Fidel Castro hails late comrade Che Guevara

( October, 08, Havana, Sri Lanka Guardian) Cuba's veteran communist leader Fidel Castro paid respect to his old comrade-in-arms, fellow revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, in an article on Monday marking the 40th anniversary of his death.

"I take a pause in the daily fight to bow my head with respect and thanks before the exceptional fighter who fell on October 8, 40 years ago," Castro wrote in an editorial in the Communist party's official newspaper Granma.

Castro, who in illness handed the reins to his brother Raul 14 months ago, thanked the Argentine-born Guevara "for what he tried to do, and could not, in the country of his birth, for he was like a flower torn up prematurely by the stem".

Che was to be honoured today with ceremonies in Cuba, where his myth was forged, and Bolivia, where he was executed 40 years ago while spreading the gospel of Marxist revolution.

The main ceremony will be headed by "a leader of the revolution", the daily Juventud Rebelde reported Sunday, without specifying if it would be the 81-year-old Fidel Castro, convalescing from stomach surgery, or Raul.

The doctor-turned-guerrilla leader Che took part in the Cuban revolution in 1958, and became a key member of the government formed by Castro after he toppled the former dictator Fulgencio Batista.

The Bolivian army and Cuban-American US Central Intelligence Agency agents captured an ill Guevara in Bolivia, where he was leading rebels trying to spread revolution, and executed him the next day, October 9, 1967. He was 39.

His remains were later transferred and buried in Cuba, his adoptive homeland.

Full Text of the Reflections of President Fidel Castro:

Che
I make a halt in my daily struggle to bow my head in respect and gratitude to the exceptional combatant who fell on October 8th, forty years ago; for the example he passed on to us as leader of his Rebel Army Column, which crossed the swampy grounds of the former provinces of Oriente and Camagüey while being chased by enemy troops. He was the liberator of the city of Santa Clara, and the creator of voluntary work; he accomplished honorable political missions abroad and served as a messenger of militant internationalism in eastern Congo and Bolivia; he built a new awareness in our America and the world.

I thank him for what he tried but was not able to do in his home country, because he was like a flower prematurely severed from its stem.

He left us his unmistakable style of writing — with elegance, brevity and veracity — every detail of whatever happened to cross his mind. He was a predestinate, but he didn’t know it. He still fights with us and for us.

Yesterday, we commemorated the 31st anniversary of the killing of the passengers and crew of a Cuban airliner that was blown up in mid-flight, and we are on the threshold of the tenth anniversary of the cruel and unjust imprisonment of the five Cuban anti-terrorist heroes. We likewise bow our heads to them all.

It was with great emotion that I watched and heard the commemoration ceremony on TV.

Agencies + Granma