No Way on Che
Many of you who know me personally know how much I loathe the hero-worshipper of Che Guevera that you find amongst leftists (and occasionally, generally uninformed hipsters) on today’s college campuses. However, with the recent release of Benicio Del Toro’s epic four-hour biopic of the communist idealist cum bloodthirsty revolutionary, the man is becoming a salient topic and not just something I think about while I toss and turn in the wee hours of the morning.
From Q and O, we have word that Mr. del Toro walked out of an interview about the film we confronted with some of the facts of Che’s career, which included such highlights as when:
n January 1957, as his diary from the Sierra Maestra indicates, Guevara shot Eutimio Guerra because he suspected him of passing on information: “I ended the problem with a .32 caliber pistol, in the right side of his brain…. His belongings were now mine.” Later he shot Aristidio, a peasant who expressed the desire to leave whenever the rebels moved on. While he wondered whether this particular victim “was really guilty enough to deserve death,” he had no qualms about ordering the death of Echevarría, a brother of one of his comrades, because of unspecified crimes: “He had to pay the price.” At other times he would simulate executions without carrying them out, as a method of psychological torture.
As well as when:
Che was in charge of the Comisión Depuradora. The process followed the law of the Sierra: there was a military court and Che’s guidelines to us were that we should act with conviction, meaning that they were all murderers and the revolutionary way to proceed was to be implacable. My direct superior was Miguel Duque Estrada. My duty was to legalize the files before they were sent on to the Ministry. Executions took place from Monday to Friday, in the middle of the night, just after the sentence was given and automatically confirmed by the appellate body. On the most gruesome night I remember, seven men were executed.
A must-read for anyone worried about leftist hero worship amongst the college crowd.
