Cubans remember Che Guevara 50 years after his death
Image copyright EPA Image caption Che Guevara’s name has adorned every corner of Cuba for five decades
Several thousand people have gathered in the Cuban city of Santa Clara to remember the revolutionary icon Ernesto “Che” Guevara, 50 years after his capture and death.
Among crowds at his statue and mausoleum was his old friend, Cuban President Raúl Castro.
Many more watched at home on state TV as President Castro laid a white rose on Guevara’s tomb.
The revolutionary still divides opinion as much today as he did in life.
For five decades his name has adorned every corner of Cuba, from banknotes to billboards, his image one of the most recognisable in Latin America.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Che Guevara (L) and Fidel Castro (R) four years after they led the 1959 Cuban revolution
His supporters see him as an example of commitment and self-sacrifice, his critics see a man they consider brutal and cruel.
The people who turned out in Santa Clara – the city synonymous with his greatest victory in battle – clad in Che T-shirts or holding up his image in pictures, think of him as nothing less than a hero.
They are here to celebrate the charismatic, uncompromising Argentine they adopted as one of their own.
An except of Fidel Castro’s speech in 1967 announcing the death of Che Guevara to the Cuban people was played in which he famously urged Cuban children “to be like Che”, a slogan that endures today.
Judging from the number of schoolchildren in the audience, Guevara’s life will remain a crucial part of the education of young people in Cuba for decades to come.
