Argentina wants Che's remains

[iwwobblie]

Che gains chic in Argentina

Sun Sep 5, 9:40 AM ET Add Top Stories - Chicago Tribune to My Yahoo!


By Colin McMahon Tribune foreign correspondent

If a small but growing group of Argentine legislators has its way, the remains of Che Guevara will come back home one day--back, that is, to a home that many people do not know he had.

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was born and raised in Argentina, the son of a rich man. But it was with Fidel Castro (news - web sites)'s revolution that Guevara won fame and infamy. It is with Cuba that his iconic image is associated. And it is in Cuba that Guevara is interred.


The Argentines don't expect to change all that. They just want the world to know that Guevara was one of theirs.


"Some people may be in favor of his ideas, and some may be against, but all agree that Che was a figure of noble causes," said Ines Perez Suarez, a congresswoman from Buenos Aires who wants the government to ask the Castro regime to repatriate Guevara's remains. "Che is admired all over the world, and the Argentine people deserve to have him back."


That Castro would agree to such a request is unlikely if not unthinkable. Even Perez Suarez said it probably would require Castro's fall, a welcome prospect to some of the initiative's supporters.


The Castro regime has not commented on the proposal, but one of Guevara's Cuban sons said he considered it so outlandish, "at first I thought it was a joke."


"This makes no sense," Camilo Guevara told the news agency EFE in Havana. "As family members we have the right to say where we want our dead to be, and we want Che to stay in Cuba."


Castro built a mausoleum for Guevara in the city of Santa Clara in 1997, after Guevara's bones were unearthed in a mountain village in Bolivia. The guerrilla leader and several of his comrades were executed there in 1967 after their campaign to incite a peasant revolution failed.


"It would be very difficult to get Castro to allow this," said Mauricio Bossa, a center-right congressman from Cordoba, the central Argentina province where Guevara spent his youth after his family moved from the city of Rosario. "Fidel uses Che's remains as a facade to hide the enormous defects of the revolution and of the Cuban government."


Bossa is not pushing to bring Guevara back. "This is not one of the biggest issues in Argentina," he said. But he would not oppose it either, so long as Guevara was not treated as a returning hero.

`Necro-politics'

Whether to bring Guevara home is the latest installment of what could be called necro-politics in Argentina.


The body of the 19th Century Argentine strongman Juan Manuel Rosas was repatriated from England in 1989 amid bitter disputes. Rightists revered him, leftists reviled him, and then-President Carlos Menem decided to bring Rosas back as a symbol of reconciliation for a nation emerging from the trauma of bloody civil conflict and government repression.


More than a decade earlier, the corpse of Eva Peron touched and hardened hearts.


Eva Peron's embalmed body had been hidden by army officers after they overthrew her dictator husband in 1955. The corpse made its way around town, at one point ending up in an attic, before it was sent to a secret burial in Italy. But in 1971, her body was sent to an exiled Juan Peron in Madrid. He covered it with a shroud and set it up in his dining room.


Juan Peron returned to power in Argentina in 1973, fell ill and died the next year, passing on power to his third wife. Only then was Eva Peron brought home.


Rosas now rests in peace in Recoleta Cemetery, the last--usually--stop of Argentina's rich, famous and powerful. Eva Peron is there too, and her grave has become a popular, flower-festooned shrine. Just last month, the silk burial shroud that Juan Peron commissioned to cover Eva was returned to Buenos Aires for public display.

Che Guevara is no Eva Peron. But the same themes of reconciliation and forgiveness that arose with Peron and Rosas figure in Guevara's case.

"Che can be claimed by people who are not communicants with his ideology and who most certainly are not in agreement with his methodology," said Pacho O'Donnell, a Guevara biographer who seems to be at least the spiritual author of the effort in Congress to get Guevara back. "I think the possibilities of repatriating Che's remains are very good as soon as Argentines convince ourselves we have to feel proud that Che was Argentine."

A changed society

That such a possibility is being discussed illustrates the changes in Argentine society.

