Obama displays "gringo" imperialism" South of the Border"

Obama displays "gringo" imperialism "South of the Border"

by Wayne Madsen
President Obama is displaying typical American "gringo" imperialism during his attendance at the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) summit in Jamaica and the Summit of the Americas in Panama. In both cases, Obama has in tow Canada's arch-neocon prime minister Stephen Harper, the only other Western Hemisphere leader who has supported Obama's antagonistic attitude toward Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Brazil, and other countries in the region.

While Obama has displayed diplomatic courage on Iran in facing down Israeli and American critics, as well as members of the U.S. Congress funded by large campaign donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), he still remains in the clutches of right-wing Latin American billionaires and millionaires, whose interests are overseen by the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson. Jacobson, who displays the same undiplomatic traits as her gruff counterpart for European affairs Victoria Nuland, has managed to infuriate a number of progressive Latin American leaders.

The main issue for Jacobson is that many wealthy opponents of the governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, and Nicaragua live in exile in Florida, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Israel, and Panama and Jacobson sees it as her mission to ensure that these oligarchs return to their positions of control in their home countries. In some cases, a few of the most deep-pocketed AIPAC supporters are also among the ranks of Latin America's wealthiest right-wing business tycoons. Among the most noted opponents of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the current president, Nicolas Maduro, is the family of Venezuelan shopping mall magnate Salomon Cohen Levy. A number of Venezuelan Cohens, who consider themselves "cohanim" [Jewish priests], publicly damned Chavez when he was president for condemning the State of Israel's policies toward the Palestinians. The cohanim prayed that something bad would happen to Chavez in return. Chavez died in 2013 after contracting pelvic cancer. Many Venezuelan Jews claim that Chavez's death was caused by their God's vengeance that was brought down on the Venezuelan leader for his "insolence."

However, in preparation for the two summits in Jamaica and Panama, Jacobson walked back the U.S. policy that Venezuela posed a "threat" to U.S. national security. That statement, contained in a U.S. sanctions order against seven senior Venezuelan official, causes a tremendous backlash from Latin America, including from normally pro-U.S. Mexico and Colombia. Jacobson now insists the "national security threat" statement was merely a pro forma statement contained in all sanctions orders and not intended to mean that Venezuela posed some sort of existential threat to the United States.

Obama will be at the Jamaica and Panama summits with Suriname's leftist president Desi Bouterse, who son, Dino Bouterse, was indicted and imprisoned in New York after being kidnapped in Panama in 2013. Desi Bouterse is currently serving as the rotating chairman of CARICOM.

In a gross display of yanqui hubris, the younger Bouterse was accused of trying to assist Lebanon's Hezbollah, a valid political party, in establishing a base in Suriname. The U.S. ambassador to Suriname, Jay Anania, has been caught providing material assistance to Bouterse's political enemies in the country. The always-dubious U.S. attorney for Manhattan, Preet Bharara, sought and received a 16-year prison sentence for Bouterse. One could imagine the tenseness of such an Obama-Bouterse encounter if the tables were turned and Bouterse's government held Malia Obama, the president's oldest daughter, in a Surinamese prison for a 16-year sentence based on bogus drug charges. Obama's hostile attitude toward Suriname arises from the Israeli government influence and Jerusalem's two main influence peddlers within the White House Latin America policy apparatus, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes and Jacobson.

Obama will be meeting in Panama City with Cuban "human rights" activists attending the Summit of the Americas "civil society" forums. "Civil society" is a term used by George Soros-funded organizations to describe their interference in the domestic affairs of nations opposed to U.S. policies.

Former Central Intelligence Agency officer and assassin Felix Rodriguez, the man who led the team that assassinated Cuban revolutionary leader Ché Guevara in 1967, will be attending the civil society forums in Panama alongside the Cuban human rights activists. Cuba's official delegation has demanded that Rodriguez be expelled from the forums. Cuba's government has condemned the presence at the summit of "well known mercenaries."

CIA agent Felix Rodriques [left] with captured Cuban revolutionary leader Ché Guevara [right] in Bolivia in 1967 moments before Rodriguez led the firing squad that assassinated Guevara. Rodriguez will be the guest of honor at "civil society" forums organized by the George Soros and Roberta Jacobson crowd in tandem with the Summit of the Americas in Panama.

“well known” and paid “mercenaries”

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address:
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well known” and paid “mercenaries”

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/UPDATED-Che-Guevara-Murderer-Attending-Summit-of-the-Americas-20150408-0010.html. If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english

The "civil society" activities are a personal project of Jacobson, who has also been agitating in Cuba among that nation's Jewish community. US Agency for International Development (USAID) contractor Alan Gross was imprisoned for espionage by Cuba for covertly installing computer and communications networks for Cuba's Jewish community. His release came amid the thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations.

Obama's bellicose Latin American foreign policy has been largely crafted by Jacobson and General John F. Kelly, the commander of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), which is based in Miami where senior SOUTHCOM officers often conspire with the exiled right-wing oligarchs to formulate coups and street disturbances in their home countries.


