seanherman

I recently tattooed my friend and fellow co-worker Tim Orth. We did a picture of Che Guevara after he was assassinated. I wanted to give you some information about Che and who he was in history, and also include at the end Tim Orth’s reason for wanting to get the tattoo.

Here are some details about the man that has had the most notorious picture of the 20th century.

Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (June 14,[1] 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as Che Guevara or El Che, was an Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary, medic, political figure, and leader of Cuban and internationalist guerrillas.

As a young man studying medicine, Guevara traveled roughrough. throughout Latin America, bringing him into direct contact with the impoverished conditions in which many people lived. His experiences and observations during these trips led him to the conclusion that the region's socio-economic inequalities could only be remedied by revolution, prompting him to intensify his study of Marxism and travel to Guatemala to learn about the reforms being implemented there by President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmn.

While in Mexico in 1956, Guevara joined Fidel Castro's revolutionary 26th of July Movement, which seized power in Cuba in 1959. After serving in various important posts in the new government and writing a number of articles and books on the theory and practice of guerrilla warfare, Guevara left Cuba in 1965 with the intention of fomenting revolutions first in Congo-Kinshasa, and then in Bolivia, where he was captured in a military operation supported by the CIA and the U.S. Army Special Forces. Guevara was summarily executed, purportedly by the Bolivian Army in the town of La Higuera near Vallegrande on October 9, 1967.

After his death, Guevara became an icon of socialist revolutionary movements worldwide. An Alberto Korda photo of him has received wide distribution and modification. The Maryland Institute College of Art called this picture "the most famous photograph in the world and a symbol of the 20th century.”

Here are details of his capture and execution.

The Bolivian Special Forces were notified of the location of Guevara's guerrilla encampment by an informant. On 8 October, the encampment was encircled, and Guevara was captured while leading a detachment with Simen Cuba Sarabia in the Quebrada del Yuro ravine. According to some soldiers present at the capture, during the skirmish as they approached Guevara, he allegedly shouted, "Do not shoot! I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead.”

Barrientos promptly ordered his execution upon being informed of his capture.Barrientos[›] Guevara was taken to a dilapidated schoolhouse in the nearby village of La Higuera where he was held overnight. Early the next afternoon he was executed. The executioner was Mario Tern, a Sergeant in the Bolivian army who had drawn a short straw after arguments over who got the honour of killing Guevara broke out among the soldiers. Guevara received multiple shots to the legs, so as to avoid maiming his face for identification purposes and simulate combat wounds in an attempt to conceal his execution. Che Guevara did have some last words before his death; he allegedly said to his executioner, "I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man." His body was lashed to the landing skids of a helicopter and flown to neighboring Vallegrande where it was laid out on a laundry tub in the local hospital and displayed to the press. Photographs taken at that time gave rise to legends such as those of San Ernesto de La Higuera and El Cristo de Vallegrande (Local people came to refer to Guevara as a saint, "San Ernesto de La Higuera", whom they ask for favors. Others claim his ghost walks the area.]). After a military doctor surgically amputated his hands, Bolivian army officers transferred Guevara's cadaver to an undisclosed location and refused to reveal whether his remains had been buried or cremated.Amputation.

The hunt for Guevara in Bolivia was headed by Flix Rodrguez, a CIA agent, who previously had infiltrated Cuba to prepare contacts with the rebels in the Escambray Mountains and the anti-Castro underground in Havana prior to the Bay of Pigs invasion, and had been successfully extracted from Cuba afterwards. Upon hearing of Guevara's capture, Rodrguez relayed the information to CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia, via CIA stations in various South American nations. After the execution, Rodrguez took Guevara's Rolex watch and several other personal items, often proudly showing them to reporters during the ensuing years. Today, some of these belongings, including his flashlight, are on display at the CIA.

On October 15, Castro acknowledged that Guevara was dead and proclaimed three days of public mourning throughout Cuba. The death of Guevara was regarded as a severe blow to the socialist revolutionary movements in Latin America and the rest of the third world.

While pictures of Guevara's dead body were being circulated and the circumstances of his death debated, his legend began to spread. Demonstrations in protest against his execution occurred throughout the world, and articles, tributes, songs and poems were written about his life and death. Latin America specialists advising the U.S. State Department immediately recognized the importance of the demise of “the most glamorous and reportedly most successful revolutionary”, noting that Guevara would be eulogized by communists and other leftists as “the model revolutionary who met a heroic death”.

You can find more information about Che at Wikipedia.com.

Here is what Tim Orth had to say about getting the tattoo:

“There are a few reasons why I chose to get this particular tattoo. To me, it
represents a passion and dedication that is dying among the American people;
the willingness to stand up for our beliefs and to challenge our government.
I do not agree with the direction that our government has taken. This
country was founded on the belief that the government was of the people. It
was our responsibility to question our leaders. Now it has almost literally
become a crime to do so. To me, that is the sure decline of democracy. I
feel very strongly about the ideas that created this nation. I feel sadness
and anger when those ideas are corrupted or abused. Che did more than die
for his beliefs, he lived for them as well with a passion that is unrivaled
by most.”