anti-che

[boysie]

i'm writing my a-level history coursework on che guevara and need some anti-che writings. can someone in this forum help me get a balanced view of the situation please?

matt.

[Forever capitalism]

the truth is that the only thing Che Guevara did was boost t-shirt sales. :)

[queen of diamonds]

che authorised a lot of assassinations and stuff like that....he pressured the academics into keeping silent, and took away the freedom of the press.

[RedCeltic]

Uh... he didn't ask for inane insults... he asked for refrences to anti-Che resource material. I.E. websites...periodicals... books...etc... you cappies do know how to research and back up your ideas right?

[MindCrime]

He also ate babies, built UFOs, and was part of the Bavarian Illuminati. What? Its all out there, I swear...

He wants anti-che writings, not wild accusations.

[Imperial Power]

One of the best books I've read about Che was:

Anderson, Jon Lee."Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life"
Grove Press, New York 1997

The book details his life better than any other biography.
In his personal life I believe he had an affair with Aleida before he divorced Hilda. Of course there are the executions were he served as judge, jury, and prosecuter. He also had many other people shot during the revolution when he questioned their patriotism.

[peaccenicked]

this is a much fairer review of the book than IPs
Elegy for a revolutionary

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ROBIN BLACKBURN
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Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life by John Lee Anderson (Bantam Press, R182,95)
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C

HE GUEVARA helped Fidel Castro to topple Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and then masterminded Cuba's break with the United States. These events established him as a revolutionary statesman of global reputation. With his subsequent renunciation of the fruits of power and martyr's death in Bolivia in 1967, he became a legend.
The smouldering prose of his diaries and essays explained why the man in the iconic poster felt that it was necessary for him to sacrifice his life for the wretched of the earth. Until now, there has been no remotely adequate life of this extraordinary individual.

John Lee Anderson opens this book by declaring: "My sole loyalty is to Che Guevara himself," adding that his concern is "his truth not anyone else's". My fear that this heralded a hagiography soon vanished. Anderson shows no hesitation in detailing episode after episode in which Guevara, or the causes he worked for, is shown in an uncomfortable or unattractive light. He has researched diligently and has had access to much unpublished documentation.

Anderson is not, in fact, notably sympathetic to Guevara's politics, nor does he do more than sketch the appalling social conditions and political crimes which drove Guevara from medicine to revolutionary politics. Yet this biography is nevertheless absorbing and convincing because of its wealth of new information and willingness to let Guevara himself speak, in quotations from letters and diaries.

By the closing chapters the full tragedy and nobility of Guevara's last actions are, if anything, heightened by our knowledge of his mistakes and failings.

Anderson punctures the romantic view of guerrilla war by detailing the draconian punishment meted out to deserters. Guevara was himself a stern disciplinarian, a trait rendered only somewhat more acceptable by the fact that he demanded even more of himself than of others.

On this account Guevara was already attracted to Marxism and Maoism before he joined up with the Cubans. In a remarkable text of 1956, quoted here, he wrote: "The future belongs to the people and little by little or in one fell swoop they will seize power, here and in the whole world. The bad thing is that they have to become civilised and this can't happen before, but only after taking power."

Guevara, the son of Argentine bourgeois, concluded that his mission was to become a sort of latterday Saint-Just who would submerge himself in what he called, in a typically arresting and disturbing phrase, "the bestial howling of the triumphant proletariat".

In a continent afflicted by hunger and dictatorship, and with exorbitant rates of infant mortality, Guevara's driven personality and longing for social redemption corresponded to palpable needs. But his apocalyptic streak would lead to grave misjudgment, as when he appeared willing to risk war in 1962 rather than accept that the Soviet missile withdrawal had reduced the danger of invasion.

Anderson reminds us that Guevara, while at times fanatically intolerant of real or supposed weakness in himself or others, was nevertheless strikingly broad-minded - his ministry became a refuge for stubborn liberals, anarchistic Trotskyists and other oddballs whose independence of mind he cherished.

