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CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
In Bolivia, push for Che tourism follows
locals' reverence
By Kevin G. Hall, Knight
Ridder Newspapers. Posted on Mon, Aug. 16,
2004.
LA HIGUERA, Bolivia - Revolutionary Ernesto
"Che" Guevara, an atheist, has
been reborn a saint in the desolate Bolivian
village where he was captured and executed
nearly 37 years ago. Like many a saint,
he's also a tourist draw.
It's an odd fate for Guevara - Fidel Castro's
revolutionary sidekick in the seizure of
Cuba - who sought the violent overthrow
of Latin America's political and economic
structure. He was the Osama bin Laden of
his day during the Cold War, Washington's
archenemy.
Today his handsome mug appears on the walls
of homes and in market stalls in remote
La Higuera, where he died, and in Vallegrande,
where he was secretly buried. In many homes,
his face competes for wall space with Jesus,
the Virgin Mary and a host of Roman Catholic
saints.
"They say he brings miracles,"
said Susana Osinaga, 70, who was a young
nurse on Oct. 9, 1967, when she washed the
blood off Guevara's corpse in Vallegrande's
small hospital.
A grocery owner now, Osinaga frowns on
curious tourists and journalists who seek
her out. But like other locals she keeps
a photo of Guevara, known throughout Latin
America by his nickname, Che, on her grocery's
wall.
Osinaga may soon get more unwanted visits.
The international relief agency CARE is
administering $300,000 in British government
and private aid to promote what CARE calls
Che Tourism. The project includes hostels
for backpackers, road construction and infrastructure
improvements to promote tourism in rural
southeastern Bolivia. The hope is that Che
will mean money.
"For the country, it is kind of a
product, or a comparative advantage for
them to use and improve their own livelihoods,"
Marwa El-Ansary, CARE's project director,
said in an interview in Vallegrande.
There isn't much progress evident in La
Higuera. Its population - 100 families when
Guevara was summarily executed 11 months
after arriving in Bolivia - has dwindled
to about 40 families. There still is no
electricity. What power there is, is, well,
Che.
"It's like he is alive and with us,
like a friend. He is kind of like a Virgin
(Mary) for us. We say, `Che, help us with
our work or with this planting,' and it
always goes well," explained Manuel
Cortez, a poor La Higuera farmer who lived
next door to the schoolhouse where Guevara
was executed. "He suffered almost like
Our Father, in flesh and bone."
Cortez met Guevara twice in weeks leading
to the guerrilla leader's capture and death,
and was, he said, one of the last to see
him alive. Decades later, Cortez still raises
cows and other farm animals. When he can
he guides foreigners down a steep, rocky
path to the "Quebrada del Churo,"
the ravine where Guevara was hunted down
and captured by U.S.-trained Bolivian soldiers
after a fierce gun battle on Oct. 8, 1967.
Johanna Kivimaki, 24, a sociology student
from Finland, hiked an hour downhill with
Cortez. "It's more than I expected,"
she said, surprised to be "feeling"
history.
At the unmarked site, a stream trickles.
Purple flowers bloom and songbirds chirp.
Over there, Cortez says, pointing to a boulder,
is where Guevara took shelter as soldiers
fired downhill at him, striking him in the
leg. And over there, he points, is where
Guevara surrendered after reportedly saying,
"I am Che Guevara and I am worth more
to you alive than dead."
He was wrong.
At Vallegrande's only art cafe, paintings
of Guevara on horseback stare out at patrons.
Hamburgers are served beneath a painting
depicting his eerie death stare and shirtless
corpse.
At the Black Forest food stall in the town's
bustling market, a likeness of Guevara presides
over the poor who come to eat there.
Erich Blossl, 75, was a German aid worker
in 1967 when Bolivian military officers
asked him to photograph Guevara's corpse.
His photo of Guevara stretched across a
freestanding hospital wash basin the size
of an altar circled the globe and remains
a haunting image to this day.
"His eyes were not the eyes of a dead
man. Wherever you went, his eyes followed
you," Blossl recalled recently.
He said he was uncomfortable with Che Tourism.
"Tourism is one thing, Che is another,"
he said.
Vallegrande and La Higuera get roughly
40 registered tourists per month. Many more
go unregistered. The cement hospital wash
basin where Blossl photographed Guevara
is now a graffiti-scratched shrine.
"Your presence is alive," reads
one message in Spanish. "Che, you opened
my eyes," another says. And there was
this odd scribble in English: "You
babe, you hero."
Che Tourism draws mostly history buffs,
romantics and what locals call Che-Maniacs,
and some don't like it.
"The past must be stepped on,"
grumbled Walter Romero, a retired schoolteacher
who's unhappy with Che's persistence. He
holds a grudge: Guevara called him a "peasant
fox" in the diary he kept in Bolivia.
Emily George, 26, of Charlotte, N.C., visited
Vallegrande in July after finishing a Peace
Corps stint in Bolivia.
"Che embodied a lot of what my generation
is lacking," George said, citing his
idealism and concern for social justice
in Latin America.
Sociologist Humberto Vasquez, 67, agreed.
He headed Guevara's clandestine cell in
the capital of La Paz. His brother Jorge
fought alongside Guevara and was captured
and killed with him.
"I don't regret what we did,"
Vasquez said. "One hoped we could have
done better."
Copyright
2004 Knight Ridder All Rights Reserved
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