Che Guevara, Murder

Almost everybody has seen the iconic image of Che Guevara. Looking heroic with his beret and unkempt look. His eyes looking off into the distance.

That symbolism is not welcome in my home or in my spaces. If somebody were to wear something with his likeness in my presence, I would leave if it wasn’t my space, or tell them to remove the offensive article or leave my space.

To quote Wikipedia:

You have to carefully parse those words to understand what it actually means. Note, I’m not a historian, just somebody that studies history.

So what are the “social reforms” mentioned? Social reforms might not sound all that bad.

This was “decree 900”, also known as the “Agrarian Reform Law”. This law took land from landowners, if the state felt that the landowners were not using the land. This is also known as “stealing”. In exchange for the forced sale of their land, the landowners were given “government bonds.”

Not cash, not gold, just government bonds. What are those bonds worth?

You have only to look at Guatemala’s constitution to understand. The constitution explicitly stated that the government should protect communal land and create policies that would lead to equitable distribution of wealth.

What was “communal land?” Any land that the government said was communal.

Jealousy was rampant in the country. Even though the country had a high GDP, that money was going to a few individuals.

The natives were “dependent on wages from plantation work.”

This meant that the country was ripe for a communist take over. Decree 900 led to violence between the different groups of people. Including conflicts between the different people and groups, stealing land from the owners.

As to bonds and value, One group had 234,000 acres stolen from them. The government compensated the group with $627,572 in bonds. Or about $2.50/acre. The group argued that the land was worth nearly $16,000,000, or almost $70/acre.

This was the legal theft that Che was enamored with.

What did he do for Guatemala’s communist style government? My references don’t indicate what he did. He was never a practicing doctor. His claims to have completed his medical degree would have required him to attend classes 25 hours per day for three months. Yeah, things that didn’t happen.

The statement is often made, “You can vote yourself into a socialist government, you have to shoot your way out.” Well, the government of Guatemala was ousted, violently.

Having been on the losing side, Che headed back to Cuba.

There he was a terrorist, using violence, murder, torture to get his way. After two bloody years of abject evil, Fulgencio Batista was overthrown.

How many people did Che kill? We don’t know. The low number seems to be around 200, the higher number is around 500. Those seem to indicate personal involvement in the murder of that person.

It does not include all of those killed because of his policies and his jealous greed of anybody who had anything.

He was an evil socialist in every sense of the word.

When he was done murdering people in Cuba, Castro expelled him. He went to Central and South America, where he terrorized the population.

In Bolivia, they had enough of his FAFO. The government forces tracked him down and executed him.