When Guevara's remains were unearthed in 1997, the Argentine government dispatched forensic experts to help verify his identity but made no claim on the body. In the early 1990s, when Rosario officials wanted to turn Guevara's birthplace into a museum, bombs were set off in protest and warning.

Though then dead for years, Guevara was a satanic figure for the generals who ruled Argentina in the late 1970s and early 1980s, "a symbol of that which the government was fighting," O'Donnell said.

Time, though, seems to be on Che's side. His growing popularity, or at least the growing popularity of his face on everything from T-shirts to tattoos, has given Argentines more to think about.

The town of Alta Gracia in Cordoba province opened a Che Guevara museum a few years ago in his childhood home, and even honored the young Che's cook without incident. Rosario officials have resumed their museum initiative. The problem now is that the owner of the apartment where he was born does not want to sell.

[Fidelbrand]

Ah~ i just wanted to open a topic out of this piece of news, good that i checked.

Conspiracy theory maybe, maybe it is just another excuse to use the immortal man to lurk in some tourists' hard $ ? I really doubt the whole proposal initiated by a bunch of legislators (v personal opinion.)

However, if the Argentinians genuinely wants Che "back" for their love for him, it should be well considered. As far as I know, the views towards Che in Argentina is not too uanimous, & i'm afraid that his remains will be disturbed (Don't forget that some bastards raped Evita Peron's corpse despite her patriotic efforts...)

[fernando]

Che should remain in Cuba I think...his family have the say in this, not sme government in Argentina who have nothing to do with this legendary figure (which is why they want him back so bad)

[socialistfuture]

i think to would be very sad to fight of his remains - thank god (or no god) that he has not been embalmed and his corpse hero worshiped like Ho or other communist leaders. it is a real christian thing to think of the remains as like a shrine and the bones relics. his life is gone - the body is gone - the memory and deeds and dream remains.
let his body rest.

[cormacobear]

He gave his life for communism. i doubt he'd want to rest in a capitalist state with such close ties with the the U.S. that had him killed.

[Oldergod]

im Argentine and i would let everyone here know now that the remains of Che belong IN CUBA...you have to understand that without CUBA Che would a normal human being...hes not just a normal human being now hes immortal...

if you ever been to Argentina (which i have) then you would know they have hundreds of thousands of posters, statues, plaques, ect of Diego Maradona (greatest argentine soccer player) and only ONE statue of Che in Rosario, Argentina (his birth place)...in Cuba Che is EVERYWHERE...

his belongs in Cuba

[Essential Insignificance]

An interesting article. Great post!

This is an exceptionally complicated situation.

I think that Che's family and Che himself should be taken into account when making this decision -- and the eventual outcome. Che's family should make the ultimate decision; and if Aleida Guevara March has an say, I think Che will be staying in Cuba.

By moving Che's "remains" to his national country, signifies absolutely nothing. Anyone who knows anything about Che knows he is Argentinean.

I think that Che should remain in Cuba, as that is where I think he belongs and would like to remain.

[Oldergod]

you have to keep him in cuba....if Ernesto would have stated in Argentina he would have died a doctor and we would never know his name AND this wonderful site wouldnt exist...Cuba made Ernesto a global hero and a revolutionary symbol...the Cuban people have a bigger voice in this situation i believe

[sapho]

Che needs to remain in Cuba, in Santa Clara where he is.

[fuerzasocialista]

I believe that Che himself would have wanted to stay in Cuba. I firmly believe that his remains should stay in Cuba, the country which took him in as a native son.

[Palmares]

You can't choose the country you are born in, and hence there is no reason to love it based on being born in it.

Che belongs in Cuba, were those his wishes? Well, his family wants him there anyway.

