statists are really seeking: unyielding control over the destiny of others, the economic and political livelihoods of America’s citizens. The right and the ability to implement social justice as they see fit. This is what the image of Che represents and this is what the statists desire. Che was a man who got things done, who not only advocated but implemented.

Che represents the next step for the statist activists, from ideas to actions. He is the manifestation of their rebellion, rebellion against individualism, diversity, capitalism, freedom. But real rebels do not support centralized state authority. They do not support collectivism. They fight it. Real rebels don’t worship a cult of personality. Real rebels crash it. Those who worship Che aren’t rebels or peace activists. They are dupes furthering the destructive legacy of collectivism and the mayhem it has wrought the world over.

Dorfman, Ariel Che Guevara Time Magazine Online.(June 14, 1999) (http://www.time.com/time/time100/heroes/profile/guevara01.html)
Anderson, Jon Lee: Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. (New York: Grove Press 1997), p. 458
Fontaine, Pascal “Communism in Latin America” The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror,
Repression (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1999), p. 649
Verdès-Laroux, Jeannine La lune et la caudillo pp. 179-189
Charen, Mona Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War
and Still Blame America First. (Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing 2003) p. 176
Fontaine, p. 648
Anderson, p. 356
Anderson, p. 388
Castañeda, Jorge, Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara (New York: Vintage 1998) p. 143
Che Guevara Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia 2005 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara)
Fontaine, p. 652
Anderson, p 458
Debray, Regis Loues soient nos seigneurs (Paris: Gallimard, 1996) p 186
Anderson, p. 545
Ratner, Michael & Smith, Michael Steven Che Guevara and the FBI: The U.S. Political Police Dossier
on the Latin American Revolutionary (Ocean Press 1997) p. 92
Farber, Samuel “The Resurrection of Che Guevara” New Politics Summer 1998 (http://www.wpunj.edu/~newpol/issue25/farber25.htm)
Fontaine, p. 652
Castañeda, p. 178
Anderson, p.478
Guevara, Che Message to the Tricontinental: \"Create Two, Three...Many Vietnams\" (First published in
English by the Executive Secretariat of the Organization of the Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia,
and Latin America (OSPAAAL), Havana, April 16, 1967. Transcribed for the Internet by the Workers\' Web
ASCII Pamphlet project (RCG), 1997. 2nd (HTML) Edition, 1998) (http://www.rcgfrfi.easynet.co.uk/ww/guevara/1967-mtt.htm)

-- all from http://bureaucrash.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=40

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