<i>Remembering Che Guevara</i>
Photo: www.argentour.com
If he had been alive today, Che would have turned 82 this year. His life was cut short at the age of 39 on October 9, 1967. Yet, 43 years after his death in captivity, he is very much alive and ever remembered. Che lives in his ideas and in the struggle being waged by the people the world over for a better future for mankind. Che was a man of amazing courage and astonishing combative spirit. Full of sanguinity, optimism and faith in humanity, he never wavered in his convictions. During the most difficult days of the guerrilla war he always volunteered to undertake the most dangerous operations. 'I wouldn't consider my death a frustration, but... I will take to my grave only the regret of an unfinished song', he wrote to his father from a prison in Mexico in 1956. Che was not only a heroic guerrilla. He was 'also a person of visionary intelligence and broad culture, a profound thinker', as Fidel told a memorial rally in Havana on October 18, 1967. Che realised that the building of the new society, the revolutionary transformation required two pillars: the education of the new man and woman and the development of technology. The excellent results achieved by Cuba in its development at present in both these fields show the potency and validity of Che's thought. 'Foreign trade should not determine policy, but should, on the contrary, be subordinated to a fraternal policy toward the peoples', he told the Afro-Asian Conference in Algeria on February 24, 1965. This principle is today beginning to assert itself among member countries of the ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America)- a group of progressive countries in Latin America. Che was above all an internationalist. Born in Argentina, he led the Cuban Revolution and died in Bolivia in an attempt to liberate its peasants.
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