Argentina most likely wants his remains for the wrong reasons. I don&#39;t even think him being "one of thier&#39;s" is just nationalist bullashit. <_<

[Wiesty]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2004, 06:27 AM
im Argentine and i would let everyone here know now that the remains of Che belong IN CUBA...you have to understand that without CUBA Che would a normal human being...hes not just a normal human being now hes immortal...

if you ever been to Argentina (which i have) then you would know they have hundreds of thousands of posters, statues, plaques, ect of Diego Maradona (greatest argentine soccer player) and only ONE statue of Che in Rosario, Argentina (his birth place)...in Cuba Che is EVERYWHERE...

his belongs in Cuba
thats just stupidity

lol
che did a lot of things that he is famous for before going to cuba. Was a doctor in mexico
explored the congo and lived with lepors

there is so much more

[Wiesty]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2004, 06:27 AM
im Argentine and i would let everyone here know now that the remains of Che belong IN CUBA...you have to understand that without CUBA Che would a normal human being...hes not just a normal human being now hes immortal...

if you ever been to Argentina (which i have) then you would know they have hundreds of thousands of posters, statues, plaques, ect of Diego Maradona (greatest argentine soccer player) and only ONE statue of Che in Rosario, Argentina (his birth place)...in Cuba Che is EVERYWHERE...

his belongs in Cuba
thats just stupidity

lol
che did a lot of things that he is famous for before going to cuba. Was a doctor in mexico
explored the congo and lived with lepors

there is so much more

[Wiesty]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2004, 06:27 AM
im Argentine and i would let everyone here know now that the remains of Che belong IN CUBA...you have to understand that without CUBA Che would a normal human being...hes not just a normal human being now hes immortal...

if you ever been to Argentina (which i have) then you would know they have hundreds of thousands of posters, statues, plaques, ect of Diego Maradona (greatest argentine soccer player) and only ONE statue of Che in Rosario, Argentina (his birth place)...in Cuba Che is EVERYWHERE...

his belongs in Cuba
thats just stupidity

lol
che did a lot of things that he is famous for before going to cuba. Was a doctor in mexico
explored the congo and lived with lepors

there is so much more

[che's long lost daughter]

Since we are speaking of his remains, I had this weird dream that his corpse, still fresh, is in my house and i was taking care of it.

[che's long lost daughter]

Since we are speaking of his remains, I had this weird dream that his corpse, still fresh, is in my house and i was taking care of it.

[che's long lost daughter]

Since we are speaking of his remains, I had this weird dream that his corpse, still fresh, is in my house and i was taking care of it.

[pandora]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2004, 09:57 AM

if you ever been to Argentina (which i have) then you would know they have hundreds of thousands of posters, statues, plaques, ect of Diego Maradona (greatest argentine soccer player) and only ONE statue of Che in Rosario, Argentina (his birth place)...in Cuba Che is EVERYWHERE...

his belongs in Cuba
I was shocked to learn this, my Argentine friends told me last summer that Diego Maradona, not Che is the celebrated son due to the fact that he beat the Brits on the football[soccer] field following the Falkland War.

Unsure of all the facts on Diego, suffice I heard he was a womanizer and became a drug addict and may have died as a result of a heart attack due to that, but is still venerated above Che as a hero due to Argentine&#39;s fear of being seen as anti-capitalist by the IMF who is raping Argentina for 50% of her GNP in finance charges to satisfy her default, even though the country can not make a recovery.

IMF sites the few public institiutions of hospitals and schools as being not a barameter of a still successful society but the waste of economy keeping Argentina from paying her debtors, Argentina offered 75 cents on the dollar to repay the default but was refused by IMF under the primary direction of the former Spanish Premier that Right wing bastard. He&#39;s on a anti-Basque lecture series, what does he want a second Inquistion, as a Sephardic Jew whose family was dispossed in the last Inquistion I can only order the bastard to cease and desist from his delusions before more people have to be banished to purgatory for having the wrong culture or place of birth.

Well I&#39;m in the granddaddy of fucked up nations so what can I say.

[pandora]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2004, 09:57 AM

if you ever been to Argentina (which i have) then you would know they have hundreds of thousands of posters, statues, plaques, ect of Diego Maradona (greatest argentine soccer player) and only ONE statue of Che in Rosario, Argentina (his birth place)...in Cuba Che is EVERYWHERE...

his belongs in Cuba
I was shocked to learn this, my Argentine friends told me last summer that Diego Maradona, not Che is the celebrated son due to the fact that he beat the Brits on the football[soccer] field following the Falkland War.