Obama will have to deal with Suriname's president Desi Bouterse, whose son Dino [above in courtroom sketch] has been incarcerated in a U.S. prison for 16 years in a political trial over alleged Hezbollah influence in Suriname staged by the Israeli-influenced Southern District of New York court and U.S. Attorney's Office.

True to form, Obama will focus on military and security issues at CARICOM in Jamaica. Obama is pushing a meme that the Caribbean is a source for Islamist radicals traveling to the Middle East to fight for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Just as with the fear-mongering over Hezbollah that landed Dino Bouterse in a U.S. prison, Obama's concentration on the ISIL threat in the Caribbean is baseless and intended on moving the Caribbean nations away from their dependence on Venezuela's PETROCARIBE discount oil supply operations and contracting for more expensive U.S. energy exports. General Kelly has also beat the drum on ISIL, claiming that Caribbean "sleeper cell" recruits, who make their money from illegal narcotics smuggling, have gone to the Middle East from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname. Kelly's, Jacobson's, and Obama's imaginary "Made in Hollywood" Caribbean-ISIL villain seems to have conveniently originated with Miami's influential Latin American Jewish and Israeli fear mongers.

JUNE 14: CHE’S 80TH BIRTHDAY - "Happy Birthday Comandante!"

JUNE 14: CHE'S 80TH BIRTHDAY
A brief personal look at Che Guevara

By Monsignor CARLOS MANUEL DE CÉSPEDES GARCÍA-MENOCAL

IT was Pope John Paul II's custom to travel accompanied by journalists who would report later on the trip. During the flight, at some point the Pope would go to the cabin where the journalists were and talk with them for a while. Usually, they asked him not just about that particular trip, but whatever else, human and divine, that interested them at the time. The anecdote that I am going to recount is about a trip to Africa — John Paul II made several to that continent — around the late 1980s or early 90s. By that time, there was speculation about a possible visit to Cuba by John Paul II. It materialized in January 1998. In a newspaper or magazine of the time, I read the following, which I am now trying to reconstruct from memory:

In the airplane cabin, they had already discussed the decolonization of African countries, developments that were still relatively recent. If that issue was brought up, it was almost impossible to avoid referring in some way to Cuba and to Che, one of the leading figures in that process. The question was a direct one: "What does Your Holiness think about Che?" According to the article I read at the time, the Pope reflected in silence for a few seconds then broke it by saying, with enlightening simplicity, "I don't know him intimately, but I know he was concerned about the poor. Therefore, he deserves my respect." I realize that John Paul II's opinion led me to a more just consideration of Che. When judging a person's deeds, we should not avoid motivations that he or she had in doing them, in taking a certain attitude toward life. Che is no exception. The excesses that he may have committed in the framework of that "concern" is one thing; what men or groups do for the unjust reasons of selfishness and unbridled ambition is another, of a very different nature.

Like most Cubans, my first solid references to Che came with the beginning of the guerrilla struggle in the Sierra Maestra, after the landing of the Granma; in other words, in early December 1956. I was enrolled in the Havana Seminary and the disciplinary nature of that institution — now diverse — made it hard for us to obtain information about the political situation or practically anything else that was happening in our country or the world. Fortunately, I kept in frequent contact not only with my family, but with my friends, including university classmates. Che turned out to be the most enigmatic of the leaders of that process. We knew the Cubans; we were getting to know Che.

All the references coincide in affirming his almost rash daring in face of danger, as well as his spirit of discipline. We learned that he was a doctor, and stories circulated about his trip around Latin America, his presence in the Guatemala of Arbenz, his meeting-up with Raúl and Fidel in Mexico, etc. Almost everyone also valued, since that time, the consistency between his convictions and his actions in life. People also said that he was a voracious reader of good literature, with a notable preference for books on philosophy, and for classic authors, not just the Spaniards, but the Greeks and Latin, which I liked very much. He was said to have a Marxist-oriented political culture, which for many Cubans of the time was an obstacle to regarding him positively. I admit that for me, that was not so much the case, because although I disagreed with his lack of a metaphysical philosophy and with his denial of the limits Marxism, I sympathized with the emphasis on socialism. Obviously, Marxism was not, and is not, my philosophical/political orientation, but then neither was, or is, anti-communism, more visceral than rational. While some people saw him distrustfully as a foreigner, since back then, some of my friends, and I personally, related his presence within the Cuban Revolution with that of many other foreigners who collaborated with our 19th century independence movements, above all with that of Máximo Gomez. The Dominican generalissimo, as we well know, is an integral part of Cuba's patriotic and internationalist pantheon.

As we headed toward the revolutionary victory, and the final stage in Villa Clara of the guerilla struggle, the anecdotes about Che naturally multiplied. And so did the questions that I had about him. Together with the positive data, I saw what seemed to be a radical, avenging attitude, hard and cold, in response to human weakness and error; an attitude that has never seemed positive to me when I discover it in those around me, or in people who I come across in my studies of history. The early months of the revolutionary government, with Che installed in Havana, seemed to confirm, in my eyes, the excesses of that avenging spirit, both in Che and in most of the Revolution's historical leaders. Che's speeches and writings in that period were along the same lines.