Unsurprisingly, Guevara could be guilty of a crude machismo, but this complex individual was also capable of great tenderness and withering self-criticism. Anderson has written an indispensable work of contemporary history and conveyed much of his subject's awkward grandeur.

[Supermodel]

I think Castro said it best, I'm paraphrasing here, that Che had a "blatant contempt for danger". Perhaps his greatest failing was an obvious death-wish approach to the Bolivian conflict. He was simply too macho or too depressed to back down and fight another day.

[RedCeltic]

Oh Shit IP.... John Lee Anderson's book is the best you can come up with to back up you wild claims? I'm Sorry... it seems I overestimated you. That's a # 1 bestseller pro/con... Ya think the kid woulda known to look there first... whatcha got next eh? Guerilla Warfare?

Come now... what we are really looking for is the material you base your wild seemingly baseless lies on... If you want to come an attack people who spend their time reading intelligent leftist material... at least give us something with meat in it.

[Forever capitalism]

Che presided and supported the execution of 550 "counter revolutionaries". I think that is enough evidence that the myth is greater than truth of the actual man.

[peaccenicked]

This is rich coming from a supporter of counter revolution, those at war with the revolution, then
deny the actual conditions of civil war against Batista. Those excuted were Batista men.
The white-suited hired assassin

PEDRO A. GARCIA (Granma daily staff writer)

DURING the Batista dictatorship he used to appear on the front page of newspapers dressed in a white suit, somewhat resembling a bad actor in a B crime movie, and an affected sardonic smile, sometimes cradling a weapon. In the background there was always a group of detained youths, whose life he had spared for the sake of publicity, and some confiscated weapons.

At the time his name inspired horror and repugnance: Esteban Ventura Novo, the killer from Havana’s Fifth Precinct (later he moved his barracks of torture and iniquity to Zapata’s Ninth Precinct), was infamous for his massacres. He was a police agent who gained his promotion by means of murder, torture and disappearances, eventually becoming a lieutenant colonel.

In the morning of January 1, 1959 he fled along with his chief, General Batista. His name was constantly mentioned during the war crimes trials in Cuba throughout 1959. On various occasions, the Cuban government petitioned the U.S. government for his extradition, but Washington always refused.

As time passed, Esteban Ventura ceased to be news in Cuba until recently, when a news agency reported his death from a heart attack at age 87 in Miami.

HE NEVER STROLLED HAVANA’S STREETS

Esteban Ventura was born in 1913 and became a police officer in the mid ’30s. According to the testimony of former police lieutenant Miguel Angel Pérez Catá (deceased), he had strong links with the Partido Auténtico governments, characterized by corruption, and particularly that of Carlos Prío, deposed by Batista in a coup on March 10, 1952.

Venture immediately changed sides, quickly demonstrating loyalty to his new master by uncovering conspiracies against the régime and expropriating arms consignments from his former colleagues. Like any traitor he never felt secure and resorted to crime to climb the ranks. He directed his aggression at young people, whatever their academic level, social class, faith or ideology. They were all guilty: simply for being patriots.

He turned the Fifth Precinct (located in Belascoaín Street) into the worst den of torturers and murderers in the capital. It was there that the order was given to literally dismember young revolutionary Emiliano José Corrales; and that women were tortured, as was the fate of Lidia Doce and Clodomira Acosta, whom he later dumped into the sea with the aid of a Naval Intelligence officer. Dozens of victims were chopped up and never found, while others were mutilated or left with the indelible scars of his cruelty.

In his Memorias (Memoirs), published in the ’60s, which combine calumny with arrogance, he affirmed that he used to stroll the streets of Havana elegantly dressed in an expensive white linen or English muslin suit. This was a total lie. He used to tour the streets of Havana in heavily armored cars and no one ever knew in which one he was riding. He organized the arrest of youths and prepared their bloody torture from the safety of his car. He never personally detained a revolutionary, but always sent his team of henchmen on ahead.

MURDER MASTERMINDER

He organized the largest massacres of young persons ever known in Havana. For example, on April 20, 1957, he sent his assassins to find Fructuoso Rodríguez, then president of the Federation of University Students (FEU), and students Juan Pedro Carbó Servía, Joe Westbrook and José Machado, who had participated in heroic actions on March 13. Ventura ordered that they be killed in cold blood.