Unsure of all the facts on Diego, suffice I heard he was a womanizer and became a drug addict and may have died as a result of a heart attack due to that, but is still venerated above Che as a hero due to Argentine&#39;s fear of being seen as anti-capitalist by the IMF who is raping Argentina for 50% of her GNP in finance charges to satisfy her default, even though the country can not make a recovery.

IMF sites the few public institiutions of hospitals and schools as being not a barameter of a still successful society but the waste of economy keeping Argentina from paying her debtors, Argentina offered 75 cents on the dollar to repay the default but was refused by IMF under the primary direction of the former Spanish Premier that Right wing bastard. He&#39;s on a anti-Basque lecture series, what does he want a second Inquistion, as a Sephardic Jew whose family was dispossed in the last Inquistion I can only order the bastard to cease and desist from his delusions before more people have to be banished to purgatory for having the wrong culture or place of birth.

Well I&#39;m in the granddaddy of fucked up nations so what can I say.

[pandora]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2004, 09:57 AM

if you ever been to Argentina (which i have) then you would know they have hundreds of thousands of posters, statues, plaques, ect of Diego Maradona (greatest argentine soccer player) and only ONE statue of Che in Rosario, Argentina (his birth place)...in Cuba Che is EVERYWHERE...

his belongs in Cuba
I was shocked to learn this, my Argentine friends told me last summer that Diego Maradona, not Che is the celebrated son due to the fact that he beat the Brits on the football[soccer] field following the Falkland War.

Unsure of all the facts on Diego, suffice I heard he was a womanizer and became a drug addict and may have died as a result of a heart attack due to that, but is still venerated above Che as a hero due to Argentine&#39;s fear of being seen as anti-capitalist by the IMF who is raping Argentina for 50% of her GNP in finance charges to satisfy her default, even though the country can not make a recovery.

IMF sites the few public institiutions of hospitals and schools as being not a barameter of a still successful society but the waste of economy keeping Argentina from paying her debtors, Argentina offered 75 cents on the dollar to repay the default but was refused by IMF under the primary direction of the former Spanish Premier that Right wing bastard. He&#39;s on a anti-Basque lecture series, what does he want a second Inquistion, as a Sephardic Jew whose family was dispossed in the last Inquistion I can only order the bastard to cease and desist from his delusions before more people have to be banished to purgatory for having the wrong culture or place of birth.

Well I&#39;m in the granddaddy of fucked up nations so what can I say.

[sim22]

i think that che&#39;s remains should stay in cuba, as well, it&#39;s wrong i think to dig up dead bodies and move them around the world for a simple reason like what Argentina wants him for. che wasnt a person to make a fuss, and if his family are against it that should matter more&#33;

[sim22]

i think that che&#39;s remains should stay in cuba, as well, it&#39;s wrong i think to dig up dead bodies and move them around the world for a simple reason like what Argentina wants him for. che wasnt a person to make a fuss, and if his family are against it that should matter more&#33;

[sim22]

i think that che&#39;s remains should stay in cuba, as well, it&#39;s wrong i think to dig up dead bodies and move them around the world for a simple reason like what Argentina wants him for. che wasnt a person to make a fuss, and if his family are against it that should matter more&#33;

[guevara-marley]

his remains should stay in cuba...i&#39;ve read some aricles about this and i know some argentinian people and they said that they have two or three museums which are on che...it&#39;s true that almost everybody thinks that he was a cuban but you could solve this problem in another way...
it&#39;s not right to dig bodies out to bring them to other places...

teté

[pandora]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2004, 09:57 AM

if you ever been to Argentina (which i have) then you would know they have hundreds of thousands of posters, statues, plaques, ect of Diego Maradona (greatest argentine soccer player) and only ONE statue of Che in Rosario, Argentina (his birth place)...in Cuba Che is EVERYWHERE...

his belongs in Cuba
Exactly, Argentines I have spoken to say that Che is not revered in Argentina, Diego Mardona is for beating the Brits on the football field after the Falklands War.

