I was appalled, even within the context of a book review, to read an uncritical and glowing assessment of Ernesto “Che” Guevara as a “secular saint” whose “ideas of social justice and democracy unite Latinos throughout the Americas” (HCN, 6/26/06: Nuestra America). High Country News has lost my sympathies forever.
If all you know of Guevara is an image plastered on T-shirts of sandbox revolutionaries, you need to get out more. Far from uniting Americans south of the border, Guevara — acting as Castro’s pawn — did his utmost to polarize the continent. His insurgencies in Argentina, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Haiti, Panama and the African Congo — all of which failed — set back development for decades and made a graveyard of Latin America. With friends like Guevara, “the people” don’t need enemies.
Alberto Enriquez
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Che Guevara was no saint.
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