BY TOBA SINGER
GUADALAJARA, Mexico-Ernesto Che Guevara is "to blame for the deaths" of thousands of fighters who took part in revolutionary struggles in Latin America over the past three decades, argued Jorge Castaņeda at a meeting celebrating his book La vida en rojo (published in English as Compaņero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara). More than 300 people packed the standing-room- only meeting sponsored by the Guadalajara Book Fair.

Guevara was part of the movement that led workers and peasants in Cuba to overthrow the U.S.-backed dictatorship in 1959. One of the revolution's central leaders, he left Cuba in 1965 to join and help lead other revolutionary struggles abroad.

Prefacing most of his comments with phrases such as "rather than simply believing the sources," or "while there are no sources," Castaņeda freely speculated on why the examples of Che Guevara and the Cuban revolution are, in his opinion, to blame for the defeats of working-class struggles throughout the Americas.

In a most vicious slander, Castaņeda claimed that in 1967 Fidel Castro rejected a plan by Mario Monje, then general secretary of the Bolivian Communist Party, to save Guevara from the Bolivian counter-insurgency forces that murdered him in October of that year.

Castaņeda's claims were parroted by Rafael Rojas, who was introduced as a Cuban historian. Rojas lives in Mexico and opposes the Cuban revolution. The claims also went unchallenged by Paco Ignacio Taibo II, the other panelist.

The forum opened with a broadside attack on the Cuban revolution by Rojas, who applauded La vida en rojo because it "challenges the myth of the supposed loyalty between Che and Fidel and between Che and the Cuban Revolution." Rojas also stated that "Che's violent messianism led him to carry out genocide and his own self-immolation." Further echoing Castaņeda's views, he added, "I agree that Che is to blame for the failures across Latin America."

Taibo, the Mexican author of a biography entitled Guevara, also Known as Che, opened his remarks by indicating he had not read La vida en rojo. But, he nonetheless claimed his intention was to "vindicate the myth of Che." By offering a saint-like image of the Cuban revolutionary, Taibo managed to portray Guevara as impossible for any ordinary human being to hope to emulate or identify with. Moreover, "Che belonged to his time, not ours," Taibo intoned.

"The great virtue of these four biographies," Taibo claimed about his and three other recently written books on Che, is that "they allow us to take sides." He passed off slanders and baseless "facts" as simply "differences of opinion."

As soon as the panelists concluded their remarks, members of the audience learned that the event was over and there would be no time for questions or discussion. As they filed out of the hall, several people pointed to what was obviously missing from the panel: the views of Cuban revolutionaries themselves. Prior to the forum, members of a team of Pathfinder supporters had distributed flyers highlighting books by Guevara, Castro, and other Cuban revolutionaries available at the Pathfinder booth in the fair.  
 
 
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