Ernesto Che Guevara: My Comrade, My Eternal Friend

Ernesto Che Guevara (14 June 1928 – 9 October 1967) was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A towering figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become one of the most enduring countercultural symbols of rebellion — a global insignia of resistance and idealism.

Che was brutally assassinated on 9 October 1967 by the CIA — that ruthless American killing machine — working hand in glove with Bolivia’s despot Barrientos, deep within the jungles of Bolivia. It was not merely the murder of a man; it was an attempt to extinguish an idea — an idea that continues to illuminate the hearts of the oppressed across continents.

Che’s close comrade Ricardo Rojo wrote a celebrated memoir titled My Friend Che. Each time I read it, my eyes well up. To me, Che was more than a friend — he was a kinsman of the soul. Revered across the world, he remains the dashing rebel whose life’s purpose was to end poverty and injustice throughout Latin America and the developing world through revolutionary struggle. His extraordinary journey — from a comfortable Argentine upbringing to the battlefields of the Cuban Revolution, from Castro’s inner circle to his doomed campaigns in the Congo and Bolivia — reads like an epic carved into the conscience of humanity.

Che was the Argentine Marxist and guerrilla fighter whose immortal portrait by Alberto Korda still adorns everything from T-shirts and murals to political banners and magazine covers. Captured with the help of CIA operatives in Bolivia, where he sought to ignite a continent-wide revolution, he was executed at the age of 39. In death, he became a mythic figure — the radiant symbol of revolutionary communism and proletarian internationalism, striving to forge a world free from imperial bondage.

In his journal, Che recounted his fateful encounter with Fidel Castro:
“I talked all night with Fidel. And in the morning, I had become the doctor of his new expedition. To tell the truth, after my experiences across Latin America, I didn’t need much more to enlist for a revolution against a tyrant. But I was particularly impressed with Fidel. I shared his optimism. We needed to act, to struggle, to materialize our beliefs. Stop whining and fight.”

The handsome, cigar-smoking, beret-clad revolutionary soon became a universal icon of defiance. By the late 1950s, his image was appearing in newsreels, and within a year of his death, he had become the subject of films, biographies, and countless works of art. To honour this indefatigable champion of the wretched of the earth, filmmakers around the world have immortalized him in cinema — fallen, yet never forgotten.

As Mao Zedong aptly remarked, “The people are the sea and the guerrillas are the fish.” Yet, in his final days, Che found himself a fish out of water — isolated and betrayed. Lacking local support, he was captured on 8 October 1967 by the U.S.-trained and armed Bolivian army, under the watchful eyes of the CIA. The next day, he was executed without trial — a summary killing meant to silence a revolutionary, but which instead immortalized him as a martyr for all ages.

A declassified U.S. document dated 3 June 1975 revealed:
“When Che Guevara was executed, one CIA official was present — a Cuban-American operative named Félix Rodríguez. After the execution, Rodríguez took Che’s Rolex watch, proudly showing it to reporters.” Such was the moral depravity of his captors.

Che once wrote that we must be “guided by a great feeling of love” — a love for the oppressed that must translate into “acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.” Nelson Mandela later affirmed, “Che’s life is an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom. We will always honour his memory.”

Ricardo Rojo’s My Friend Che, first published in 1968 and translated into eleven languages, sold over half a million copies. It remains one of the most intimate portraits of the man behind the myth. Rojo himself was a rare breed in Argentine politics — a man of principle over profit — remembered forever through this luminous work.

As a young medical student, Guevara traversed South America, witnessing firsthand the searing poverty, hunger, and disease that shaped his political awakening. The CIA-backed overthrow of Guatemala’s reformist President Jacobo Árbenz in 1954, orchestrated on behalf of the United Fruit Company, cemented his conviction that only revolution could uproot imperialism.

Later, in Mexico City, Che met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and sailed to Cuba aboard the Granma to topple U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. Rising swiftly through the rebel ranks, he became second-in-command and played a decisive role in the revolution’s triumph. Despite the United States arming Batista with planes, tanks, and napalm, the guerrillas led by Fidel and Che prevailed through sheer will, strategy, and the moral force of justice.

After the revolution’s victory, Che assumed vital roles in Cuba’s new government and authored seminal works on guerrilla warfare and revolutionary economy. His writings articulated his belief that underdevelopment in the Third World was the inevitable result of imperialism, neo-colonialism, and monopoly capitalism — evils that could only be defeated through global proletarian solidarity and revolution.

Leaving Cuba in 1965, Che sought to ignite uprisings in the Congo and later in Bolivia. Though his campaigns failed militarily, his legend only grew. In death, he became an eternal symbol — a poet-warrior whose vision of a just, egalitarian world continues to inspire the dispossessed.

Time magazine named him among the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. Korda’s Guerrillero Heroico was hailed by the Maryland Institute College of Art as “the most famous photograph in the world.”

The day after his execution, Che’s body was displayed grotesquely in a Bolivian hospital laundry room — a macabre attempt at humiliation. Yet cruelty cannot bury greatness.

During his lifetime, Guevara received several state honours — among them the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the White Lion (1960) and the Order of the Southern Cross (1961). His name, spirit, and ideals will endure as long as civilization itself retains a heartbeat.

Ernesto Che Guevara — physician, warrior, philosopher, and revolutionary — lived and died for the dream of human emancipation. Executed in cold blood, he ascended into immortality. His image remains the emblem of youthful rebellion and the eternal struggle against oppression.
As he once declared, “Better to die standing than to live on your knees.”

With a heavy heart and steadfast admiration, I remember Ernesto Che Guevara — the immortal revolutionary hero of the world’s proletariat.


Anwar A. Khan is a freedom
fighter who writes on politics
and international issues.