On 8th October 1967 Che and the other guerrillas wage a battle in Quebrada del Yuro, a gorge some 1,500 meters long, by some 60 meters wide where the stream runs. The battle begins at 1:30 in the afternoon. The firm resistance the guerrillas put up stops the advance of the Bolivian soldiers.
Che is wounded in a leg, his rifle having been rendered useless and he runs out of bullets for his pistol. Helped by comrade Willy Cuba, he climbs a small hill, where soldiers surprised him.
He is captured and immediately taken to a small school in La Higuera, where he is held prisoner for nearly 24 hours, and then the order went out from La Paz.
On 9th October 1967 in the school in La Higuera, the soldiers executed the order. Ernesto Che Guevara is murdered at 1.30 in the afternoon. Half a dozen shots went into Guevara's torso, one of them pierced his heart and killed him instantly. According to Colonel Arnaldo Saucedo Parada, Che's last words were:
"I knew you were going to shoot me; I should never have been taken alive. Tell Fidel that this failure does not mean the end of the revolution, that it will triumph elsewhere. Tell Aleida to forget this, remarry and be happy, and keep the children studying. Ask soldiers to aim well."
On 18th October 1967 at José Martí Revolution Square in Havana, a solemn vigil is held in tribute to Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara.
"If we want to tell how we hope our revolutionary fighters, our militants, our men should be, we should say without hesitation that they should be like CHE;
if we want to tell how we want the men of future generations to be, we should say they should be like CHE;
if we want to say how we want our children to be educated, we should say without hesitation they should be reared in the spirit of CHE, if we want a pattern of a man, a pattern of a man that does not belong to this time, but to future times, from the bottom of my heart I say that pattern with not a stain in his behavior, not a stain in his attitude, nor in his actions, that pattern is CHE;
if we want to know how we want our children to be, we should say from the bottom of our heart we want them to be like CHE. If we want to tell how we hope our revolutionary fighters, our militants, our men should be, we should say without hesitation that they should be like CHE;
if we want to tell how we want the men of future generations to be, we should say they should be like CHE; if we want to say how we want our children to be educated, we should say without hesitation they should be reared in the spirit of CHE, if we want a pattern of a man, a pattern of a man that does not belong to this time, but to future times, from the bottom of my heart I say that pattern with not a stain in his behavior, not a stain in his attitude, nor in his actions, that pattern is CHE;
if we want to know how we want our children to be, we should say from the bottom of our heart we want them to be like CHE. " - Fidel Castro
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A
detailed chronology of Che's life you can find
in this book "A Brave Man" on Cuba
Directo website |
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