BOLIVIA
Latin Americans pay homage to Che Guevara
11 October 2008
The October 8 article below is reprinted from http://www.cubanews.ain.cu
According to Bolivian President Evo Morales, Cuban-Argentinean guerrilla fighter Ernesto “Che” Guevara did not shed his blood in vain, since many nations of the world are currently following the path he drew towards equality and social justice.
The statement was issued by Morales during a visit on October 7 to the Bolivian community of Vallegrande, where Guevara was assassinated on October 9, 1967.
The small locality of “La Higuera”, in Valle Grande, is the scene for central commemorations on October for the 41st anniversary of the Guevara’s assassination.
Representatives of Bolivian organisations and of the Cuban and Venezuelan collaboration missions in that country will gather at the historic place, where a ceremony will include presentations of masters’ degrees by Cuban doctors, while several members of the collaboration brigades, working in the fields of health, education and energy, will also be awarded distinctions.
However, major attention is centered on the electrification of the La Higuera community, whose inhabitants had never had electricity. Also on the spotlight of attention was the declaration on October 7 of the Santa Cruz department as Bolivia’s second departmental territory to be free of illiteracy.
On declaring Santa Cruz free of illiteracy after the Oruro Department, with the support of the Cuban literacy program “Yes, I Can”, Morales said: “I want to tell the Cuban people and their Comandante, that they are not alone anymore.
“The blood shed by many revolutionaries in Latin America, like Che, has not been in vain either.”
Morales stressed that new revolutionary and anti-imperialist leaders are emerging now, and “we, the peoples, follow the path drawn by our freedom fighters”.
Morales and Cuban ambassador to Bolivia, Rafael Dausa, laid a wreath in honour of Guevara, a global symbol of the struggle for all fair causes.