His list of crimes continued. On September 12, 1958, his men forced entry into an apartment in the Juanelo district of Regla and arrested four revolutionaries (Reinaldo Cruz, Alberto Alvarez, Onelio Dampier and Leonardo Valdés), and two women, the above-mentioned Lidia and Clodomira. The "great defender of bourgeois democracy," as Ventura later described himself, had no time for the law or for citizens’ rights.

There, in the apartment where they were arrested, he gave the order to kill the men without trial. Everybody in the building heard the shots.

The killings continued. Another example is that of Goicuría and O’Farril Streets (November 8, 1958): after being taking prisoners there, Angel Ameijeiras (Machaco), Pedro Gutiérrez and Rogelio Perea were all murdered. Their corpses, showing evident signs of torture and brutality, were dumped at a First Aid post.

Sometime Ventura’s hyenas liked to hunt down victims in the streets. In Párraga, they fired 65 bullets into the body of Fernando Alfonso (Morúa). Marcelo Salado suffered the same fate in Vedado. Andrés Torres in the Víbora district tried to defend himself and they continued firing even after he was dead.

The story goes that the white-suited assassin rarely stained his clothes or his hands with the blood of his victims of torture. He supervised the work of his aides, veritable experts in beatings, removing nails and other horrific methods of torture. At most he would intervene to try and break his victims psychologically or induce them to betrayal.

THE BEST REFUGE

Ventura escaped justice. His extradition was consistently negated by various U.S. administrations despite the evidence and witnesses to his many crimes provided by the Cuban authorities. Just like Nazis wanted for trial in Europe he found the United States his best refuge. Ironically, he created a private security agency, Preventative Security Services and Investigation in that country, using the techniques employed against Cuban revolutionaries to protect entrepreneurs.

Naturally Ventura was not unique. Other assassins serving the Batista dictatorship like him were Pilar García and Lutgardo Martín Pérez, to name but two, who also found shelter in our neighboring nation. They were followed by other batches of counterrevolutionary terrorists of the caliber of Luis Posada Carriles, Guillermo Novo Sampol and Félix Rodríguez, who are being protected by a country which proclaims itself a champion in the fight against terrorism and the defense of human rights.

The white-suited assassin’s career is over, but the country that offered him a refuge continues to protect criminals like him.


(Edited by peaccenicked at 2:43 pm on Feb. 23, 2002)

[boysie]

thanks to everyone who posted: you've given me a lot to go on.

[sabre]

those 550 excecutions were probably enemy soldiers and Batista government men. They needed to eliminate them for the cause of a revolution.

[PunkRawker677]

The book, "my friend Che", is an excellent book. Its more about Che personally than the revolutions he was in. Its in my car, so i dont know the authors name by heart. He talks about his direct involvment with Che, and the Cuban revoltion and alot of facts about che i have never heard about, also alot of good quotes. It talks about the good and the bad about che, but of course the good complelty overwhelsm the pity bad, but thats because che did much more good than bad. Check it out, you should be able to get it at any library, its not to long and its actually a pretty face paced book.

[Capitalist]

If you want to write a paper on a true Revolutionary - why not write about Hubert Matos?

Hubert Matos = True Revolutionary Cuban
Hubert Matos = Pro Democracy
Hubert Matos = Served 22 Years in Castro's Jail

Che Guevara = Argentina Invader / Psuedo-Revolution
Che Guevara = Pro Communist - Destroyed Cuba's Economy
Che Guevara = Fidel Castro Propaganda

[poncho]

Hubert Matos = True counter revolutionary

Hubert Matos = Pro Democracy traitor that tried to get the people to fight for the landlords, restoring there birth right to rape the land and people of Cuba

Hubert Matos = Served 22 Years in Castro's Jail. Criminal traitors like him should have been shot.

[PunkRawker677]

<<Che Guevara = Argentina Invader >>

he didnt invade Argentina... nor any other country at that...