One day toward the end of 1995, I received the call I had both hoped for and dreaded. I was told that—almost 30 years after his assassination and secret burial—Che’s remains finally might have been located in Bolivia.
Of course, I had known that one day this might happen. Nevertheless, I was in complete shock, my feelings quite contradictory. Like Che, I believed a combatant’s body should remain in the country where he or she had died if they were killed on an internationalist mission.
Che was right about that, but I asked myself if that is what I really wanted. Had I accepted this argument as a defense mechanism to avoid facing something so very painful? In the end, however, the decision wasn’t mine. As soon as our people learned of the possibility of finding Che’s remains, and those of the other compañeros who died in Bolivia, they wanted the search to begin.
It took almost two years of arduous work to find what the Bolivian military had jealously guarded as their “war trophy.” But the dignity of the Bolivian and Cuban peoples was eventually recovered along with that of those “with stars on their foreheads.”
One cold morning on June 28, 1997, the remains of seven fallen compañeros were exhumed from an unmarked grave at Vallegrande, Bolivia. The news of Che’s death had shaken the world in 1967. Now the discovery of the grave that had held his remains for more than 30 years, reignited international interest in his life and legacy. At a time when the world was undergoing many difficult trials, such as the fall of the socialist camp in Europe and with hegemonic neoliberalism reaching into every corner of the globe, it was as though Che had risen again, challenging us to take on new battles. After a thorough process of identification, the remains arrived in Cuba on July 12, 1997, and were received by the heroes’ families and compañeros. My children helped me to have the strength to face the small ossuary that had come from far-off Bolivia. Che had now come to his final resting place in the country he had adopted as his own. At the welcoming ceremony, with a mixture of pride and infinite pain, I heard the voice of my daughter Aliucha speak in the name of the families of the fallen. She put into words what we all felt. Addressing Fidel and all those present, she said:
Dear Commander,
More than 30 years ago our fathers said good-bye to us. They set off to continue the ideas of [Simón] Bolívar and [José] Martí in a continent united and independent. But they never lived to see a triumph.
They were aware that these dreams can only be achieved through immense sacrifice. We children never saw our fathers again. At the time, most of us were quite young. Now as grown men and women we are experiencing, perhaps for the first time, the pain and intense sadness of our loss. We know what happened, how our fathers died, and we suffer as a result.
Today their remains have been returned to us, but they do not return defeated. They return as heroes, eternally young, courageous, strong and daring.
Nobody can take that away from us. They live on, united with their children and their people.
They knew that they would return one day, that our people would welcome them with love and would heal their wounds. They knew that you, Fidel, would continue to be their friend and leader.
That is why we ask you, Commander, to honor us by receiving their remains, the remains of those who are more than just our fathers; they are the children of this land that you so honorably represent. Receive your soldiers, your compañeros, who have returned to their homeland.
We also give you our lives.
Hasta la victoria siempre! [Until victory, always!]
Patria o muerte! [Homeland or death!]
These words, spoken by the eldest of my children, contained the respect and admiration that only a people like the Cubans know how to express. In Havana’s Revolution Plaza, under the gaze of the gigantic statue of José Martí, where three decades earlier Che’s death had been mourned in utter silence, now a sea of people in a never-ending line welcomed back their legendary hero.
The same thing happened in every province the funeral procession traveled through until it finally arrived in Santa Clara, the scene of Che’s most famous battle, where a plaza had been built in his memory.
This time I was not returning to my hometown to meet old friends and remember happy times. I went to say good-bye and to perform a little ritual I felt I owed him. No one else, not even my children, knew what I had decided to do. I had given Che a small black scarf as a keepsake when he left for the Congo. When we met up again in Tanzania, he returned it to me. He mentions this scarf in the short story, “The Stone.” Writing in a sorrowful mood after learning his mother was dying, he ponders his own mortality. Despite his characteristic ironic tone, it is clear how much he cherished that modest scarf:
Ah, the gauze scarf—that was different. She gave it to me in case I injured my arm, in which case it would make an amorous sling. The problem was if I were to crack open my nut. But then there would be a simple solution: it could be wound around my head to tie up my jaw and then I would take it with me to the tomb. Loyal even unto death.1
So late one night, when everyone had left and I was alone with my daughters staring at the small coffin, I asked Aliucha if we could open it. There was something I had to do, I explained. In the end, I could not find the strength to do what I wanted to. So it was my daughter Celia who placed the scarf in the coffin with him, “Loyal even unto death.”
The final ceremony took place in Santa Clara on October 17, 1997. Again, Fidel with incredible strength and composure under the circumstances found the precise words to capture the spirit of that moment. I knew better than anyone the enormous effort this cost him to express his ideas to our people.
Welcome, heroic compañeros of the reinforcement.
The trenches of ideas and justice you defended, along with our people, will never be conquered by the enemy.
Together we will continue fighting for a better world.
Hasta la victoria siempre! [Until victory, always!]2
So that is how our story ends. But the story continues with our four children, the little trocitos3 that we made together, and 10 grandchildren, who I hope will all love and appreciate their grandfather as he really was. My children have followed in their father’s footsteps, volunteering for internationalist assignments in Angola and Nicaragua in the same spirit of solidarity and commitment to the just causes for which their father fought.
I think I can feel satisfied with my life and, when my time is up, I will say as Che did, “Think of me once in a while...”4
1. Che’s short story, “The Stone,” is included as an appendix to this book.
2. See Fidel Castro: Che: A Memoir (Ocean Press, 2006).
3. Literally, little pieces.
4. This is how Che signed off a letter to his parents when he left Cuba in 1965 to lead the internationalist mission in the Congo, Africa. See Ernesto Che Guevara, Che Guevara Reader (Ocean Press, 2003).