However, my admiration also increased in face of his existential and intellectual consistency, as well as his social sensitivity. Some of my friends, personal friends, became close collaborators of Che during that time. They were a precious source of information about the richness and nuances of his temperament. We could not limit him to his words. Not him or anybody. And with that difficult sort of contradiction in my approach to Che, we arrive at his final stage, with first-hand knowledge of it through his Bolivian campaign "diary."

Unfortunately, I never came into contact with him. For a good part of the time he spent in Cuba, I was living and studying in Rome (August 1959 to August 1963). Che disappeared from Cuba — Africa, Bolivia and death by murder — without me having been able to fill the vacuum of not having had the contact that is almost indispensable to really knowing and properly appreciating someone.

Then came the years of enthusiasm about Che, inside and outside of Cuba, even among people and groups which distanced themselves from the Cuban revolutionary process. Years of growth, almost mythological, of his image, the one in memory and the one in iconography, with the latter centered on Korda's photograph. Let us remember May 1968 in Paris, and everything that has happened since, in relation — direct or not — to that unrepeatable month. Years, too, with the appearance of essays and biographies. Impossible to have access to so many works. On more than one occasion, I asked for guidance on the matter from Manuel Piñeiro, with whom I had a very good friendship, never damaged by dubious disagreements. For my part, well, they have been the years of the development of Che's image.

Now Evocación. Mi vida al lado del Che (Evocation. My Life with Che), the one-of-a-kind book by Aleida March, Che's wife and sentimental companion during his years in Cuba, the definitive and defining ones. She is the only one who could watch over the presence of those traits from his private life and testify to them now, from the distance of more than 40 years on, in her simple prose, like that of someone in an informal conversation. Just as they must have been recounted to her children, who had no better bridge to Che than Aleida, their mother. Now we have had the good fortune to have access to that testimonial, to take a look at these realities that cannot be grasped except in this manner, that of the testimony of his wife and the mother of his children. A complementary manner that is a must for those of us who want to "know" Che completely. To know him through and through, to the very fibers of his heart; to know him at that level of human being where so many small, everyday realities are decided, like those of social and visible importance, a level where errors and virtues, positive aspects and not so positive ones emerge, are decided and begin to be discerned.

All roads now merge for me in the comment by John Paul II quoted at the beginning of this reflection. Almost everything about Che should be contemplated in the light of his consistent and radical actions in defense of the poor; of his passion for what we used to call "social justice." So consistent and radical was his passion, so razor-sharp, that it led him to make the offering of his own life. And when an upright man goes to those extremes, the disagreements with him acquire another tone, because such a man deserves not only respect, but deep admiration.

Havana, May 27, 2008 (Taken from the website Che80)

CHE IN 1959 BY GABRIEL MOLINA

Havana. June 13, 2008

CHE IN 1959

• From 1959, the heroic guerrilla became one of the central leaders of the revolutionary process as a result of his proven determination, versatility and abilities and because of the dynamic of the tremendous events resulting from the aggression against Cuba • Héctor Rodríguez Lompart recalls Fidel Castro's strategy for combating the blockade that is now more than 45 years old, and the role played by Che, who would have been 80 years old on June 14

BY GABRIEL MOLINA

• THE Cuban Revolution has always been forced to defend itself from the hostility of the U.S. government, as far back as the days of the Sierra Maestra.

As early as March of '59, just three months after the triumph of the armed struggle, then-Vice President Richard Nixon left a meeting he had held with Fidel in Washington and convinced President Eisenhower that action had to be taken to overthrow him.

That same year, the United States persuaded the British government to cancel a sale of Hunter fighter planes to Cuba. In the opinion of the U.S. authorities, those aircraft would have posed a problem for the invasion it was preparing, and which was carried out in April 1961 in the Bay of Pigs. With the same goal, the French ship La Coubre was blown up in February 1960 as munitions were being unloaded on Havana's docks. Dozens of Cubans and French citizens were killed in that terrorist act, attributed in Cuba to the CIA. Simultaneously, Washington prevented a consortium of Western European banks from approving a loan to Cuba of $100 million.

Sometimes the revolutionary government adopted the tactic of retaliating to economic blows. On June 6, when the Standard Oil, Texaco and Royal Dutch Shell oil companies refused, under U.S. government orders, to refine oil that Cuba had bought from the Soviet Union, the Cuban government did not hesitate to take over the refineries less than one month later. The sparring continued with the boycott that the Eisenhower administration promoted among oil exporters and shipping companies.

Cuba responded by nationalizing its refineries on August 6.

Che Guevara participated in all of those events and the corresponding decisions, not just as a combatant and politician, but as an economist, or better said, a strategist of the economy together with Fidel, a function for which he is not so well known.

Beginning with Che's first official civilian responsibility as director of industries for the Institute of Agrarian Reform, and also as president of the National Bank as of November of '60, and minister of industries as of 1962, it was his duty to act principally in the economy, to implement the line of diversification that the Revolution had charted both in production and international trade. An exceptional witness to the trajectory of Commander Guevara is Hector Rodríguez Llompart, who met Che in the La Cabaña fortress — where Commander Guevara was the military chief — in early 1959. Llompart was the municipal commissioner of Regla, and visited him together with Captain Miguel Angel Duque de Estrada, who was in charge of the Revolutionary Courts. Here are some of his valuable memories and assessments.

