Cuba Celebrates Che’s 83rd Birthday with New Diaries

This week Castro’s propaganda ministry published another portion of Che Guevara’s “diaries.” Entitled “Diaries of a Combatant,” these passages were allegedly composed by Ernesto “Che” Guevara between 1956-58, and were published “unedited.”  We know this because a minister of the Stalinist regime (Che Guevara’s widow, Aleida March), vouchsafed this scoop to all foreign “news” agencies bestowed Havana Bureaus by the Cuban government.
According to Guevara’s widow, the goal of this latest release was “to show his work, his thoughts, his life, so that the Cuban people and the entire world get to know him and don’t distort things anymore,” reported CNN.
“She [Aledia March-Guevara] said she wanted readers to get to know Che Guevara just as he was,” assures the BBC.
“March told reporters the purpose of publishing the diary is to acknowledge his thoughts, life and work,” underscores the Associated Press.
“We’d have to ask if he [Che Guevara] really wanted the ‘Diary of a Combatant’ published,” said Maria del Carmen Ariet, another regime apparatchik, while leaking snippets to CNN’s Havana correspondent Shasta Darlington.
So there. The candid, courageous and revelatory nature of this Castro-regime publication is solidly documented — at least in the view of the same reporters who typically erupt in cynical snorts before any Republican finishes a sentence.

Che himself must be guffawing in his grave. He had the mainstream media’s number from day one: “Foreign reporters, preferably American,” he wrote in the first portion of these diaries titled “Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War” and published in 1963, “were much more valuable to us at that time [1957] than any military victory. Much more valuable than rural recruits for our guerrilla force, were American media recruits to export our propaganda.”
Che’s future patron and handler Castro thought similarly: “We cannot for a second abandon propaganda,” Castro stressed in a letter to a revolutionary colleague in 1954. “Propaganda is vital — propaganda is the heart of all struggles.”
But with this new portion of Che’s diaries, Castro’s propaganda apparatchiks should strive for better “synergy” with their foreign auxiliaries. To wit:
“One Thousand Killed in 5 days of Fierce Street Fighting,” read a New York Times headline on Jan 4, 1959 about the “battle” of Santa Clara in central Cuba where Ernesto “Che” Guevara earned much of his enduring martial mystique. “Commander Che Guevara appealed to Batista troops for a truce to clear the streets of casualties,” continues the Times article. “Guevara turned the tide in this bloody battle and whipped a Batista force of 3,000 men.”
A year later, Che’s own diaries revealed that his forces suffered exactly one casualty during this Caribbean Stalingrad depicted by the Times.  British historian Sir Hugh Thomas, author of a 1700-page tome of Cuban history who initially vied with Herbert Matthews as a Castro sycophant, claims a grand total of six casualties for this Caribbean Verdun. Your humble servant here interviewed several eye-witnesses (on both sides) to this “battle” and their consensus came to about five casualties total for this alleged Caribbean Iwo Jima.

Interview with Che

TV interviewer:
Q: "Are you a Communist?"
A: "If you consider that the things that we are doing in the people's interest represent manifestations of communism, then call us communists. If you are asking whether I am a member of the Partido Socialista Popular, the answer is no."

Q: "Why did you come to Cuba?"
A: "I wanted to take part in the liberation of even a small piece of enslaved Latin America."

Q: "Do you advocate maintaining relations with Soviet Russia?"
A: "I support the establishment of diplomatic and trade relations with all countries in the world barring exception. I see no reason to exclude a country that respects us and hopes for the victory of our ideals."

Che timeline

1928 June 14, Ernesto Guevara was born in the city of Rosario, Argentina and in 1932 Guevara's family moved to Alta Gracia, province of Cordoba, Argentina

1948 Ernesto Guevara traveled around the Argentinian provinces.

1951 December; he left for Chile and Peru with his friend Granado. Guevara lived for a short time in the leper colony of Huambo. Then he continued his journey to Bogata and later to Caracas.

1953 Back in Buenos Aires, he finished his studies in medicines. After that, he left for Bolivia with another friend, Ferrer. They planned to go to Venezuela, passing through Peru and staying for some time in Guayaquil, Ecuador. They met others Argentinians and decided to go to Central America. They travelled through Panama, Costa Rica and Guatemala. There, Guevara met Hilda Gadea, whom he would marry with later, in Mexico. Guevara got in touch with Peruvian exiles.

1954 June; invasion of Guatemala against Arbenz's goverment. Guevara had to escape to Mexico, where he met Cuban exiles.

1955 July; he met Fidel Castro who told him about his plans to invade Cuba. He joined the group and started his military training.

1956 December 2; disembarked on Cuba's south coast. December 18, the 12 survivors started the first guerrilla in the Sierra Maestra.

1957 June; Che was named commander. By the end of the year, the war in Cuba entered the decisive stage. Guevara was requested to make the journal Cuba Libre in the mountain range.

