WHY CHE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND?

In an open and free society the free exchange of ideas and beliefs are welcome and encouraged. That is what the founding fathers wanted for the US. That is the way it must be if we want to be able to express our ideas without fear of being prosecuted.

These freedoms envisioned centuries ago did not foresee the advent of inhumane political philosophies that are inherently contrary to the human beings’ aspiration for freedom. They did not foresee two of the worst scourges that have ravaged mankind in our 20th century: communism and Nazism.

With the defeat of the evil Nazi empire in the mid 1940s, and thanks to the ever vigilant Jewish organizations that have performed an extraordinary service to mankind by continually re-exposing the horrors and insisting on bringing to justice all of the criminals and collaborators, the Nazis will not rise again.

But the fall of Soviet communism at the end of the 1980s did not close that chapter. The communist criminals and collaborators were left free to continue their damaging activities from down below. Because of that unforgivable mistake, the free world will ail for years to come. The communist fanatics will never give up. They are unrelently pursuing their goal to continue their infiltration and impose their ideas.

The US, as an open and free society has been the target of this infiltration for decades. Step one is the never-ending process to affect the educational system and information media. This lays the groundwork for changing people‘s way of thinking and attitudes to make them an easy prey for manipulation.

Unfortunately, because of the hearings conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee headed by Senator Joseph McCarthy where some reputations were unfairly damaged, resulting in the blacklisting of some in the intellectual community, the communists became the sacred cow of the well entrenched liberal community in the US.

To this day in the US, saying something bad – even when based on undeniable facts - about communism is unacceptable to the liberal elite in control, because of years of influence and infiltration. With so much of the means at their disposal, they silence you by systematically censoring your views from public forums and the publishing world. The same freedom that they are demanding for themselves and the causes they advocate, they deny to others. Perhaps they are actually aware of the weaknesses of what they advocate, but in order to maintain power, act on the fear that information from those not on their side will crumble their weak façade.

This is one of the reasons why Americans in general are very naïve and misinformed in relation to Cuba, a communist ruled island just 90 miles south from the US shores.

For example, during Hispanic Heritage Month in October, the University of Maryland’s Lambda Upsilon Fraternity will be presenting as part of the "Latino Speaker Series II" an "expert" from the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, DC to "teach" about a major figure in Latin American history, Ernesto "Che" Guevara.

The announcement says that this event will focus on his life and the beliefs Che sacrificed himself for. But in fact, long before his end, Che was unwanted by Castro and did not have any place to go. Castro sacrificed the inept Che for his own personal and political benefit. He eliminated Che from Cuba, enabling the creation of a false admirable myth that he must continuously, actively support in order to maintain.

In an open society, an event like the one at the University of Maryland is allowed. But, do the participants realize that the "expert" provided by the communist Cuban government has a vested interest in the preservation of Che’s false myth? If not, this event becomes an opportunity for cultural misinformation designed to recruit admirers for a man who was nothing less than a criminal. Oh yes, all based on very common knowledge.

It was Che, in the Sierra Maestra Mountains of Cuba, years before Castro’s 1959 triumph, who revealed his fascination with cruelty by asking to be the executioner who kept the troops in line.

At the onset of the revolution on January 1, 1959, Castro appointed Che in charge of La Cabaña fortress in Havana. There, execution squads flourished under Che’s command, assassinating, in mass, those perceived as enemies of the revolution. Che ordered that women and children visiting his prisoners be paraded in front of the execution wall, gruesomely stained with blood and brain parts. All of this was well publicized in Cuba in order to spread fear throughout the population. The surviving ex-prisoners of the infamous La Cabaña fortress remember Che as a "mass murderer."

Is the history of Che an example to be superficially and romantically presented during Hispanic Heritage Month for the students at the University of Maryland?

The myths that surround Che are much more interesting than the man; problem is, they simply do not resemble reality.

In February 1959, Che began training foreign guerrillas and terrorists in Cuba. His first guerrilla attack (planned with the brothers Fidel and Raul Castro) was to "liberate" Panama in April 1959. But by May 1, he suffered a humiliating defeat by Panama’s National Guard. On June 14, 1959, Fidel Castro sent Che’s guerrillas to the neighboring island of Dominican Republic to fight against dictator Trujillo. But Che’s guerrillas again failed miserably.

After this second fiasco in June 1959, Castro sent Che to tour third world countries. After his return, Castro put him in charge of the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA), Industries Division and later, as President of the National Bank (where he signed the currency "Che"). He proved himself inept for those assignments as well and Castro reassigned him again.

On October 29, 1959, Castro sent Che to communist countries to establish commercial ties, negotiating the initially secret sale of sugar to the Soviet Union. He made trade agreements with Czechoslovakia, China and North Korea, announcing on September 10, 1960, that Cuba "had received arms from Czechoslovakia."

In 1965, Castro sent Che as far away as possible. This time to "liberate" Africa. After Che’s failure in Africa, he was summoned to Havana for two days of secret conversations with Castro. He was then sent back to Africa with 200 Cuban soldiers to help a Congolese leftist group. After he failed there, in late 1965, he secretly returned to Cuba, leaving his soldiers behind. Che was kept hidden all through 1966.

Obviously, Castro needed to carefully get rid of him, but all of his attempts to get Che involved in international wars of "liberation" and get him killed and converted into a martyr had failed.

As secretly as he returned to Cuba, Che left again in September 1966, sent by Castro on another international mission. He went to Prague and then on to Paraguay, where disguised as a businessman, he traveled by plane to Bolivia.

Along with 17 Cubans (clandestinely smuggled into Bolivia), he began organizing a guerrilla movement. But he was able to recruit only 15 Bolivians. By the end of March 1967, Castro stopped supplying Che’s guerrillas. The last contact with Havana was in July 1967.

Denounced by the peasants and Indians in the region (who never supported his intrusion), Che and his guerrillas were finally apprehended by the Bolivian army on October 7, 1967. As we all know Che was executed and Castro at last had the martyr he was longing for. His amputated hand is proudly displayed in the Museum of the Revolution in Havana.

Out of Castro’s way, the cruel and inept Che could be heralded now as a big hero. Finally, Castro was free to create an international legendary myth. Che’s image flooded Cuba and posters began to appear in the domain of the academic left: colleges and universities of the US and the free world in order to attract the romantics and uninformed. As with much communist misinformation, it worked! We still have fools displaying posters and wearing Che’s junk.

And the unrelenting communists keep going and going with their propaganda fooling the people in the free world who have been programmed to be naïve about their real intentions.

I have not seen in our learning centers an urge for romantic and misleading presentations about criminals like Charles Manson, David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, etc. Why Che?

END


Agustín Blázquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton

Mr Blazquez is the Producer/Director of the documentaries COVERING CUBA and CUBA: THE PEARL OF THE ANTILLES

Éste y otros excelentes artículos del mismo AUTOR aparecen en la REVISTA GUARACABUYA con dirección electrónica de:

www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org