How do you remember those first days of the aggression?

--Aggressions of all types by the U.S. government against Cuba began very early on.

The armed aggression against the island's production centers, terrorist attacks and armed threats were answered by the Revolution by the improved organization of its military and security apparatuses, acquiring weapons, and creating the National Revolutionary Militias, Committees for Defense of the Revolution, etc.

The support and determination of our people to fight for victory under the slogan of 'Homeland or Death' made the political trenches impregnable.

The plans for economic aggression were more surreptitious, but just as dangerous

How did Che participate in the fight against those plans?

—The almost total dependence on the U.S. market and our economic ties of 50-plus years with the former colonial power made the situation of our open economy even more complicated.

It was essential to find other markets for the sale of our products, as well as for imported goods.

In late 1959, a Soviet exposition was set to take place in Mexico, and the Soviet delegation was being led by then-Deputy Prime Minister Anastas Mikoyan.

At that time, I was an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and it was precisely Commander Guevara who told me that I should go to Mexico to officially invite Mikoyan to bring the Soviet exposition to Havana, and for him to personally lead, if possible, the Soviet mission.

As one personal anecdote, I remember how the newspapers announced Che's visit; the day I arrived in Mexico, there were many reporters and photographers at the airport. The newspaper El Universal reported the news that day under the headline: "They were expecting a bearded one, and a smooth-cheeked one arrived."

After a number of setbacks related to an ecclesiastical congress that was taking place in Cuba at the time, the visit was proposed, and finally happened in February 1960.

The Cuban delegation led by Commander Guevara and the Soviet one held a number of talks about the need to place our sugar sales in the USSR [market], in the face of the imminent suspension of purchases by the United States.
A trade agreement and another on credit were finally signed on February 13, 1960 by the Commander-in-Chief [Fidel Castro] and Anastas Mikoyan.

At that time, the USSR promised to buy 5 million tons of Cuban unrefined sugar over five years, and granted us a credit of $100 million, to be repaid over 12 years with 2.5% interest.

At the UN Conference on Trade and Development on March 25, 1964, speaking in the name of our government, Commander Guevara summed up that first period as follows: "Subsequently, this aggression was characterized by measures aimed at paralyzing the Cuban economy. The idea was to deprive Cuba, in mid-1960, of the fuel it needed for the operation of its industries, transportation and electric power plants. Under pressure from the State Department, independent U.S. oil companies refused to sell oil to Cuba or to make their tanker ships available for its transport. Shortly afterward, an attempt was made to deprive the island of the necessary hard currency for foreign trade. On July 6, 1960, then-President Eisenhower cut Cuba's sugar quota to the United States to 700,000 tons, totally eliminating that quota on March 31, 1961, a few days after the announced Alliance for Progress and days before the Bay of Pigs invasion. There was an attempt to shut down Cuba's industry, by depriving it of raw materials and spare parts for its machines and, to that end, on October 19, 1960, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a resolution prohibiting the shipment of numerous products to our island. That ban on trade with Cuba became greater, until on February 3, 1962, then-President Kennedy declared a complete embargo on U.S. trade with Cuba."

Having failed in all of its aggression, the United States moved to implement an economic blockade against our country, aimed at preventing other countries from trading with us. First of all, on January 24, 1962, the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it was prohibiting entry into the United States of any product made, wholly or in part, with Cuban products, even if they were manufactured in another country. In another step signifying the establishment of a virtual economic blockade, on February 6, 1963, the White House issued a press release announcing that merchandise bought with U.S. government money would not be loaded on to ships with foreign flags that had engaged in trade with Cuba after January 1st of that year. That was how the blacklist began, which is now applied to more than 150 ships from countries who did not bow down to the illegal U.S. blockade. And in another step, to hinder trade with Cuba, on July 8, 1963, the U.S. Treasury Department froze all Cuban assets in U.S. territory and prohibited all transfers of money to and from Cuba, as well as any other transaction in dollars via third countries.
What were the objectives of that tour?

—The decision to deprive us of fuel, suspend purchases of Cuban sugar and other economic aggression had already materialized by October 1960, when, as deputy secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I received a telephone call from Jaime Barrios, who worked with Che, informing me that in the coming days I should join a delegation that would be led by Che and would visit all of the socialist countries. At that time, Che was already talking to us quite a lot about the need to build relations with those countries.

Later, I would learn more details about our mission; the primary objective of diversifying our trade by placing most of our sugar production in those markets and replacing the majority of our imports with products from those places.

Once in the USSR, an emergency meeting took place in Moscow that included almost all of the foreign ministers of the socialist countries. In the meeting, Commander Guevara explained the serious situation facing the Cuban Revolution given the imperialist aggression, and as the main theme, the need to place four million tons of sugar in those markets, at a price of four cents per pound. This price was higher than the rate on the New York Stock Exchange at the time.

