The true faces of the Che

foreign [Music] [Music] it's after the hero dies that the legend is born the legend of Ernesto Guevara better known by the name Che is no exception to the rule like all legends it is based on reality a reality that has gradually slipped into an imaginary Universe in which the hero is no longer a living being but a myth a life in the public eye and an early death were enough to make Che a legendary icon of all revolutions [Music] foreign Bohemians ahead of their time his father was somewhat of an eccentric and an anarchist and his mother was brought up by nuns so the family was really very Bourgeois yet they didn't have a great deal of money they left to set a poem in the Sierra de Cordo black an arid area in the middle of Argentina on account of their eldest Sons asthma his name was Ernesto he wasn't yet Ernesto Che Guevara he was a very puny skinny child and he never went out his mother used witchcraft to try and save him as medicine was not enough she would search for black cats and lots of other things that she'd put in his bed and then at the age of about five or six they'd say he's done four we might as well let him go his sister told me that they let him go like a bird from his cage and instead of falling from his cage he managed to fly he took advantage of life he did Sports rode horses and started to shoot and swim he was so tenacious and had such strength that he dominated his asthma you have to understand the place asthma occupied in his life he was living on extra time because the asthma must killed him when he was very small and all his life he suffered terribly from that so by dominating his asthma he became someone with extraordinary tenacity while he was in secondary education he moved in High Society circles even though again he didn't have much money but his parents were so well known that he always had lots of invitations everywhere and then when he'd finished his secondary studies he returned to Buenos Aires where he plunged himself into studying medicine before he'd even finished medicine school he decided along with an older friend who was older than him Granado to take a major trip around Latin America [Music] they could very well have gone to see the pyramids gone to Paris or done something other than discovering their own continent what's interesting in their case is that they remained in their Homeland Latin America the Pacha Mama the motherland of the Incas there were two high points of this trip which proved to be Rites of Passage for change because it was there that he was exposed to pre-columbian civilization and as a Spanish descendant he thought a great deal about those past civilizations that had been destroyed he was angry with the Spaniards for destroying those civilizations and after chuki kamata he was angry with the Americans for enslaving his Latin American contemporaries they were shocked to discover the terrible endemic poverty in a mine called in Northern Chile a place where people were born and died who were almost at the mercy of their American Masters in terms of slavery so there were the beginnings of shock and the reflections having suffered a fall which didn't do too much harm to the motorbike our team headed for San Martin de los Andes when we had nearly arrived I was leading and we had another accident on a gravel covered Bend bordered by a gently murmuring stream this time the Bodywork of La poderosa was badly damaged and we had to stop there to make matters worse that's when one of the accidents we were dreading most happened a rear tire puncture as soon as he got back to Buenos Aires he finished studying medicine passed his exams and within a few weeks left again for a second trip this trip resulted in him leaving Argentina [Music] he had gotten to know a young politically committed Peruvian woman she was rather plain looking but very militant and she developed Jay's sense of Marxism which became very strong at one point he even intended to go to Mao's China and very nearly when but he stayed in Guatemala where he witnessed American imperialism on a very real scale Guatemala in 1954 a left-wing nationalist member of the army set up an agrarian reform it was fought by United Food a major American banana producing company this agrarian reform led to the toppling of Colonel R bence which benefited the United States Landing was there at the time and witnessed the landing of the he tried to organize the resistance with the Guatemalan Communist party but the balance of power was much too in favor of the Americans very important lessons about preparing an effective Revolution about preparing for a United States military intervention he learned about the need for training a popular malicious he remained in hiding for a month at the Argentine Embassy in Guatemala then organized his departure from Mexico where he took Refuge Mexico [Music] we again met with the Cuban Exiles he had met in Guatemala who had traveled from Guatemala to Mexico these Cuban Exiles first introduced him to Raul Castro then a month later to Fidel Castro who had been granted amnesty and had just arrived in Mexico in Mexico he immediately tried to organize a team of Commandos to return to Cuba to bring the revolution there Cuban started referring to Guevara as El Che as for them all argentines started their sentences with the word Chase his first meeting with Fidel was utterly and wonderfully decisive for him he felt that Fidel possessed all the qualities of a real world