27 years of a historic find.

Y no…,/ Porque te disimulen bajo tierra,/ Porque te escondan/ En cementerios, bosques, páramos,/ Van a impedir que te encontremos/ Che Comandante,/ Amigo.

More than four lustrums after Che’s death, a multidisciplinary team integrated by Cuban historians, sociologists, geophysicists, archeologists, doctors and forensic anthropologists broke through obstacles and silences to find the remains of Che and his guerrilla comrades.

It was an austere and meticulous battle against disinformation, gaps in memory and fear on one side and on the other side the ignorance of reality, political and time pressures, due to the period granted by the Bolivian authorities to carry out the exploration.

In addition, it was a scientific challenge, which demanded patience, accuracy and urgency, but finally the objective was achieved.

They found the mortal remains of the commander Ernesto «Che» Guevara, the Cuban internationalists René Martínez Tamayo (Arturo), Alberto Fernández Montes de Oca (Pacho) and Orlando Pantoja Tamayo (Antonio), the Bolivian guerrillas Simeón Cuba (Willy) and Aniceto Reynaga (Aniceto), and the Peruvian combatant Juan Pablo Chang (El Chino).

On July 12th, 1997 they returned to Cuban soil after being hidden for almost three decades in the Bolivian Andes, thanks to the work and courage of representatives of institutions and honest people from this Island and other parts of the world.

In Cuba, the silent respect offered by the people before the funeral procession of Che and his comrades, from the Havana capital to Villa Clara, showed the integrity of the children of a nation that knows how to honor its heroes.

They arrived victorious, turned into eternally young heroes; hence Fidel’s words when he expressed:

«Thank you Che for your life and example, thank you for coming to strengthen us in this difficult struggle we are waging today, to save the ideas for which we fought so hard, to save the revolution and the conquests of socialism, and to resist the blockade.

«Those who killed you did not know how to understand that you would always remain the symbol of all the poor of this land.»

The paradigm of the new man that Che Guevara bequeathed us and that the CIA tried to annul, is the image of the true revolutionary that the world venerates.

Estás en todas partes.

 En el indio
hecho de sueño y cobre.

 Y en el negro
revuelto en espumosa muchedumbre,
y en el ser petrolero y salitrero,
y en el terrible desamparo
de la banana, y en la gran pampa de las pieles,
y en el azúcar y en la sal y en los cafetos,
tú, móvil estatua de tu sangre como te derribaron,
vivo, como no te querían,
Che Comandante,
amigo.

Written by Ana González Goicochea.