He also said it was necessary for Cuba to buy its essential products from those countries.

You should remember that at the time, Cuba did not yet have a Ministry of Foreign Trade, and we had very little information, and even less experience, in that area. All we had were solid political arguments and a letter signed by our prime minister, Commander Fidel Castro, which had the abovementioned request, and its bearer was Commander Guevara.

What were the agreements reached?

—As a result of those negotiations, the USSR promised to buy 2.7 million tons of sugar; China, one million tons; and the other socialist countries, 300,000 tons.

In addition, Korea, Vietnam and Mongolia bought symbolic quantities as an expression of support and solidarity with the socialist countries.
In Moscow, a multilateral agreement on payments was also signed.

With the goal of reaching trade agreements that included lists of the products to be bought and sold, payment agreements and credit agreements, the delegation led by Che also visited Czechoslovakia, China, Korea and the Federal Republic of Germany.

During his stay in China, and to save time, Che decided that he would visit the Democratic Republic of Korea, and had me lead a small group to Vietnam and Mongolia, countries with which we also established diplomatic relations at the time.

At the end of his stay in Berlin, Che had to return to Cuba, informing us that he would make a short stop in Budapest and that the delegation I was leading from then on should travel to Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania.

Was there already talk of the need to change Cuba's trade structure?

—After arriving in Cuba, Commander Guevara appeared on television on January 6, 1961, to report on the signing of the agreements with the socialist countries:

"It was an extremely difficult task, a difficult task, because we have had to change the structure of our trade in just a few months. From the end of 1959, exactly one year ago, Cuba has passed from being a country with a totally colonial structure, with domestic and foreign trade systems completely dominated by the large import companies dependent on monopoly capital, to being — in 10 months, as of October, when the cycle definitively ends — a country where the state holds a complete monopoly over foreign trade, and also a large part of domestic trade."

He also referred to additional difficulties that we were facing, given that in those countries, the decimal metric system was used, while we continued to use the colonial practice of weighing in pounds and measuring in yards, with different systems for measuring pressure or a simple pipe fitting.

Electrical equipment in Cuba uses 60 cycles, while in the socialist countries, it was 50 cycles per second.
In short, we were facing all types of difficulties, but with the determination to overcome them and triumph over them in face of the dilemma created for us by the imperialist aggression.

Interesting anecdotes emerged out of these initial experiences.

For example, in China, when evaluating the list of products to be traded, there was a difference of $3 million favoring the Chinese side.

Before signing the final protocol, the Chinese prime minister at the time, Chou En-lai, told Che that China should not appear to be receiving more in products than what it was exporting to Cuba.

So it was decided to have a line of $3 million in arts and crafts exports, given that at the time, we could not find any other products that met our needs.

It was out of that protocol contingent of Chinese arts and crafts that lots of stories circulated in Havana about the large volume of Chinese walking sticks and umbrellas being sold in our stores.

Actually, the Chinese sent us valuable craftwork that I am sure exceeded the value previously mentioned.

I always believed that neither they nor we really valued those wonderful things.

On the contrary, certain foreigners who were living in Cuba temporarily did take advantage of the situation, enriching themselves through the illegal sale of those art treasures.

Another source of anecdotes and jokes was the snow removers. I think that these actually had a basis in truth, in machines that were the same or similar and were purchased to be tried out in our mining industry.

I will never forget the look of amazement on the face of the Soviet translator who, in reading the list of things we needed, did not know what to say when a typing error led him to read the need for thousands of "monkey lips" (bembas de mono) instead of "hand pumps" (bombas de mano).

We joked amongst ourselves about the decision by Commander Guevara to buy all the canned meat we could, and also all the machine tools that we could.
A few months later, we would realize how correct those decisions were, when, mobilized to occupy trenches or as a volunteer in cutting sugar cane, I thought the Russian meat tasted glorious, after having made so many faces when we first tried the samples they had given us.

We had the same internal satisfaction of knowing that the problem created by the blockade of a shortage of spare parts could be solved through the machine tools we had bought, which a comrade on the delegation had commented on by going so far as to say that on the next King's Day, we would have to do propaganda among the country's parents so they would give each child the present of a machine tool.

Personally, I have unforgettable memories of those days together with a man as peerless as Che.

I had the opportunity to meet prominent individuals like Mao Zedong and Chou En-lai, Nikita Krushchev, Walter Ulbricht, Pham Van Dong and other outstanding leaders of the socialist camp.

But it is with special affection and admiration that I remember one agreeable and helpful young woman who helped us as a German translator in the FRG, Tamara Bunke Bider, who years later would go down in history as Tania the guerrilla fighter.

On February 23, 1961, the Ministry of Foreign Trade was created, with Alberto Mora appointed as its minister.

What problems were created by those changes in foreign trade, and what role in did Commander Guevara play in resolving them?

— Some time after returning from the trip to the socialist countries, I was appointed deputy minister of foreign trade.

During those early years of organizing and readapting our foreign trade, and despite having multiple responsibilities, Commander Guevara played an exceptional role in attending to and developing it.

