Ernesto Guevara de la Serna

Argentine-Cuban guerrilla fighter, tireless fighter for the freedom of the oppressed peoples of the world

Ernesto Guevara de La Serna is born in Rosario, Argentina, the firstborn son of Celia and Ernesto. His siblings were Celia, Roberto, Ana María and Juan Martín.

Most of his childhood, adolescence and early youth took place in Alta Gracia –where the family arrived in search of a climate favorable to counteract Ernesto's asthma– and Córdoba where he completed his secondary studies. An avid reader since childhood, possessing vast culture, at seventeen years old he began drafting a Dictionary of Philosophy, a subject of interest throughout his life.

In 1947, the family moved to Buenos Aires and he would later move there himself. That same year he began his medical studies. By 1950, he decided to take a trip through the north of his country on a bicycle to which he attached a motor. He traveled more than four thousand kilometers through twelve provinces. Together with his friends he created the sports magazine Tackle.

He also worked as a nurse on merchant ships, in offices of the Municipality of Buenos Aires and at the clinic of Dr. Pisani, considered at that time the best allergist in Argentina. This experience would serve him in the future to conduct and publish research papers.

At the end of 1951, in the company of his friend Alberto Granado and La Poderosa II, a motorcycle on which they imagined traveling throughout all of America, they undertook a historic journey that would take them through Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. Upon his return in July 1952, Ernesto noted in his personal writings that "that wandering without direction through our capital America has changed me more than I believed."

Already in Buenos Aires, in barely a year, he completed his medical studies, and a month later, in July 1953, he began his second journey across the continent, with an initial plan that he would modify and that would lead him to a total transformation. Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador and finally Guatemala are the countries he traveled through this time.

To this singular experience, an event of unimaginable repercussions was added: the encounter with Cubans, assailants of the Moncada and exiles in Guatemala. Among them stood out Ñico López, a young revolutionary, with whom complete affinity developed and primary knowledge of the objectives pursued by Fidel Castro, leader of the Movement to achieve Cuba's full independence.

In June 1954 the Guatemalan Revolution was overthrown and Ernesto moved to Mexico, where he met again with Ñico López, who would lead him to Raúl Castro, through whom he met Fidel, when in June 1955, he was released from prison in Cuba. A decisive encounter that would definitively link him with the Cuban Revolution and with the firm purpose of leading an expedition to Cuba.

In Mexico Ernesto married the Peruvian Hilda Gadea and his first daughter, Hilda Beatriz Guevara Gadea, was born.

On December 2, 1956 the yacht Granma arrived in Cuba with 82 guerrillas on board, among them Ernesto Guevara. Quickly Che, as the Cubans began to call him, became an unsurpassable tactician and strategist, demonstrated throughout his entire career of struggle. For his capacity and combative daring, he was the first to be named by Fidel as Commander of the Sierra Maestra, Chief of Column 4 and responsible for the "Ciro Redondo" Recruit School at Minas de Frío.

Example, versatility and integrality distinguished him when from his enormous responsibilities he edited the newspaper El Cubano Libre in 1957. Under the pseudonym Francotirador he wrote various articles, in permanent educational work, and in February 1958 he founded Radio Rebelde. Likewise, he created small war industries in order to satisfy the primary needs of the struggle.

Fidel appointed him also Chief of the No. 8 Invasion Column "Ciro Redondo", whose essential objective was to cut off the supplies of the dictatorship's army to the eastern provinces, group the revolutionary forces in the territory of Las Villas and take command of it.

The invasion began on August 31, 1958 and was followed by the historic Campaign of Las Villas, with the taking of its principal cities until ending in the Battle of Santa Clara and the surrender of enemy troops on January 1, 1959.

With the Triumph of the Revolution, by order of Fidel, he left for Havana to occupy the Fortress of San Carlos de La Cabaña and arrived there at the head of his column on January 3. From that date on, he was assigned multiple responsibilities of state and government: first as Military Chief of La Cabaña and Training of the Rebel Army, later Chief of the Industrialization Department of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform, President of the National Bank of Cuba, Military Chief of the Western Region, Minister of Industries, Member of the Party Leadership, with responsibilities in the Central Planning Board (JUCEPLAN). He was granted Cuban citizenship, the honorary doctorate title in Pedagogy and was named Adopted Son of Cabaiguán and Fomento.

In June 1959 he married the fighter from Las Villas Aleida March with whom he would form a family of four children: Aleida, Camilo, Celia and Ernesto.

In the military sphere, as chief of the western region, during the American mercenary invasion at Playa Girón, he established headquarters in Pinar del Río, as he did during the October Crisis, where he placed command in the cave Los Portales in that same province.

As Minister of Industries he laid the foundations for the country's industrial development, multiplying the inauguration and expansion of factories. With a comprehensive vision of socialist construction he developed and implemented the Budget System of Financing, which harmoniously combined productive development and the development of consciousness.

The legacy of his theoretical, dynamic and creative thinking, he left embodied in numerous articles and magazines in national and international editions. He founded the magazines Verde Olivo, Nuestra Industria and Nuestra Industria Económica. He published the books Guerrilla Warfare and Passages from the Revolutionary War, in addition to documents of universal transcendence such as "Socialism and Man in Cuba" and the world-renowned "Message to the Tricontinental".

From 1959 he performed various functions within the foreign policy of the Cuban Revolution. He traveled at the head of numerous delegations, notably the tour he made in 1959 to the countries that made up the Bandung Pact, predecessor of the Non-Aligned Movement; the signing of trade agreements with socialist countries in 1960; his participation in international conferences (Inter-American Council for Economic and Social Affairs, Punta del Este 1961; UN Conference on Trade and Development, Geneva 1964; XIX UN Assembly, New York 1964; Planning Seminar, Algiers 1963 and 1965).

After his intervention at the United Nations on December 11, 1964, he began an extensive journey through the African continent, in which he met with a group of revolutionary leaders from various countries in that region. This was the prelude to his internationalist struggle in the Congo.

In 1965 a new cycle in his life began, marked by revolutionary internationalism, first in the jungles of the Congo, starting in April and lasting seven months. In 1966 he returned secretly to Cuba and left on October 23 of that same year for Bolivia to dedicate himself to the cause of the liberation of Latin America. The essence of his ideals was embodied in the farewell letters he wrote to Fidel, to his parents and children.

In Bolivia he commanded the National Liberation Army, waging numerous battles during the eleven months that the struggle lasted, against an army trained and armed by American advisors. On October 8, 1967 he was wounded in combat, captured at the Quebrada del Yuro and assassinated the following day in La Higuera by order of the CIA and the High Command of the Bolivian Army.

His corpse was buried in a mass grave in Vallegrande, with the rest of the guerrillas fallen in combat at the Quebrada del Yuro or assassinated at the La Higuera school.

For thirty years his remains lay buried in that locality, until the date of their discovery on June 28, 1997. On July 12 of that same year, they were transferred to Havana and subsequently in a solemn tribute of all the people of Cuba, deposited on October 17 in the Mausoleum of the Che Guevara Plaza in the city of Santa Clara. That day Fidel said he received them as "heroic comrades of the reinforcement detachment".