Sridhar V

On this day in 1967, Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara was executed on the orders of the CIA after he had been captured by the Bolivian Army. When Mario Terán, the soldier who would execute him, entered the room, Guevara reportedly said “I know you’ve come to kill me. Shoot, coward! You are only going to kill a man.” In death, Che Guevara would become the iconic symbol of revolutionary martyrdom; giving up his own life with no fear, for the cause of fighting oppression and liberating others.  As a young medical student, he traveled across Latin America on his motorbike and was appalled by the sheer amount of disease, hunger, and poverty across the continent.  He began to view Latin America as dominated and exploited by US capitalism, a belief that hardened after the CIA orchestrated the coup against Guatemala’s President Jacobo Arbenz, destroying much of the reforms he had implemented.  In Mexico City, he met two brothers who shared his ideas; Fidel and Raul Castro. From that moment he joined the 26th of July Movement and became instrumental in the success of the Cuban Revolution and the destruction of the US-backed Batista dictatorship.  In Cuba’s government, he spearheaded a successful and rapid literacy campaign, enacted land reform to distribute land from bourgeois land owners to Cuban peasants, and played a key role in defeating the CIA’s Bay of Pigs Invasion.  After succeeding in Cuba, Guevara left Cuba to assist revolutionary struggles abroad. He would be captured by CIA-backed Bolivian forces. Murals, paintings and pictures of Che Guevara can be found all over the world in the poorest areas. 59 years after his death, Che remains a global symbol of hope, resistance, and fighting oppression. ¡Hasta la victoria siempre!