BY ROBERT McMILLEN
Below we reprint a review of Pombo: A Man of Che's `Guerrilla' by Harry Villegas, published by Pathfinder Press. The review appeared in the August 23, 1997, Andersonstown News, a newspaper published in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was published under the headline, "More than just a poster boy: A fascinating new account of life in the jungle with Che Guevara, by one of his comrades."

Just last month, the mortal remains of a legendary revolutionary and his comrades were located in a secret unmarked grave in the Bolivian jungle.

Three decades after his death in Bolivia at the hands of the Bolivian military and their US advisers, interest in Ernesto Guevara -Che to you and me - is growing and while any debate on Che seems to focus on those ubiquitous posters, the philosophy still remains a focus of worldwide discussion and debate.

In Belfast last week to promote a new book on the man whose face adorned bedsits across the land in the 70s was Tony Hunt from Pathfinder Books - an American left-wing publishing company who have just published a fascinating account of Guevara written by a comrade in arms in the war in Bolivia.

Harry Villegas is now a brigadier general in Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces but between 1966 and 1968 he was a member of Guevara's general staff in their efforts to forge a continent wide leadership capable not only of overthrowing the US-backed dictatorships in Bolivia but of accelerating the struggle for national liberation in Latin America. These struggles of workers, peasants, and youth culminated a few years later in a massive revolutionary upsurge throughout the southern cone of South America.

"I think it is the internationalist dimension that makes Che so popular even today," explained Tony who distributes Pathfinder books from his London office.

"He really was a man of the people. He started off as a doctor and as he travelled throughout Argentina he saw the conditions of ordinary people and the horrific conditions in which they were forced to live. That direct confrontation with poverty turned him into the revolutionary we know today.

"But he saw his role in terms of a world-wide struggle against injustice so during his life he was active throughout South America, in Cuba and in the Congo."

Harry Villegas, known by his nom de guerre Pombo, worked and fought alongside Che for a decade - in Cuba, Bolivia and the Congo - and is one of the guerrilla unit's three surviving veterans.

"Following Che's death, he commanded the group of combatants that was able to elude the encirclement jointly organised by the Bolivian Army and the US military and intelligence forces."

Pombo's account of workers peasants and young people taking to the streets in Argentina has echoes of the USA where black people were demanding their right to dignity, as French students united with factory workers to fight for a socialist utopia and, of course, as the Civil Rights movement here stood up against a corrupt sectarian regime. It was indeed a time when the world seemed to be ready to divest itself of the injustice of centuries and start afresh.

Harry Villegas dedicates the book to the young people of the world who want to know more about Che Guevara.

"It is my hope that these young people get a better understanding and appreciation of the times we are living through and of the greatness of the human values embodied in Che's life, expressed through his early and lifelong decision to fight for humanity," writes Villegas.

Pathfinder has also published the speeches of Nelson Mandela Fidel Castro and Malcolm X.

"We believe it is important to go back to what people actually said and let people make up their own minds rather than have history interpreted for them by people who have a certain agenda," said Tony.

People in Ireland will certainly agree with that. Pombo: A Man of Che's guerrilla: With Che Guevara in Bolivia 1966- 68 by Harry Villegas is published by Pathfinder Press at 14.99.  
 
 
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