CUBA: Che photographer to sue

BY SEAN HEALY

The man who took the photograph which turned Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara into an icon is planning to sue Smirnoff for demeaning the revolutionary's memory by using the photo to advertise its new, ``spicy'' vodka brand.

The British Guardian reported on August 7 that 71-year-old Cuban photographer Alberto Korda is suing Smirnoff, the advertising agency that developed the campaign and the company that supplied the photograph.

``I was offended by the use of the image'', Korda told the newspaper.

``To use the image of Che Guevara to sell vodka is a slur on his name and memory. He never drank himself, he was not a drunk and drink should not be associated with his immortal memory.''

In his legal claim, Korda accuses the advertising firm of trivialising the historical significance of the famous photograph by printing a hammer and sickle motif over it in which the sickle is depicted as a chilli pepper.

Korda, who worked for a Cuban newspaper, took the photograph of the revolutionary on March 5, 1960, at a memorial service in Havana.

``I saw him step forward with this absolute look of steely defiance as Fidel [Castro] spoke'', he said. ``It was only a brief moment that I had. I managed to shoot two frames and then he was gone.''

Guevara, born in Argentina joined up with Castro while the exiled rebel was in Mexico and then played a central role in Cuba's revolutionary war, which was victorious in January 1959. Guevara, trying to spark a revolution elsewhere in Latin America, was murdered by the Bolivian military in 1967.

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