During those years, Che referred publicly to foreign trade activity, sometimes to refute those who, like the [newspaper] Diario de la Marina, maliciously criticized the first agreements with the Soviet Union. He did that during a talk he gave at the University of Havana on March 2, 1960, and days later, on March 20, 1960, as part of the inaugural lecture of the TV program "The People's University."
He also referred to the main difficulties we were facing at the time in taking on these tasks, such as during the speech he gave at a planning seminar in Algeria on July 13, 1963, where he said:

"Our foreign trade had changed completely in location. From 75% with the United States, it went to 75-80% with the socialist countries. A beneficial change for us in every respect, political and social, but in the economic respect, it required a large amount of organization.

Hundreds of specialized importers used to make their requests to the United States by telephone, and the next day they would arrive by ferry, direct from Miami to Havana. There were no warehouses or foresight of any kind.

That whole apparatus, without those technicians, enemies of the government, had to be established in what was first the Foreign Trade Bank of Cuba and later the Ministry of Foreign Trade, and centralize all of these purchases there with inexperienced people, to do them now, not one day away by telephone, but two months away, in long talks. And at the same time, raw materials that had a different name. And even more: if you all go today to a factory in this country and want to know what kind of steel is used for a given spare part, you will find that it has a number in a catalog, the SKF-27, for example. The SKF-27 in that company's sales catalog corresponds to a particular component; how could that be requested in the socialist countries? We had to do analyses of steel, sometimes machine fabricate one or two particular parts. Almost impossible. We had to import the machines here in Cuba, with a shortage of highly-qualified technicians."

Those were Cuba's everyday problems — and still are.

Was he pleased with the course of those trade relations?

— Che foresaw and warned of the difficulties and obstacles that, in our own experience of trade relations with certain socialist countries, led to the latter following capitalist patterns in the conduct of their relations with underdeveloped countries.
So, in a speech he gave in Algiers on February 24, 1965, at the second Afro-Asian Economic Solidarity Seminar, he said:

"Socialism cannot exist unless there is a change in people's consciousness, creating a new, fraternal attitude toward humanity, both individually, within the society in which socialism is being or has been built, and in relation to the world, with respect to all of the nations that suffer imperialist oppression." •

1. Jaime Barrios, a Chilean, was killed on September 11, 1973 at La Moneda Palace.

A MEETING WITH CHE GUEVARA by K Gajendra Singh

Che Guevara ;"an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom"
–Nelson Mandela.

Che Guevara is "not only an intellectual but also the most complete human being of our age"
—Jean-Paul Sartre.

"The first thing to note is that in my son's veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels, the Spanish conquistadores and the Argentinean patriots. Evidently Che inherited some of the features of our restless ancestors. There was something in his nature which drew him to distant wanderings, dangerous adventures and new ideas. "
— Ernesto Guevara Lynch, Che's Father

1965 was a very eventful year in Algeria. Jammu and Kashmir leader Sheikh Abdullah , who had been released from prison in India ,under the pretext of seeing Algerian Revolutionary leader and President Ben Bella turned up in Algiers and met with Chinese Prime Minister Chou en Lai , also visiting Algeria .Soon after, President Ben Bella himself, residing at the Peoples Palace , just across my flat on Rue Franklin Roosevelt ,was overthrown in a peaceful coup d'etat by Houari Boumeddienne ,the military chief of the Algerian Liberation Army . Twice, preparatory meetings for the Second Afro Asian Summit failed to agree on an agenda or the date or even the venue.

But it is the 80th anniversary of Che Guevara's birth on 14 June and the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution which Che helped plan and execute with Fidel Castro , which brought back memories of the visit to Algeria of that legendry revolutionary icon of 1960s and beyond.

Having won its independence from France three years earlier after a bloody 8 year long guerilla war , in which a million Algerians out of eleven million population were sacrificed ,Algeria was then at the forefront of struggle against colonialism and imperialism. Its capital Algiers was a thriving hub for freedom movements and revolutionary groups from all over Africa, Asia and elsewhere. Every week there were seminars, meetings and summits for Arab, Afro-Asian and Third World solidarity and struggle. It was for one such seminar in February 1965 that Che Guevara himself , then Minister of Industry in the Cuban government turned up He was indisputably the dazzling star of the show. After the meeting people queued up to shake his hand and so did I , then posted as a young diplomat at Algiers . I said hello and perhaps added how are you. It was like getting an autograph of a celebrity.

With only a few years into the diplomatic service after an engineering degree from Banaras I was still reading up on history and international relations and was not fully cognizant of the Che Guevara phenomenon and his revolutionary past . But the man had a charismatic presence in green olive fatigues and black beret at a rakish angle. The very best of the Hollywood and Bollywood stars all rolled into one ; say our Ajit, Raj Kumar, Dharmendra ,Errol Flynn et al. Later when I recounted my meeting and shaking hands with Che, many students ,leftists and ladies would shake my hand to partake some of that revolutionary 'barkat' which might still be lingering in my fingers.