1958 December 29; Che's column fought its final battle and overtook Santa Clara. December 31, president Fulgencio Batista escaped to Santo Domingo.

1959 January 2; triumphal entrance of Che and Camilo Cienfuegos in La Habana. February; Che is declared Cuban born. On June 2, he married Aleida March. From june till august, Che travelled through Africa, Asia and Yugoslavia. On October 7, Fidel Castro named him head of the Industry Department in the Agrarian Reform's National Institute. On November 26, he is named president of the National Bank.

Che with his daughter, Hildita (1960)

1960 Che finished his book "Guerra de guerrillas"("Guerrilla warefare"), published under the responsibilty of the Rebel Department's Instruction Deparment. Its first edition is censored all over Latin America. On July 26, during the First Latin America Youth Congress, Che defined the Cuban revolution as a marxist one. In October, he wrote "Nota para el estudio de la revolucion cubana" ("Notes for the studies about Cuba's revolution"), in which he reviewed the revolution's stages. From October 21 to Febrary 1961, he traveled to the socialist countries (in particular, to China, Czechoslovakia and the USSR) as part of a commercial delegation.

1961 On February 23, he was named Minister for Industry and he quit the National Bank's presidency. In April, he wrote "Cuba, caso excepcional o vanguardia en la lucha contra el imperialismo" ("Cuba exceptional case or avantgarde in struggle against imperialism"). On april 17, Playa Giron was invaded. Che was the commander of the military regions. August; Che represented Cuba in the CIES meeting in Punta del Este (Uruguay). He made a short trip to Buenos Aires and had a secret meeting with the Argentinian president, Arturo Frondizi. Then he traveled to Brasilia, where he was decorated by Brazil's president, J. Cuadros, with the Cruz del Sur order.

Speaking to the CTC  - (1962)

1962 October; The Russian rocket crisis obligates him to take his military place in Pinar del Rio.          

1963 June; Che sent Masetti and a group of Cubans to organize a guerrilla in the northern region of Argentina. He wrote "Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria" (Revolutionary war passages"). In December, he spoke in front of United Nations' Assembly and he refered to the armed struggle as the only way to realize socialism. He travelled to Mali, Guinea, Ghana, Dahomey and Tazania.

1964 March; he went to Peking. On march 25, he made a speech in Ginebra in the Global Conference of Commerce and Development. He continued traveling to Paris and Algeria, where he got in touch with Ben Bella. On November, he visited Moscow for the third time, On december 11, he made a speech and replied to the United Nations' General Assembly. On December 17, he left New York for Algeria via Canada. He met Ben Bella again, and on december 25, he travelled to Mali.

1965 January; he moved to Brazzaville, Congo, where he discussed the anti-imperialistic struggle in Africa with president Alphonse Massemba Debat. Then he went through Guinea, Ghana, Dahomey, Algiers and Paris, where he received the news about Masetti failure. In Febrary he travelled to Tanzania and he took part in the Second Afroasiatic Solidarity Economic Seminary, in Algiers. On march 3, he got in touch with Congo's rebels again. He made a secret trip to Peking. On march 12, "El socialismo y el hombre en Cuba" ("Socialism and man in Cuba") was published, in this book Che exposed his new man's theory. On march 14, he went back to La Habana. In april he gave up all his official positions and his Cuban nationality in front of Fidel Castro. In July, he secretly travelled to Congo through Cairo. On october 3, Fidel Castro showed the letter where Guevara had given up his nationality and his charges of Minister and Commander.

1966 March, he had to leave Congo and went back to Cuba. From March to June he travelled through Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and Bolivia.
         

1967 On March 23, the guerrilla defeated the Bolivian army in their first unexpected battle. On april 10, the guerrilla triunfed again. Regis Debray and the Argentinian Ciro Bustos left the camp. They were caught by the army on april 20 and so was the journalist George Roth. On May 14, the Bolivian forces took the Nancahuazú guerrilleros' camp which, just before,had been evacuated. On October 8, the battle in Quebrada de Yuro took place. The following day, the Bolivian goverment announced that Che had been executed. On October 15, Fidel Castro officially accepted Ernesto Che Guevara's death.

Che Guevara about astma

In April 1957, also during an asthma attack, Che clashed with soldiers under the command of Sanchez Mosquera. Running out of ammunition, he barely made his way to shelter. "Asthma at first took pity and allowed me to run a few metres, then it took its revenge: my heart thumped as if it were ready to leap out of my chest. Suddenly I heard the crunch of branches but by now I couldn't even force myself to run. But this time it was one of our new men, who had lost his way. Seeing me he said: 'Don't be afraid, commander, I'll die by your side!' The trouble was, I didn't want to die at all, I'd rather send him to the devil instead. I think that's what I did in fact.

That day it seemed to me that I was a coward.