and the necessary determination tenacity and intellectual potential to successfully carry out such an improbable Adventure it's staggering to think that 82 men went in conquest of an island that was protected by over 50 000 men heavily armed with the hell of the United States their Adventure started one evening in November 1956 when 80 of them crowded into a small second-hand boat Fidel Castro was so impatient to arrive that he moored at the wrong place where he was not expected it was more of a shipwreck than a mooring foreign [Music] was slightly hurt and at one point he had the choice between taking a bag of medicine and a box of arms he couldn't take both so he chose the arms from then on he declared that instead of being a doctor he would become the Revolutionary militant and the gorilla he'd always been Batista's athlete was waiting for them they were bombed and there were many deaths but they managed to escape with the help of people who were waiting for them a dozen or more members of this Expedition reached the Sierra Maestra which is a small mountain with such thick vegetation it was very difficult to spot them [Music] foreign it was in the Sierra Maestra that the Revolution and the struggle were organized around Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara Jay became an emblematic figure of the Revolution that Fidel Castro used to his advantage it was also in the Sierra Maestra that the legend of Che was carved out a popular figure of the revolution in progress he became the most famous of commandantes Ma and his penchant for sacrifice which was linked to his asthma his jansenism and his asceticism generated by a very severe regime made him a remarkable fighter he proved to be the best the wildest the most daring he was almost unaware of dangers the first commander of the Cuban Revolution he placed him ahead of his own brother Raul which was an extraordinary Mark of respect Jay was so courageous and fearless it was almost too much Fidel would tell him they needed him so badly that he was not to go and get himself shot that he should hang back a little calm down he'd tell him he trained his men to act in ways that were heroic and crazy having said that there weren't many fighters in the Sierra Maestra but when Chase Collins started up they began to attract a certain number of poor peasants who joined them [Applause] foreign [Applause] as time went on and the rebel Army started winning military combats against Batista's Army it also carried out in parallel a very efficient and interesting policy in the mountains the policy was led by Che Guevara and consisted of setting up schools in the Sierra mistra mountains and hospitals too in reality they were tense but the peasants were treated there and taught to read and write wherever possible the rebel Army paid great attention to their relations with them That's how little by little the gorillas proved efficient against the dictatorship it's also how they won social support opportunity in parallel these successes fed the development of popular mobilizations in the towns Che Guevara left at the head of the Guerrilla columns to take a central town on the island of Santa Clara it was a real feat because he had never been there before the very first time he went on to Santa Clara he applied a military tactic that enabled him to capture the island from then on everything fell apart for Batista's Army in December 58 the dictator fled and the Revolution was Victorious [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] this is Rebel radio from Cuba an American free territory Victorious the revolutionaries the liberators from the Batista dictatorship rode into La Havana on tanks cheered on by an a static crowd from then on Ernesto Che Guevara occupied an increasingly important position in Cuban political life becoming minister of the economy then minister of Industry arrived in Havana bearing the reputation of a great Commander Fidel Castro had always been worried of anyone who might have too much prestige a Prestige that could outshine him so we asked Guevara to look after the Fortress of La Cabana which overlooked the port of Havana and where previously first revolutionaries had been imprisoned and then following the victory of the revolutionaries Batista's henchmen [Music] Fidel Castro and charge Che Guevara with the task of organizing trials for the prisoners of Batista's regime it wasn't just another episode in Shay's history it was probably the most indelible task he could have had foreign dozens of prisoners were executed following ridiculous trials lasting anything from a couple of minutes to an hour or two people were shot in the night [Music] he wasn't at all bothered if he was sent people who hadn't been tried in court he was in charge of carrying out executions on those who had been sentenced at first there were people who had been involved with the Batista regime involved with repression but soon it was counter-revolutionaries that resistance Fighters are violent in my point of view is legitimate from the French point of view it is also legitimate because they are always singing the Praises of Jean mullah and the other resistance so violence by resistance Fighters is one thing but when you're in power shooting 300 people is a crime the La Cabanya episode was to reveal Chase darkest side although he was driven by strong values of social justice he did not hesitate to have hundreds of sentenced opponents shot following mocked trials the