Later I learnt more about Che ( so nicknamed because of his constant use of Che - dear) , his full name being Ernesto Guevara de la Serna .Born in 1928 in a well educated middle class Argentine family , he was the eldest of five siblings . He played excellent chess as a child and was an aggressive rugby player. During adolescence and later he remained passionate about poetry, especially that of Neruda, Keats , Machado, Lorea, Mistral ,Vallejo and Whitman ,He could also recite Kipling and Hernandez from memory. A home library of more than 3,000 books, allowed him to be an enthusiastic and eclectic reader of philosophers and poets , even writings of Jawahar Lal Nehru (with whom Che had lunch during the visit to New Delhi ), apart from Marxist and existentialist writers.

He had a brilliant medical academic career and was an exceptional athlete in spite of asthma. But his motorcycle trips across Latin America , where he encountered American imperialism at first hand changed his vision of the world. A bloody revolution was necessary to throw out capitalism and imperialism.

"After graduation, due to special circumstances and perhaps also to my character, I began to travel throughout America, and I became acquainted with all of it. Except for Haiti and Santo Domingo, I have visited, to some extent, all the other Latin American countries. Because of the circumstances in which I traveled, first as a student and later as a doctor, I came into close contact with poverty , hunger and disease; with the inability to treat a child because of lack of money; with the stupefaction provoked by the continual hunger and punishment, to the point that a father can accept the loss of a son as an unimportant accident, as occurs often in the downtrodden classes of our American homeland. And I began to realize at that time that there were things that were almost as important to me as becoming famous for making a significant contribution to medical science: I wanted to help those people." --- Che Guevara in 1960.

After finishing his medical studies , he reached Guatemala in December 1953, where President Jacob Arbenz Guzman heading a democratically elected government, through land reforms and other measures, was attempting to improve the condition of the peasants. Che wanted to settle down in Guatemala ,but for the overthrow of the Arbenz government by Washington which confirmed Guevara's view that USA as an imperialist power would oppose and attempt to destroy any regime that sought to redress the socio-economic inequality endemic to Latin America and other developing countries. This strengthened his conviction that Marxism achieved through armed struggle and defended by an armed populace was the only way to rectify such a condition.

Che then shifted to Mexico city in September 1954, and renewed his friendship with the Cuban exiles he had known in Guatemala. In June 1955, he met with Raul Castro and later his older brother, Fidel Castro . the revolutionary leader who was planning to overthrow the dictatorship of US backed Fulgencio Batista in what became hallowed as the Cuban Revolution. Guevara recognized at once that Castro was the cause for which he had been searching for. He joined Castro and was promoted as Commander in Castro's 26 July Movement, playing a pivotal role in the successful guerrilla campaign to overthrow the Batista . After Castro's army rolled victoriously into Havana the revolutionary government in February, 1969 proclaimed Guevara "a Cuban citizen by birth" in recognition of his role in the triumph.

After the revolution Che served in many prominent governmental positions, including as president of the national bank, minister of industry, and "supreme prosecutor" over the revolutionary tribunals and executions of suspected war criminals from the previous regime. He also went traversing around the globe to meet with an array of world leaders to explain and promote the Cuban socialism .Che was a prolific writer and diarist. One of his most prominent published works includes a manual on the theory and practice of guerilla warfare.

Time Magazine, which described Che Guevara as one of the hundred most influential persons of the 20th century wrote that ; "Che convinced Castro with competence, diplomacy and patience. When grenades were needed, Che set up a factory to make them. When bread was wanted, Che set up ovens to bake it. When new recruits needed to learn tactics and discipline, Che taught them. When a school was needed to teach peasants to read and write, Che organized it."

The Cuban revolution , still survives in spite of American endevours to undermine it and many attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro himself .Cuba remains a beacon and has inspired revolutionaries and leftist regimes around the world specially in Latin America. More so after the collapse of the Soviet Union and ongoing transformation of China into a bourgeoisie state. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is a most striking example. Many other independent leaders are being elected in Latin America , who are following the pro-people policies of Chavez and trying to extricate their countries from the grip of US and other multinationals .

Che had come to Algeria after visiting many important Afro-Asian nations like China, India, Yugoslavia, Egypt .This visit turned out to be his last public appearance on the international stage. In a speech at the economic seminar on the importance of Afro-Asian solidarity ,he specified the moral duty of the socialist countries and accused them of tacit complicity with the exploiting Western countries. He proceeded to outline a number of measures which he said the communist-bloc countries must implement in order to accomplish the defeat of imperialism.

Che appeared closer to Mao's Chinese ideology. It was an implicit criticism of the Soviet Union , Cuba's main support and bulwark against implacable US hostility , which continues to this day . Ideological differences with Castro on USSR 's policies brought some coolness in relations between Castro and Guevara. After Algiers , Che did return to Cuba but left soon after and dropped out of public life and then vanished altogether.

There were many media reports of his appearance with USA's CIA very much on his trail and keenly interested in his activities .It appears that he first helped Patrice Lumumba's cause in Congo , but did not achieve much success. In late 1966 he went over to Bolivia to set up guerrilla training groups to help dissidents to the regime. US was keeping a watch on his movements but Che was unaware that Washington had sent CIA and other operatives , including one Felix Rodriguez into Bolivia to aid the government forces which had been trained, advised, and supplied by US Army Special Forces trained in jungle warfare .

