http://themilitant.com/2017/8125/812557.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 25 July 10, 2017
Che Guevara Cuba brigade set for October
BY JIM BRADLEY
On the heels of the recently concluded May Day International Brigade to
socialist Cuba, which for the first time included a delegation from the
United States, the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples
(ICAP) is organizing an “In the Footsteps of Che International Brigade”
Oct. 1-15.
The brigade is “a tribute to Commander Ernesto Che Guevara on the 50th
anniversary” of his fall in combat, the ICAP call says. “It will be
composed of delegations from different parts of the world interested in
Che’s legacy, and in reaffirming their solidarity with the Cuban
Revolution.”
“I’m sure we’ll have at least as much participation from the U.S. as we
had for the May Day brigade,” Steve Eckardt, brigade national
coordinator, told the Militant. The U.S. contingent of 54 was the
largest in the 300-strong May brigade. “I have never seen the interest
in Cuba there is today. May Day brigade members are now speaking at
reportback events across the country.”
Brigadistas are describing what they learned about Cuba’s socialist
revolution and working to expand the fight to end Washington’s economic
war against the Cuban people and for the U.S. to get out of Guantánamo,
the naval base it has occupied since 1898.
In November 1956, Argentine-born Che Guevara joined Fidel Castro, Raúl
Castro and other Cuban revolutionaries aboard the Granma from Mexico to
Cuba to begin the guerrilla struggle. Originally the troop doctor,
Guevara became a commander of the Rebel Army.
Following the victory of Cuban workers and peasants on Jan. 1, 1959,
Guevara became a central leader of the new revolutionary government. He
served as president of the National Bank and as minister of industry,
and was a leading spokesperson for the Cuban Revolution at the United
Nations and in other world forums.
With Fidel Castro’s backing, Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to participate
directly in revolutionary struggles abroad. He initially went to the
Congo and later to Bolivia, where he helped lead a guerrilla movement
against that country’s military dictatorship. Wounded and captured by
the Bolivian army in a CIA-organized operation on Oct. 8, 1967, he was
murdered the following day.
“Many of Che’s ideas are absolutely relevant today, ideas without which
I am convinced communism cannot be built,” Fidel Castro said in a 1987
speech marking the 20th anniversary of Guevara’s assassination. He urged
workers and young people everywhere “to study and familiarize themselves
with Che’s political and economic thought.”
Participants in the October brigade will visit many of the places where
Guevara led workers and peasants in the revolutionary war against the
U.S.-backed army of dictator Fulgencio Batista.
They will meet with members of Guevara’s family, as well as combatants
who fought alongside him in the Rebel Army, in the Congo and Bolivia. On
Oct. 8 they will join thousands of Cubans in a mobilization to mark the
50th anniversary of Guevara’s fall in combat.
Brigade members will also meet with members of the Federation of Cuban
Women, the Cuban Trade Union Federation, high school and college
students’ organizations and members of the Union of Young Communists.
And they will volunteer for agricultural work at a farm cooperative with
Cuban farmworkers.
“I encourage everyone to get their applications in before the brigade
fills up,” said Eckardt. Similar brigade contingents are being organized
in dozens of other countries.
Participation in the U.S. brigade — including housing, food and
transportation within Cuba — costs only $650. Travel to Cuba is
separate. Deadline for registration is Sept. 10.
For more information, contact the Chicago Cuba Coalition at (312)
952-2618 or ICanGoToCuba@xxxxxxxxx.
Related articles:
Havana: ‘We will make no concessions on sovereignty’
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