In fact they tell me their brothers and fathers disrespect Che for being a Communist and that Argentines are desperate to hide this side of themselves at present in an attempt to salvage their economy from the IMF and get some sort of decent terms in the repay. IN ORDER TO DO SO THEY HAVE TO PRESENT THEIR INTENTION TO STAY EMBEDDED IN THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM, AND HIDE ANY SOCIALIST INTENTIONS. They fear going against the United States because they don&#39;t want to be cut out of trade like Cuba and Venezuala whom they feel that the United States and G8 have destroyed for their defiance
We should really tolk about EXAMPLE SETTING.

But for now fuck the low grade ploy to do some PR for Peronist Socialists in Argentina. The fact is by forcing CHE&#39;s remains from CUBA what they would really be doing is Oppressing Che into servitude to the current adminstration of Argentina, you&#39;ve been a naughty boy, now come home and play along, post-mordem. The Biblical wayward prodical son returns to behave in death and all that crap.

The only hope I would be that by Che coming to Argentina his spirit would come back with him and lead o popular revolution. I do feel Che would have been proud of his people in their rising up after the collapse of their economy and to know he was not there to be there against the brutal military repression they suffered as a result his heart would break. Che always intended to free Argentina.

[lena]

i also read an article about that and i think it´s just stupid - cause che´s death is so long ago and NOW the argentinan people are complaining and want che´s body back...
i think Argentina dont only want its revolutionary son back i think the people/politicians there are also thinking of the financial aspect they can have, when ches body is again there - they can charge entries and some more people will come to see the last resting place of che.

and the aspect that che has given back his nationality as a Cuban is also no reason for me why they should burry him somewhere else - he did so much for this country and i think he really liked it, cause he stayed there for a long time - so the best is to let che rest now in peace.............................

you are dead, but never gone&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;&#33;

[refuse_resist]

Personally, I think his remains should stay in Cuba. If he were alive, I&#39;m sure that&#39;s where he would want them as well, especially since Cuba is where one of his greatest accomplishments took place.

[gaf]

what&#39;s important here?
remains ,symbol ,or money
no respect it&#39;s what i see......
aie aie poor world.new ideas needed.

[Essential Insignificance]

what&#39;s important here?
remains ,symbol ,or money
no respect it&#39;s what i see......
aie aie poor world.new ideas needed.

Maybe it&#39;s for tourism?

I&#39;d think that Che remains would generate some tourism, to help Argentina&#39;s economy.

I think there are some hidden motives behind it.

[gaf]

Originally posted by Essential [email protected] 21 2004, 10:08 AM

Maybe it&#39;s for tourism?

I&#39;d think that Che remains would generate some tourism, to help Argentina&#39;s economy.

I think there are some hidden motives behind it.
nothing new really

[cubalibra]

In Che&#39;s last letter to Fidel, he said that should he die in battle, his last thoughts will be of Cuba and the Cuban people who took him in as a son. That settles it, he should remain in Cuba. If people in Argentina want to pay their respects, they could fly to Cuba to do it. The extra tourism money will help Cuba&#39;s economy. I bet Che would have liked that too.

[ComradeHuipe]

i think his remains should remain in cuba think about it....dats where his real politics began, he gave his life to the revolution....and he didnt care dat he wasnt a cuba..he still fought for it anyway.....noentheless...his remains should be a national treasure for the cuban government....dats wat he is to many che followers... a treasure..

[fernando]

I read something about this..ther Argentine socialists wanted his body as some sort of relic to be proud of, he is after all one of the most legendary Argentinians out there, Cuba wants it so that Castro can revive the whole &#39;Che worship&#39; in a way, but also to bring him back to Che&#39;s family. The Bolivians want him as some sort of tourist attractions, almost similar to what the English have done to the Egyptian Faraos.