execution of the former head of Batista's police was an example [Music] some authors claim that Fidel Castro was already a communist but I don't think he was on the other hand house I had a real knowledge of Marxism but without having been a member of any Communist Party there is not communism or marcism in our ideas our political philosophic is representative democracy and social justice in a well-planned economyo Fidel Castro still didn't know whether he'd become communist or Marxist he became Marxist particularly on contact with Che during the Sierra Maestra and he asked for the support of the Cuban Communist party because the Cuban Communist party was organized on a vertical discipline system which was not the case with even Fidel Castro's troops from 59 in the face of attacks Washington Was preparing the revolutionary leaders in particular Castro and Guevara were looking for support Chase experience in Guatemala was very important here they were looking for support in the face of what they quickly understood was going to be a Swift and inevitable break with the American government and they were to find this support in Moscow it was only after a year of diplomatic economic and political Guerrilla tactics with major U.S companies that the veil was lifted and Castro declared himself a friend of the Soviet Union and a partisan of a system of collectivist socialism that the Americans very quickly branded Communists Fidel Castro has just thrown a huge spanner in the works of United States Cuban relations in the speech he gave despite his illness to the first Latin American Youth Congress he announced the expropriation and nationalization of American companies in Cuba this decision will affect businesses such as the Cuban Electrical Company as a standard in Texaco which are worth one billion dollars this marks a new episode in Cuban American tensions foreign [Music] [Applause] the United States decided to finish with this dangerous individual and it organized badly a landing in Cuba persuaded that the population would rally around the counter-revolutionaries that were Landing Fidel Castro and Guevara were on all fronts which led to the famous Fiasco known as the Bay of Pigs the U.S realized it wasn't quite that easy to get rid of Fidel Castro and Fidel Castro from then on deliberately turned towards the Soviet Union to ask for their support [Music] the way in which the economy was treated in Cuba was it was like the sorcerer's apprentices they got Lenin's watchword into his head to industrialize the country for him sugarcane signified a sort of slavery and also a fatality for a single crop producing country Cuba needed to get industrialized except there were no raw materials and just as Chavez is currently destroying the Venezuelan petrol industry Chase set about destroying Cuba's sugar industry they were around 30 years old when they came to power now that's okay to be in power at that age if you're talking about just one person but when they're all that age you need older people to balance things out in government so things weren't always that easy he became an economist overnight although he was more of a poet more of a Don Quixote than the owner of a bank it wasn't easy for him but he gave it his Allah [Music] this unbridled Revolution that so exasperates the Americans confuses the Soviets they who claim to be experts in matters of Revolution are discovering a new country with a Cuban fantasy in the face of their fever and their way of putting the cart before the horse in less than two years Cuba has become more socialist than Russia after agrarian reform Urban reform and nationalizations the Cubans have now decided to make 1961 a year of Education one of the first results of his reforms was that the Cuban peso which was previously worth exactly one dollar lost all its value he recognized his own mistakes and the gaps in his economic training but all of a sudden he himself started to theorize he signed the back notes Che which was part of the poetry and the Romanticism of his history but it was done very seriously Jay didn't joke around there was Major debate over the principles that had been adopted in the Soviet Union and those that he was developing um the debate was one of material stimulus versus moral stimulus the material stimulus principle that had been adopted in the Soviet Union and that the most realist of the Cuban Communists thought they could adapt was to give either more money or consumer goods to the people so they'd work harder she disagreed arguing that people should simply be given moral stimulus that's what moral stimulus meant they'd be given a little pennant or medals to show they were avant-garde workers and that they were leading the first free territory of Latin America of course it didn't work [Music] he had the idea that a revolutionary Society could create a new man people were asked to work Non-Stop they were asked to work on Saturdays and to do voluntary work on Sundays they were asked to be impeccable from a moral and spiritual point of view they were asked to be incorruptible he demanded that Cubans do this voluntary work many of them didn't enjoy going to their voluntary jobs because they already had their usual jobs and it meant that in their moments of rest on Sundays or in the evenings they had to go and work for the country as well so it was not always well perceived but Shea as usual set the example and engaged in the necessary physical effort he didn't work for himself at all