Che Guevara: a symbol of the struggle for freedom

Ernesto Che Guevara became an icon of the struggle for the freedom of the peoples, a legend that reinforced even more his perpetuity as a symbol after his remains were found in Bolivia and brought to Cuba on July 12, 1997.

It was an unforgettable evening. The plane landed at a military airport west of Havana with the ossuaries of the Heroic Guerrilla and the Cubans René Martínez Tamayo (Arturo), Alberto Fernández Montes de Oca (Pacho) and Orlando Pantoja Tamayo (Antonio), the Bolivians Simeón Cuba (Willy) and Aniceto Reynaga (Aniceto), as well as that of the Peruvian combatant Juan Pablo Chang (El Chino).

Following a private welcoming ceremony presided over by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro, Che’s mortal remains and those of the Bolivian guerrilla fighters were taken to the Ministry of Revolutionary Armed Forces in Havana until the posthumous homage at the José Martí Revolution Square and their transfer to the Mausoleum built in the square named after him in the city of Santa Clara.

In the morning of June 28, 1997, "while digging in the grave, the hoof of the machine hooked on Che's belt, since he had been buried with his uniform, and then his bones came out,” the Cuban doctor Jorge Gonzalez, who was in charge of the search for the remains, said to the press. “There were seven skeletons in the common grave near Vallegrande; Commander Guevara’s was the second one we found. The skeleton had no hands, which was one of the first clues that made us think it was him, and other features and his dental record confirmed it.”

After Che’s death, the Bolivian military had stated that his corpse had been incinerated and his ashes scattered over the jungle. There were about 100 other versions of the facts, including one about the CIA keeping the body in a basement in the U.S. or in Panama.

Retired Bolivian general Mario Vargas Salinas declared to the media in November 1995 that Che Guevara was buried under the runway of the old Vallegrande airport, which caused international commotion.

In December that year, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, then president of Bolivia, authorized a group of Cuban experts led by Dr. Jorge González, director of the Institute of Legal Medicine of Cuba, and Argentine and Italian specialists to start the search and, almost two years later, they found the seven skeletons and managed to identify Guevara’s thanks to the olive green jacket and the leather belt he had been wearing, as well as to a pouch with snuff and residues of the plaster of the death mask that his assassins had made for him.

Nowadays, Che’s remains and those of most of his guerrilla troops are kept in the Revolution Square in the city of Santa Clara. During their burial there on October 17, 1997, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro said: "We have not come to say goodbye to Che and his heroic comrades, but to welcome them. I see Ché and his men as a reinforcement, as a detachment of invincible combatants (...) I also see Che as a moral giant that grows by the day and whose image, strength and influence have multiplied all over the earth".