Bolivia's Evo Morales Pays Tribute to Che on 50th Anniversary of His Death

Bolivian President Evo Morales presided over the main event marking the 50th anniversary of the death of Ernesto "Che" Guevara and his fellow combatants.

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Attended by Che's four children, along with Harry Villegas and Leonardo Tamayo, both members of Che's guerrilla group in Bolivia, and thousands of members of political and social movements, Morales said that the moment was ripe to relaunch the anti-imperialist struggle, one of Che's main legacies.

"Today, as we commemorate half a century of Commandante Che Guevara's passing to eternity, we are united in a single anti-imperialist, anti-colonial and anti-capitalist battle cry," adding that Che left home with dreams of fighting for a world without “rich people” and “social classes.”

Bolivia's first Indigenous head of state stressed the need to recognize Indigenous resistance movements in the struggle to create participatory democracy and world citizenship. He emphasized that if the United States wants people to stop taking up arms and organizing themselves into guerrilla movements, then its foreign policymakers must stop invading and interfering in the affairs of sovereign, independent nations.

Afterwards, Morales decried the fact that the world's riches remain in the “hands of a few,” a reality he said that must be opposed by all “anti-capitalists.”

He added that the best way to honor Che and build a world in which basic human rights have been secured is to continue his “anti-imperialist fight,” stressing the need to foster new international humanitarianism and the tearing down of the imaginary walls separating the world's peoples.

The event, which included musical groups and artistic presentions, was held on the old runway at Vallegrande airport in the southeast of the country, near the place where Che's remains were secretly buried by the Bolivian military, but later exhumed and taken to Cuba 20 years ago.