Guatemala, a milestone for Che Guevara

Most biographers give little importance to Che's stage in Guatemala. However, during these eight months, he became a communist, he met his first wife, he learned to use weapons, he first became intimate with the Cubans of Castro.

Hilda Gadea, a less than gracious under-30 woman, leader of the Peruvian APRA youth wing, who collaborated with the progressive government of Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz, protected Che's impotence in exchange for his love. "Hilda Gadea has declared her love in an epistolary and practical way. I was pretty asthmatic if I had not maybe taken it. I warned him that all I could offer him was an informal contact, nothing definitive. She seemed very ashamed. The little card that he left me when he left is very good, too bad it's so ugly. "

It is Hilda who introduced him to the American Marxist professor Harold White, who will leave his ideological imprint on Guevara. "I met a strange gringo who writes bullshit about Marxism and has it translated into Spanish. The middle is Hilda Gadea and those who work with Lumila and me. Until now, we charge 25 dollars. I teach english and spanish to gringo. It is in the house of Myrna López, an exile from Nicaragua, that she met the first Cuban rebels, Antonio "Nico" López – who would have dubbed "Che" -, Armando Arencibia, Antonio "Bigotes" Darío López and Mario Dalmau, all Survivors of the failed takeover of Moncada military headquarters on July 26, 1953, for which the leader of the revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, was imprisoned.

Nico made a strong impression on Ernesto and quickly became his friend. "The night Nico met Che at my house, he talked to her in underwear. Despite his youth, the Cuban foresaw the future of his country in all honesty, he was already talking about the fact that the Cuban revolution was going to be a socialist revolution. He was the first to speak to Fidel's Che "(Myrna Torres, personal communication).

The influence of the Guatemalan environment is evident in Che's letters: "It is time that the club responds to the club and if it is necessary to die, it is like Sandino and not not like Azaña. " The first was a Nicaraguan revolutionary killed by the army no compromise on his beliefs and the second is a president of the Spanish Republic who, according to Ernesto, did not have the courage to reach the latest consequences, thus promoting the triumph of his falangist enemies.

"Asthma disturbed him a lot and it sometimes prevented him from attending meetings and especially excursions and walks. The big contrast with the Cubans was in terms of music. Cubans were great dancers. Nico López, for example, could only organize a meeting with a spoon. Che's always complaining, with sympathy, of the noise they made. (Myrna Torres, ch.)

President Arbenz, a social democrat, converted the moderate land reform into law, which included the expropriation of uncultivated landholdings from United Fruit, a monopoly company that had close ties with the Eisenhower government as a result of economic interests of the Dulles brothers. Secretary of State One and Director of the CIA the other. Assistant Secretary for Latin American Affairs John Moors Cabot had major investments in United Fruit and President Eisenhower's private secretary was married to the company's public relations officer.

Other progressive measures adopted by the new government included the income tax, which hurt the few families sharing the wealth of the country, as well as surprising labor rights such as the right to strike, collective bargaining, minimum wage, etc. measures that could only displease "frutera", as Argentina called United Fruit.

On June 14, Ernesto turned 26 years old. Four days later, Colonel Castillo Armas entered Guatemala as head of the "Liberation Army", organized, armed and financed by the CIA. Che, for the first time, felt the thrill of being under fire. In a letter to his sister, he confessed that "He felt a little embarrassed to have fun as a monkey. It was at the time when Che had a submachine gun in his hands for the first time and someone had taught him to handle it.

"Ernesto's political activism in Guatemala was part of the group of the Alliance of Democratic Youth, a branch of the Communist Party. The university and the young workers organized for the defense of the country and the revolution, faithful to a stanza of the national anthem "If tomorrow your sacred ground / a threatening alien invasion / l 39; Ink of blood is threatening you, your handsome gangster will win or die will call & # 39; & # 39; (Myrna Torres, PC)

Arbenz and his people would surrender quickly. Castillo Armas and the CIA, with the support of the US "marines", then began arresting people who had links to the fallen regime. Hilda was a prisoner while Ernesto was asking and obtaining asylum at the Argentine Embassy, ​​which he later allowed to take refuge in Mexico. It was there that he was reluctantly married to Hilda and that he met the Castro brothers.

It is in Guatemala that a feeling hitherto unknown by itself has exploded in the nascent revolutionary, a tumultuous desire to fight for what he considered just, a willingness to defend his beliefs with his fists or his weapons. The pusillanimity of Arbenz had taught him something to maintain until the end of his days: no real revolution can be maintained if it is not by violence, and imperialism does not will never give up an iota of his power if he is not carried away by the arms.