Please read the poem at the end of this short report by Tomas Borge, it might help us in Cyprus, Turkey, Armenia ......
Optimistic vision as Che's legacy leaves sight for sore eyes...
Commemorating forty years since the death of Che Guevara (if you haven't heard of him you probably bought the t-shirt), here's one for all you latin lovers of irony...
Operation Milagro (miracle), a continent-wide health project to treat eye diseases, has so far helped 600,000 people in twenty eight countries in the Americas (including the US of A) - places which have suffered from neo-liberal gutting of state-run healthcare programmes or a near total lack of health infrastructure. The 'miracle' has been possible through the winning combination of Cuban doctors and Venezuelan oil dosh.
In Bolivia over 100,000 have been treated for free including one Mario Terán, the man who pulled the trigger on the world's most famous guerilla 40 years ago in the Bolivian jungle. Working for the CIA obviously didn't include health insurance or a decent pension, and so in the decades following his dastardly deed he found himself living in poverty and unable to afford an operation to treat the cataracts that had left him blind for many years.
That was until Cuban doctors cured him, courtesy of the same internationalist sentiment that brought El Che to Bolivia in the first place. The revolutionary spirit continues to sweep through Latin America bringing tangible benefits to the people four decades after Che's heroic but ill-fated foray in the jungle.
Sometimes revenge can take strange forms - as in the words of Nicaraguan Sandinista freedom fighter and victim of torture, Tomás Borge:
"My personal revenge will be your children's right to schooling and to flowers.
My personal revenge will be to make you see the goodness in my people's eyes, implacable in combat, always generous and firm in victory.
My personal revenge will be to greet you 'good morning!' in streets with no beggars, when instead of locking you inside they say, 'don't look so sad,' when you, the torturer, daren't lift your head.
My personal revenge will be to give you these hands you once ill-treated with all their tenderness intact."
