Your April 7 editorial attacking Che Guevara was offensive. It omitted significant facts, twisted the truth and helps maintain this country’s seriously outdated Cuban foreign policy.
It starts with Che described as asthmatic. So what? That is common knowledge and nothing that detracts from his prestige or stature. If anything, the reverse is true. While fighting severe bouts of this common yet debilitating condition, he was also leading a group of underarmed and outmanned revolutionaries, through the mountains, to victory.
You, though, painted him as a geek, “gaunt and frail,” and try to lessen our respect for him based on a mere physical imperfection. Guerrilla generals who stand up to and then defeat murderous and oppressive U.S.-backed dictatorships, as Fulgencio Batista’s was, are neither gaunt nor frail. If anything, Guevara overcame a physical challenge and should be respected for it.
Next you attacked his economic policy of diversification. Not only was it a good idea then but one that’s in the works right now. While we foolishly increase the distance between our two countries, the rest of the world is embracing Cuba with trade, investment and condemnations of the U.S. embargo.
It’s true that Cubans are in an economic depression, but even now, as the rest of the world integrates with it and diversifies its economy, things are getting better. That Che could not accomplish the same in the early ’60s has more to do with the times he lived in than with the vision he had for the future.
You next branded him a sexist for not wanting to put women into the front lines of war, and then a failure for not igniting revolution in the Congo. To employ the word “sexist,” with 30 years of rethinking behind us (and all of its 1990s connotations in tow) to some very specific gender sentiments of a Latin man in the ’60s is grossly unfair.
Che wasn’t sexist; he was normal. His leaving the Congo is true. But here’s the rest of the truth. The Congo’s own murderous, U.S.-backed dictator was clearly going to prevail in any war there, with Che involved or not, and both Che and the Cuban government knew it. His only sound option was to pull out.
As for his murder in Bolivia, you made it out to be an impulsive act by ragtag farmers “with the help of the CIA.” Not quite. Che was hunted for years by the CIA. They saw their opportunity, put together the farmers, had them trained by the Green Berets and ordered his hands chopped off for confirmation. It was not the act of an autonomous group of Third World peasants.
Americans deserve the whole truth on the man and unbiased reporting on the country he did so much to help. It’s time for us to rethink and reformulate Cuban-American relations in the way that only a fully and accurately informed electorate can. That, in turn, requires full and accurate information.
