Son of Che: The life of Camilo Guevara

Even Camilo Guevara sometimes struggles to separate the man from the myth. For those who never met him, Che Guevara is an elusive character, an amalgam of the charismatic revolutionary who marched triumphantly into Havana in 1959 and the globally commodified brand whose stylised portraits inspire everything from intoxicating idealism to weary cynicism.

When Camilo thinks of his father he wonders whether he is prone to the same trick of the mind.

“I cannot really guarantee that [the memories] are recollections of my experiences or if they are the product of imagination, dreams or the many photos or videos of my father that I have seen,” the 54-year-old lawyer, whose vaguely familiar features are a glimpse of how his father might have looked had he lived into middle age, says.

Camilo was five when his father, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, an Argentine-born guerrilla leader, Marxist theorist and second in command of the Cuban revolution, was executed by the CIA-backed Bolivian government, at the age of 39.

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Their final encounter took place a year earlier, in October 1966, as Che was preparing to leave Havana. With their mother (and Che’s second wife), Aleida March, Camilo and his siblings, Aleidita, Celia and Ernesto, were brought to a safe house, where their father was waiting for them.

Unrecognisable with his hair and beard shaved off, and wearing black-rimmed glasses, Che was already disguised as the older Uruguayan businessman in the forged passport he would use to travel later that week. The children were introduced to “Ramón”, who Aleida told them was a friend of their father, and they spent a few hours playing together, the children all vying for the friendly stranger’s attention.

In her 2012 memoir, Remembering Che, Aleida wrote that her husband insisted on staying in disguise, because he feared the older children might tell someone if they recognised him. "It was a difficult moment for us both," she wrote, "especially painful for Che because he loved his children but could not say much or treat them in the way he wanted to."

One time he went on a journey to carry out his duties and sent us recorded stories that we listened to many times through our childhood

Afterwards Che went straight to the airport. It was a suitably unorthodox farewell to a father whose fame and peripatetic lifestyle had made for an unconventional upbringing.

On the rare occasions when Che’s children speak of those years they recall a loving father rather then the guerrilla fighter who led a revolution and then oversaw the process of meting out “revolutionary justice”, including executions by firing squad, for the defeated Batista army.

From Congo, Tanzania and Bolivia, Che would send home stories and drawings and urge his children to work harder at school. "One time he went on a journey to carry out his duties and sent us recorded stories that we listened to many times through our childhood," Camilo says.

In a short goodbye letter to his children, shortly before his death, Che wrote: “Above all be sensitive, in the deepest areas of yourselves, to any injustice committed against whoever it may be anywhere in the world.”

As adults the children of one of the 20th century's most famous political figures have all kept relatively low profiles. Aleidita, like her father, qualified as a doctor, Celia is a vet, and the boys, Camilo and Ernesto, both trained as lawyers. (Hilda, Che's daughter from his first marriage, to a Peruvian economist, Hilda Gadea, died in 1995.)

Camilo, the revolutionary’s eldest son, has in recent years taken over the management of the Che Guevara Study Centre, a library and research hub where his father’s writings, photographs and personal papers are kept.

When I approached Camilo in Havana recently he agreed to be interviewed on condition that the authorities grant approval. The International Press Centre, the government office that deals with foreign media, gave its permission on the day I flew out of Cuba, so we conducted the interview by email over the following week.

Humanity’s legacy

Camilo does not see himself as the guardian of his father’s legacy, because that legacy is not his or the family’s but “belongs to humanity”, he says. He may have a blood link, but there are “many people who consider themselves to be the spiritual sons and daughters of Che”, and he is fine with that. If his father’s ideas can help people to “create a world that is different, and that is better”, his legacy will live on.

A key objective of the centre is to ensure the central place of Che’s ideas, Camilo says, as opposed to his image alone. Family members have in the past expressed annoyance that his name, synonymous with youthful rebellion, nonconformism and untamed defiance, is so often pressed into service for commercial gain.

A number of years ago the Cuban government sought to stop a European beer being named after the revolutionary leader. The Italian company Olivetti once used Che's picture in an advertisement, alongside the strapline "We would have hired him".

