Honor Che Guevara-Revolutionary Fighter- A Documentary Review

 

DVD REVIEW

SACRIFICIO-WHO BETRAYED CHE GUEVARA, A DOCUMENTARY, 2001

This year marks the 59^th anniversary of the Cuban July 26^th movement, the 53rd anniversary of the Cuban Revolution and the 45^th anniversary of the execution of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara by the Bolivian Army after the defeat of his guerilla forces and his capture in godforsaken rural Bolivia. Thus, it would seem fitting to review a documentary concerning the life of a man who stood for my generation, the Generation of ‘68, and for later generations as an icon of revolutionary intransigence.

That is what I would like to do but this hour long documentary left me with more questions than it answered. Mainly I asked myself why, at this far remove from the events, it is necessary to find scapegoats or heroes around Che’s capture. Sure, we always search for historical accuracy where we can. And we know that history can be a terrible taskmaster. However, I am not convinced that the supposed victim here Ciro Busto, one of Che’s subordinates, who has been named in some historical accounts as the man who tipped the Bolivian authorities to Che’s presence in Bolivia, has made his case. Nor, for that matter, has the other subject of this research Regis Debray, although he seems to have won the historical argument. Moreover, it is entirely possible that others could have betrayed his presence, including local peasants, or that rather than betrayal it was a question or erroneous judgments. That is my position. In any case, both Ciro and Debray were tried and received 30 year sentences and after an international campaign served three years.  Furthermore, all I know is that with the death of Che a real revolutionary fighter went down. The only winner here was the American government and its various agents.

A word on a couple of the people interviewed here. One Felix Rodriquez of Bay of Pigs, Watergate and Iran Contra fame, a notorious soldier of fortune gets to put his two cents worth in since he was in on the capture of Che. Mark this- this is the rank and file face of the enemy of the peoples of the world and believe what he has to say at your peril. The second is Debray himself. Whatever his mistakes that led  to Che’s capture and I believe  that they were, if anything errors of judgment, in Bolivia he is now a  case study in the demise of revolutionary integrity that swamped the Generation of ’68 once the revolutionary wave ebbed. Debray was no mere maverick leftist journalist but essentially Fidel’s man in Europe. For those with short memories, or who were not alive then, Debray authored a book called “Revolution Within the Revolution,” a book that debunked the traditional Marxist notions of the centrality of the urban working class as the focal point of revolution and touted the ‘purity’ of the guerilla strategy as the way forward toward socialism. Of course this petty bourgeois professorial ‘philosopher’ now has political amnesia on that subject. Unfortunately, many a Latin American youth would up dead or in prison trying to fight for that perspective. Honor their sacrifice. No honor to Debray from these quarters.  

The Legend Of Ernesto “Che” Guevara- The Heroic Guerrilla Face

DVD Review

This year is the 59th Anniversary of the July 26th Movement, the 53rd Anniversary of the Cuban revolution and the 45th anniversary of the death of Ernesto, “Che”, Guevara. Defend The Cuban Revolution


Che, starring Eduardo Noriega, 2006


On more than one occasion I have mentioned that “Che” Guevara, as icon and legend, despite his left Stalinist politics (at best) and the political gulf that separated him from those who fought, and fight, under the banner of Leon Trotsky and the Fourth International, was, and is, a justifiably appealing revolutionary militant for the world’s youth to consider. A number of films have come out over the years that portray one or another aspect of the “Che” personality. Here the central thrust of the film is the creation of “Che” as a revolutionary cadre in the guerilla warfare movement that dominated much of the political action of the 1960s, in the wake of the success and survival of the Cuban revolution in the face of American Yankee imperialism.

This little film, really a docu-drama since there is an abundance of black and white newsreel film footage to set the story line throughout most of the 1950s, goes, up close and personal, into the transformation of the Argentine free spirit and free booter pre-“Che” of the “Motorcycle Chronicles” period into a commandant of the Second Front in the Fidel and Raul Castro-led rural insurgence against the hated dictator (except in Miami) Batista.

In that sense it almost does not work. Eduardo Noriega is “Che” in his mannerisms, his good and manly looks and in his earnestness (no pun intended) to free the Americas of the Yankee beast. However, the situation gets saved when “Che” gets to show more aspects of his personality when he is being interviewed by an American reporter in the post-victory period. And also by his determination to end up where he started, as a guerrilla fighter extraordinaire fighting against the world’s injustices.

That, my friends, today is refreshingly appealing. That said, though “Che” deserved a better fate that to be caught out in the bush in Bolivia. And here is where the irony (and the political differences) comes in. What the hell was he doing in the Bolivian bush, of all places in Bolivia when they was a working class (mainly miners) who had a history of extreme militancy and readiness to do class battles against the state (and have since then). “Che”, mainly deserves his status as icon, in some sense, but a whole generation of militants in Latin America and elsewhere got torn up based on this wrong strategic assumption.