Cuba remembers Che Guevara on the anniversary of his death

Havana, Oct. 8 - In schools, workplaces, and institutions across Cuba, people are recalling the legacy of Ernesto Che Guevara, on the occasion of the 58th anniversary of his capture and assassination in Bolivia.

With the customary tributes throughout the country, a day of exhibitions, discussions, roundtables, and forums begins on the work of the man recognized here as the Heroic Guerrilla fighter.

The central province of Villa Clara, and especially its capital, Santa Clara, whose liberation was led by Che Guevara, will host the main commemorations, as usual.

The mausoleum that houses his remains and those of the combatants killed alongside him in Bolivia is located in that city.

Ernesto Che Guevara, a doctor by profession, was part of the Granma yacht expedition that landed in eastern Cuba in 1956 with the aim of removing then-President Fulgencio Batista from power, whom the expeditionaries considered him a dictator and held him responsible for the country's misdeeds.

Becoming one of the guerrilla leaders, he descended from the Sierra Maestra Mountains and, after Batista's escape and the triumph of the forces commanded by Fidel Castro, held various positions in the years following January 1, 1959.

He served as president of the National Bank, director of Industrialization at the National Institute of Agrarian Reform, minister of industry, and head of Cuban diplomatic delegations to various world conclaves.

Among his most notable works is his participation in the projection and founding of the Latin American News Agency Prensa Latina, whose goal, according to its founders, was to respond to media manipulation of the latent process of change in Cuba.

According to the guerrilla fighter's own memoirs, his humanist ideals led him to the Congo and Bolivia—where he died—to promote, through armed insurgency, political and social transformations in those states.

All this will be referred to in different ways on Wednesday, the first date of the Camilo-Che Event, which takes place every October and ends the next day 28, the anniversary of the physical disappearance of the commander Camilo Cienfuegos. (Text and photo: PL)