Camilo professes himself largely ambivalent, remarking that “there will always be people who profit from these things”. He points out that while the famous portrait, by the Irish artist Jim Fitzpatrick, may have been shorn of its meaning in the rich world, elsewhere it can still be a potent symbol.

He also suggests the possibility of a malign motive behind Che’s appropriation by the forces of capitalism. Perhaps “trying to separate his image from his story is a macabre strategy, very well thought out, to try to eradicate his story altogether”.

Sentimental attachment

Che was descended from a Lynch from Galway who settled in Argentina in the 18th century, and Camilo says his father maintained a "sentimental attachment" to Ireland throughout his life.

In one letter preserved at the centre Che mentions his desire to visit the country of his ancestors. The wish was fulfilled, albeit briefly, in 1965, when he was forced to spend a night in the west of Ireland, after his plane made an unscheduled stopover at Shannon.

His love of literature and poetry and history, especially about those peoples who have faced terrible adversaries - this could have been one of the many bridges that linked him emotionally with Ireland

“Obviously, he knew where some of his genes came from, but how important that was to him we don’t know for sure,” his son says. “He was a voracious reader.

“We’re familiar with his love of literature and poetry and history, especially about those peoples who have faced terrible adversaries. This could have been one of the many bridges that linked him emotionally with Ireland.”

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Che Guevara’s death. It falls at a time when Cuba is undergoing arguably its biggest transformation since the revolution that brought the communists to power in 1959.

A series of economic reforms initiated by another of Guevara’s close collaborators, the current president, Raúl Castro, has loosened the state’s grip in certain sectors and resulted in a spike in private business ownership.

As long as social justice persists in Cuba, we will not be in grave danger

The tentative rapprochement between Cuba and the United States during Barack Obama's presidency has been accompanied by a wave of tourism from the US, and the gradual easing of restrictions on internet access is changing the lives of many ordinary Cubans.

Against that background an important debate is taking place within the Communist Party and the society at large about how Cuba can adapt its socialist model in order to to safeguard the achievements of the revolution, in areas such as healthcare, education and public safety, while giving the people more freedom.

Undeniable risks

Camilo cautiously welcomes the recent changes, saying that if they benefit the people, and do not alter “our most sacred values and principles”, he can support them.

“There are undeniable risks, but they are not the first and nor will they be the last,” he says. “Our people have countless times proven their ability to overcome great challenges. There is nothing wrong with growing the nation’s level of economic output by boosting tourism and other businesses.

“The risk is that we would not know how to adequately deal with this growth and would therefore not have a system in place that would redistribute a part of their profits to all in society . . . As long as social justice persists in Cuba and its economy, and we organise our production in a rational and sustainable way, we will not be in grave danger.”

He also supports moves to normalise relations with the US, which he sees as an opportunity that could benefit both countries “if properly seized”. “By following our internationalist spirit the USA could benefit from us, gaining a less biased and stereotyped vision of socialism and the Latin American way of doing things, seeing other points of view concerning a lot of issues.”

Aleida March, who met Che while serving in Castro’s revolutionary army, described how her own political outlook was “reddened” by her marriage. But she always insisted that the couple never impose their ideas on the children. She and her husband were conscious that the Guevara name would saddle them with a burden of expectation and were determined to give them the space to forge their own paths.

Fervent believers

Still, like his siblings, Camilo is a fervent believer in the cause and instinctively sceptical of the potential for change in Washington, DC. Cuban hopes that the Obama-era detente would result in a normalisation of relations between the two countries have been tempered by the ascent of Donald Trump.

"I personally consider that Trump will not be worse than previous presidents," Camilo says. "Perhaps he will be more chaotic or reckless, more repulsive and more cynical, but I do not think that he will be more stupid than George W Bush or more nasty and criminal than Nixon."

Cuba’s experience has been that “nothing good has ever come from America”, Camilo says. After all, “nothing good can be expected from an empire that has no friends, only interests, and one which does not want to treat poor and small countries as equals” .

But he is keen to draw a distinction between the US government and its people: “As in all societies, there is a cohort of American people who are intrinsically noble. Our hope must be to deepen the bonds of friendship with them.”