but worked for others he believed in what he was doing because it was a Utopia he made the famous marvelous statement let's be realistic demand The Impossible and that was his dream but he saw it wouldn't work during the invasion when he arrived in a village and said I forbid you to drink and play the national lottery it created such a rumpus people said who does he think he is tell him to get lost so he saw it wasn't working that's why che's new man was the death of him yeah Dawn among writings and they are prolific is an article he wrote while he was in Algeria and he was asked to write a piece for a revolutionary magazine a left-wing Uruguayan magazine called marcha The Long article he sent them became a revolutionary work and was used as a sort of Bible by many revolutionaries throughout the world the article was called man in socialism in Cuba to understand to what extremes a revolutionary can go you just have to analyze this text which is full of exaggerated lyricism and unconditional sacrifice the asthmatic leader was prepared to sacrifice everything and he demanded that others do the same [Music] the Cuban leaders luckily didn't have a great deal of responsibility during the missile crisis the Cuban Leaders with Fidel Castro at their head wanted to send as a preventative measure a nuclear missile onto a major American town that's what he wrote black on white to Nikita Khrushchev it was an error on the part of the Soviets because it was the Soviets who set up the missiles but when they saw where it could lead they said we're going to withdraw the missiles but Shea totally subscribed to the plan to fire a nuclear weapon onto a major American town and to provoke a worldwide Holocaust it was clearly in line with his beliefs but it was above all in the line of Fidel Castro's beliefs he was merely following his mentor [Music] to regard any from Cuba against Any Nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union but especially Castro were extremely upset to see that discussions between Khrushchev and Kennedy took place without him as a result relations became more stilted with the Soviet Union from that moment on the Cuban economy started to take a downturn and had to count on economic aid from the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries [Music] so Fidel was obliged to compromise whereas Guevara who in the beginning was so impressed by the Soviet Union with a sort of undying admiration became disillusioned a clear but gradual difference developed between Fidel and Che until Che who is the spokesman of Cuba launched into a diatribe against the Soviet Union or almost against Soviet imperialism on on T Soviet League imperialism that was the day Che Guevara went too far one could hear him backstage booing the Soviet delegates he said something a socialist country or a country on the road to socialism had never dared to say socialist that socialist countries had a duty to pay in arms and resources third world countries seeking Freedom they shouldn't sell arms as was the case for the Soviet Union and the Eastern countries once back in Cuba Chase trust turned to suspicion when he finally met with Fidel Castro and Osvaldo doticos the Cuban president he kept his head lowered Behind The Smiling facades the tension was palpable Castro tried to make contact with him with the sun he disappointed but Shea looked away under the weight of the mute accusation from that moment on Guevara disappeared totally it was guevara's last public appearance and from that point on Guevara understood that he no longer belonged in Cuba foreign [Music] he was a revolutionary he wanted to carry the revolution throughout the world it was his mission in a way his urgency his life so he was sent to the Congo into a fairly neutral zone not straight to South America but to a Zone where he wouldn't bother the Russians of it which is why he went to the Congo on a totally grotesque Mission as no one there was prepared for guerrilla warfare it was a bit like his book The Desert of the tartars they arrived set up a gorilla School camp but didn't find a real enemy he arrived there wanting to render the Congolese Revolt rational but according to his perception of rationality he never actually bothered to understand that there was a reason behind all African mystical sacrificial acts so you can see his great will his very dangerous side because he thought he was right he thought he could behave however he wanted there were a few skirmishes and finally the Belgian Rangers helped by the Americans who had informed them cornered them they realized that the only solution was to escape that this Guerrilla War had not served any purpose [Music] people started wondering but where's Che what's happened to him to get rid of the problem Fidel was to do Guevara a disservice deliberately or not is still a matter of debate in October 1965 he gave a public reading of a farewell letter that Shea had left him unakar aqui the punu Electra aqui transcripta America together foreign the letter was rather strange in Parts it stated that Shea formally resigned his positions posts and ranks and his Cuban citizenship [Music] it praised Fidel very directly it was a bit like the victim praising his executioner he was a consenting victim when you analyze the letter in Greater detail you realize that the terms used in it are often similar to those used by the victims in the Moscow trial the public reading of this letter condemned Che to Eternal Exiles but for