|
|
 |
 |
| Sunday, 13 June 2004 |
 |
|
 |
News |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
Commandante Che Commandante Ernesto Che Guevara (not Guvera as most Sri Lankans misspell) would have lived 67 years on June 14 had his life not been brutally cut off at 39 by mercenaries of US imperialism in the hills of Bolivia. Paradoxically, he was betrayed by a peasant to liberate whose lot he dedicated himself. Born in Argentina he was an extremely sensitive to humane suffering and considered his mission in life to be the liberation of the poor workers and peasants. He considered the whole world his home in the spirit of Cuban national hero Jose Marti and decided to pay his "debt to mankind". The turning point in his life came when he met young Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro and immediately forged a life-long bond. With Fidel and Camilos Cienfuegos, he was a leader of the triumphant Cuban Revolution which "stormed heaven" in the Caribbean island just 90 miles off the coast of the world's biggest imperialist power, the United States. True internationalist he was, Che was not content to be at the helm of the new revolutionary state in Cuba, which was in any case in safe hands. "Other nations of the world call for my modest effort... I carry to new battlefronts the faith that you taught me, the revolutionary spirit of my people, the feeling of fulfilling the most sacred of duties: to fight against imperialism wherever it may be. This comforts and heals the deepest wounds," he said in his farewell message to Fidel. His conscience led him to Bolivia where he undertook a mission to liberate the peasants and workers from US aided tyranny. Che was an exemplary revolutionary, an extremely humane person and a theoretician of the Left. Though he was not a Marxist at the time of the Cuban revolution he and other revolutionary leaders had acted as true Marxists, Che later recalled. He has become a revolutionary icon for all the oppressed people of the world. (JV) |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
