CHE GUEVARA IN
VENEZUELA?
Speculation over the whereabouts of Che Guevara, often spiced with "reports" about someone having seen him, appears periodically in the press. A typical example was the "information" given to Associated Press February 8 by counterrevolutionary Cuban exiles.in Miami. According to Julio Garceran, a former Cuban Supreme Court justice, Che Guevara is "directing construction of a network of secret tunnels in the South American Andes." |
The AP did not report what the purpose of the secret network of holes and passageways might be.
A January 21 report claimed that Guevara, his hair dyed blond, slipped through Montevideo on his way from Argentina at Christmas. To this Che's 60-year-old father said: "T don't know where he is and if I did I wouldn't say. My son has not been in Argentina....If he did come, nothing would please me more than to welcome him in my home."
A more serious bit of speculation appeared in the February issue of the Monthly Review, the independent socialist magazine published in New York by Leo Huberman and Paul M. Sweezy. On the basis of an encouraging report on the creation of a strong guerrilla center in Venezuela, they observe that this offers evidence of "great organizational talent" and they wonder if this could "provide any clues to the activities of Che during the last year and a half."
The suggestion represents a considerable turn on the part of the editors of MR. Last year they expressed the gravest doubts concerning the fate of Che Guevara and ERNESTO "CHE" GUEVARA demanded that Fidel Castro clear them up. The persistent rumors that Guevara might be dead, they noted, were damaging to the Cuban Revolution and a worry to its most ardent supporters.
MR's evident relaxation on the question of Che's whereabouts is part of their more general conclusion that the fears they expressed last year of a turn to the right in Cuba and the strengthening of the conservative, bureaucratic wing have fortunately not been borne out. Instead, in their opinion, a turn to the left occurred. They adduce considerable evidence in support of their view, including a definitive break with the
VaVAGND wHHOn OLSHNGH
reformist leaderships of the Latin-American Communist parties, active support for real revolutionaries, the functioning of the Latin-American Revolution across national borders, and the resources placed at the disposal of guerrilla forces like those active in Venezuela. As they see it a "new phase" has opened in the Latin-American Revolution as a whole. In this heartening development, Huberman and Sweezy give credit to the Cuban leaders. The young revolutionists in Latin America, they say, are looking for inspiration and example "not to the Soviet Union or China but to revolutionary Cuba" and the Cubans have responded by animating and stimulating the new movements that are developing in a number of countries in this part. of the world.