Cuba - Lonely Planet [221]
Born in Rosario, Argentina, in June 1928 to a bourgeois family of Irish-Spanish descent, Guevara was a delicate and sickly child who developed asthma at the age of two. It was an early desire to overcome this debilitating illness that instilled in the young Ernesto a willpower that would dramatically set him apart from other men.
A pugnacious competitor in his youth, Ernesto earned the name ‘Fuser’ at school for his combative nature on the rugby field. Graduating from the University of Buenos Aires in 1953 with a medical degree, he shunned a conventional medical career in favor of a cross-continental motorcycling odyssey, accompanied by his old friend and colleague Alberto Granado. Their nomadic wanderings – well documented in a series of posthumously published diaries – would open Ernesto’s eyes to the grinding poverty and stark political injustices that were all too common in 1950s Latin America.
By the time Guevara arrived in Guatemala in 1954 on the eve of a US-backed coup against Jacobo Arbenz’ leftist government, he was enthusiastically devouring the works of Marx and nurturing a deep-rooted hatred of the US. Deported to Mexico for his pro-Arbenz activities in 1955, Guevara fell in with a group of Cubans that included Moncada veteran Raúl Castro. Impressed by the Argentine’s sharp intellect and never-failing political convictions, Raúl – a long-standing Communist party member himself – determined to introduce Che to his charismatic brother, Fidel.
The meeting between the two men at Maria Antonia’s house in Mexico City in June 1955 lasted 10 hours and ultimately changed the course of history. Rarely had two characters needed each other as much as the hot-headed Castro and the calmer and more ideologically polished Che. Both were favored children from large families who shunned the quiet life to fight courageously for a revolutionary cause. Similarly, both men had little to gain and much to throw away by abandoning professional careers for what most would have regarded as narrow-minded folly. ‘In a revolution one either wins or dies,’ wrote Guevara prophetically years later, ‘if it is a real one.’
In December 1956 Che left for Cuba on the Granma yacht, joining the rebels as the group medic. One of only 12 or so of the original 82 rebel soldiers to survive the catastrophic landing at Las Coloradas, he proved himself to be a brave and intrepid fighter who led by example and quickly won the trust of his less reckless Cuban comrades. As a result Castro rewarded him with the rank of Comandante in July 1957, and in December 1958 Che repaid Fidel’s faith when he masterminded the battle of Santa Clara, an action that effectively sealed a historic revolutionary victory.
Guevara was granted Cuban citizenship in February 1959 and soon assumed a leading role in Cuba’s economic reforms as president of the National Bank and minister of industry. His insatiable work ethic and regular appearance at enthusiastically organized volunteer worker weekends quickly saw him cast heroically as the living embodiment of Cuba’s New Man.
But the honeymoon wasn’t to last. Disappearing from the Cuban political scene in 1965, Guevara eventually materialized again in Bolivia in late 1966 at the head of a small band of Cuban guerrilleros. After the successful ambush of a Bolivian detachment in March 1967, he issued a call for ‘two, three, many Vietnams in the Americas.’ Such bold proclamations could only prove to be his undoing. On October 8, 1967, Guevara was captured by the Bolivian army, and after consultation with military leaders in La Paz and Washington DC, he was shot the next day in front of US advisors. His remains were eventually returned to Cuba in 1997 and reburied in Santa Clara.
* * *
CHURCHES
Santa Clara’s four main ecclesial buildings lie at compass points a few blocks from Parque Vidal. South of the center is the colonial-style Iglesia de la Santísima Madre del Buen Pastor (EP Morales No 4 btwn