Rescue Us from the Che Guevara Myth

The rescue of 15 hostages from the clutches of Colombia’s Marxist rebels yesterday is a riveting story with major repercussions for the region, as my colleague Juan Carlos Hidalgo blogged earlier. But one minor detail of the drama should not go by without comment.

The Colombian Army rescuers involved in the ruse were wearing Che Guevara T-shirts as they landed in the guerrilla camp to claim the hostages. Guevara, of course, is the late Argentine communist revolutionary and sidekick to Fidel Castro. Che T-shirts are apparently popular in FARC rebel camps, as they are on U.S. college campuses.

In a letter to the Wall Street Journal that was coincidently published on the day of the hostage rescue, Peruvian writer Alvaro Vargas Llosa tells the real story of Che Guevara. Far from being a hero, he presided over mass executions, prison labor camps, bloody and failed insurrections, and economic ruin.

Yesterday’s rescue was a welcome blow to everything Che Guevara stood for.