Fidel people could make mistakes yet if they continue to be devotees he would forgive them and that's what happened he forgave and Allah allowed him to return to Cuba and organize his expedition to Bolivia where he died it was the finest gift he could have given him [Music] foreign [Music] with Fidel support he formed a team of Commandos of 16 people 17 including himself from Executives of the Cuban Communist Party previous ministers Deputy ministers Etc they were to form a school of guerrillas who in turn would carry word of the Revolution to Peru Brazil Argentina and Chile I've been there myself it's a deserted place there's no one there just a handful of scared peasants he thought the peasants would follow him in Bolivia too but not one single peasant joined the gorillas not one Bolivia was another country that had undergone agrarian reform which was the basis of Chase political programs The Peasants supported the government in a way in fact it was the Latin American country with the highest rate of them what was irrational in a country as politicized as Bolivia where the unions were so strong was to believe that because their little group of guerrillas was hiding in a forest things would spread the way they did in Cuba aluminum had the Cuban experience firmly in mind he had arrived in a country he didn't know nor did he ever know about all the previous political work that had been done by Castro in Cuba akuba is once Mario mange who was Secretary of the Bolivian Communist Party had received orders from Moscow by letter the party didn't want that guerrilla warfare and it was doomed to failure developing this revolution in Latin America if it succeeded would have been very good for Cuba but it was also a way to get rid of Che he was becoming or could become Troublesome and if he died that would create an exploitable hero foreign [Music] the CIA knew he had been in the Congo and quickly understood he was in Bolivia which they became certain of When de Bray was caught with the Argentine painter Siro bustas it was only when the presence of the small expedition was picked up by the Bolivian Army and by CIA agents that chase guerrillas were forced to move and they started to circulate in the region a region they didn't know where there was practically nobody to convince since it was the desert it was an extremely hostile region and between December 1966 and October 1967 they were like gorillas without an enemy they didn't try and enter into contact with enemies and when they did look for them they didn't find any until the day they got denounced by peasants their Destiny was sealed it was over I think things were over the moment Moscow told monje to let Shea get bogged down in the matter to leave things alone not to get any more gorillas not to seek out the gorillas from the other side then things were played out on the ground it was over I've been there it's bare there's nowhere to hide it wasn't easy they were extraordinary all the same hiding in The Ravines they held out as long as they could come on how did Che let himself get caught alive it said that his gun was broken he most probably gave himself up in my view that doesn't make him a coward but a human being he was no longer a hero he no longer wanted to be a martyr he wanted to live and he was convinced he was going to survive because photos of him that had been taken immediately after his capture were circulated in which Che was clearly alive also Raji de Bray and Ciro Bustos the Argentine painter were both on trial at kamiri in Bolivia for which there was International media coverage there was also government intervention on a worldwide level including by General de Gaulle of France when he was captured Jay thought he'd get away he thought he'd get out alive I think Jay wanted a trial in which he would have developed all his theories and his profession of faith but the bolivians didn't see things that way you have to differentiate between the CIA and the bolivians the CIA didn't want to kill Che ER energy they knew that if they killed him he'd become a martyr the Bolivian military couldn't care less about that the bolivians had had a prisoner like gavar in their jails they would have had a very significant political problem if you remember what happened with the registered Bray the international press made fools of the bolivians then they decided to kill Chase when the order was given to eliminate him then they had to decide who would pull the trigger they decided to give a present a funny present but that's how it was put to him to a young Sergeant Tehran on his birthday they told him he could have Che the guy went in but couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger so he went off and had a few drinks then came back and shot him but it didn't work so there was a guy from the CIA there and he supplied the final shot he was executed in the Mountain Village of Higuera and transported by helicopter to Valley Grande where he was laid out on a bench in a laundry [Music] Che was dead [Music] Jay's body was put on public display like a trophy people came to see the corpse of the infamous revolutionary these images were to tour the world [Music] [Applause] from then on Jay's face has continually been used as a symbol of revolutionary struggle raising his character to the rank of a veritable master of marxist leninist ideas song [Music] you death was a huge event without boasting we were the only ones to hold a huge meeting in the mutuality hall in 