In October, 1967, Che's group was attacked by the Bolivian army. Guevara, who was wounded in the attack, was captured , but he died defiantly. A panicky Bolivian regime , afraid of reaction around the world if he were tried and US demands ,got him executed . Moments before his execution Che was asked if he was thinking of his own immortality. "No," he replied, "I'm thinking about the immortality of the revolution." A jittery and shaking Bolivian soldier chosen to kill him , had trouble pulling the trigger. Che asked him to steady himself and take a clean aim. He was only 40 years old . Few revolutionaries like Mao and Fidel live to grow old. And Mao's China is far from a revolutionary state now. More of a statues quo regime with wannabe imperialistic ambitions.
In July ,1997 , Che Guevara's remains though not exhumed were definitely identified by two experts who were "100 percent sure" ,were discovered in Vallegrande in Bolivia . A 19 July ceremony in Havana, attended by Fidel Castro and other Cuban officials, marked the return of Che's remains to Cuba and in an 17 October ,1997 ceremony attended by Castro and thousands of Cubans, Che Guevara's were reburied in Santa Clara, Cuba

Che's unflinching will, self sacrifice and idealism have given him a saint like halo and reverence among his followers around the world. His theories and treatises on guerilla warfare still remain a beacon for the young and the revolutionary as they were for the 1968 students uprising in Paris and elsewhere , for example , among the leftist Marxist students of Turkey in early 1970s, who also studied the Naxabari movement and lapped up theories of Charu Majumdar and Kanu Sanyal from Indian Bengal. But there was also Geetanjali and Geeta along with Marxist literature found with leftist students in Ankara. Soon after 9/11, many Muslim radicals in the Arab world wrongly tried to compare Osama ben Laden with Che.

Che's memories now live on in photos, music, theater pieces, movies, poems, novels, sculptures and scholarly texts. To coincide with his 80th birthday celebrations , a collection of vintage Che Guevara prints are on display in Austria, including the iconic 1960 Alberto Korda portrait of him in a beret. Exhibitions of his photographs including of his visit to India in 1960s is being held in New Delhi .A new statue has been unveiled in his native Argentina. The larger-than-life "Monument to Che" statue weighs three tons and towers 13 feet high, topped off with the revolutionary's famed starred beret. Guevara had left the city in 1953 as a young doctor embarking on a trip throughout Latin America, a journey depicted in the 2004 movie "Motorcycle Diaries."

But the universal consumer society today exploits even Che's fame and name to sell designer clothes, beer, films and books.

The "Brand Equity" writers in USA who claimed " End of History " aka triumphalism of US capitalism have said much and written numerous volumes about the failure of socialism in former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe but little about the failure of capitalism for two thirds of humanity, the four billion people that live below the poverty line. Nikolai Ceausescu remains the most important leader in Romania's history according to a recent poll. Russian leader Vladimir Putin , whom US President George Bush once asked to implement democracy as in Iraq ( some sick joke) consistently gets over 70% in popularity poll , while Bush's popularity is at an all time low of any US president ,touching a low 30%.

The result of globalization ,policies of IMF and WTO with consequent increased income inequalities in USA and elsewhere and sliding of the capitalist system towards failure, will only add further misery to poverty ridden masses around the world . The crash of expectations built on rabid and unabashed consumerism and financial speculations based on fiat currency created liquidity leading to high oil prices and scarce and expensive food is already leading to strikes over energy price increase and riots over food shortages around the world..

The era immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall would be remembered for the political , social and economic decline in human evolution and condition ;in regard to basic rights, equality, fraternity and well being. USA and UK are becoming police states with constant surveillance and spying on its own citizens and abridgment of civil liberties .Corporate media and government controlled BBC churn out spins , half truths and blatant lies. And how to describe US spending on defence (against whom) which is as much as the rest of the world put together. Not to protect USA but to maintain unbridled hegemony as shown in its naked and illegal aggression on Iraq for its oil , followed by rampant and continued looting and destruction of that country .Over a million Iraqis have been killed , millions of children rendered orphans and 4 million Iraqis made refugees in a population of 25 million .US leaders had the obscenity to describe the March 2003 invasion as 'Operation Iraqi freedom" as part of a so called plan to 'spread democracy' in the Middle East . Now, daily ,Iran is being threatened with bombing ,even with nuclear weapons by Israel and USA. Where will this unbridled greed , capitalism and globalization would lead to?

But there is some hope. The fierce Iraqi resistance against US military machine now bogged down in a quagmire. Unmasking of aura of invincibility of Israel by Lebanese Hezbollah fighters. Defiance by Iran against US and 3 European powers. The fast changing scene in Latin America favouring pro-people governments and decline of US hegemony. Overthrow of the monarchy in Nepal and Maoist movements in many Indian states ruled by corrupt political elites.

K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Copy right with the author.
E-mail: Gajendrak@hotmail.com


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