2000 people came to honor Che so it was really important for us and he died in Bolivia there was the internationalism we still remember che's attitude explaining that to help Vietnam one two three four vietnams had to be created he had a new way of talking that the old communist stalinist bigwigs didn't have so that was another reason our generation took to him especially as at the time we had started to oppose the leaders of the Communist party we were being kicked out and we were against stalinism we thought they were two nationalists non-internationalist enough so for us Che was the real model of it it was really the idea of de-alienation that we weren't going to lead a sad one-dimensional life she represented that did he represent it wrongly was he a straightforward Marxist or a leninist and did we get our icon wrong well yes and no from what I know about che's character I think he was rather inflexible but that's his personal life on the other hand it's true that regarding anarchic social realism regarding sexual Liberation which for us was very important regarding feminism regarding the attack on family regarding anti-psychiatry in relation to those Trends it's not wrong to identify Shea with that wave of desire for freedom it's a myth that he himself tried to create from the beginning he saw himself as a hero of the liberation of Latin America but above all it was Fidel Castro who very quickly understood what he could do with Che a dead change he was no longer interested in a living Che he wanted to get rid of him but dead now that would be extraordinary [Applause] would have invented him was far more useful to Castro dead than alive [Music] [Applause] the huge portrait of Che that now overlooks Revolution Square seems to invite Cubans to make ever more effort and sacrifices although dad he lives on at the entrance to the tiniest Village you can see his Effigy in naive colors his face can be seen from on high on a huge panel among the fields foreign with the fall of the Berlin Wall the Soviets told Cuba it had to grow up and become economically independent the face of Che which had been buried even his books could no longer be consulted in Cuban libraries was revived all of a sudden the givera myth was revived the stoic character who was against any monetary interest and for whom everything had to be based on a moral Revolution on stoicisms suddenly became necessary and even very useful necessary within 40 years she had died had been Unearthed then was buried again because 40 years later Fidel considered him sufficiently dead to be able to transport him to Havana where they made an enormous Mausoleum has this fixed impeccably organized image school children all over Cuba start their day reciting ceramos Como El Che we will be like change we can transform Che into an icon a hero of the Revolution three peso notes are printed recalling the era in which Che was president of the Central Bank of Cuba Etc we sell t-shirts keyrings there's a whole worldwide Market even at Che Lottery the image of Che by Corda has toured the planet and is as famous as the image of Marilyn Monroe you can't talk about the myth of Che in the past he's still alive he's everywhere not just on demonstrators t-shirts but but also on people who dance salsa whereas Che never danced salsa in his life he's become the symbol of Cuba even though he wasn't Cuban he's been cast in the wrong role that icon fits the one-dimensional period we live in the only thing that matters is image and there's nobody behind that image out of the hordes of young people who wear the T-shirt because when I see them wearing them I ask them it's very rare to come across someone who knows who Che Guevara was if I ask them why they're wearing it they reply it's the revolution if I ask them what Revolution is they answer stirring up it's not very thought out in 68 people lived with portraits of Mao Lenin Mark stronsky and Stalin their reference was the 1917 Russian Revolution today if you look at young demonstrators in Paris Berlin or Rome one portrait Still Remains and for the good reason that he embodies so well the idea of Revolution internationalism and a refusal of bureaucracy which for me are really good values very fair these values are so good in fact that as usual capitalists try to trade on them and you can now see Che all over the place but I hope that'll backfire on them the legendary portrait taken by Cuban photographer Albert Corda representing Che in a christ-like way has toured the planet the Warhol made it even greater using the same style as for Marilyn Monroe two icons among so many others who died young a veritable icon of the Revolutionary idealist chea has become the symbol of struggles all over the world his determined involvement and the consistency of his ideas has made Che the only figure that today embodies the ideas of Marx because even if Ernesto Guevara did commit violent not necessarily legitimate Acts his romantic Guerrilla image has banished them from our Collective conscience [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: Best Documentary

Views: 487,676

Keywords: documentary, investigation, interview, Ernesto Che Guevara, Chili, Venezuela, rebel, revolution, famous, history, latino, militia, military, army, archive, picture, Cuba, Cuban, person, Fidel Castro, fighting, sovietic, war, nuclear, Bolivia, Lénine, rebellion

Id: kEdKW7_jAuo

Length: 53min 8sec (3188 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 06 2023