Bolivia’s Evo Morales and the Ghost of El Che
Michael Orion Powell /
The Cold War is supposed to be over, and the murderous ideology of Marxist-Leninist revolution either tempered by capitalism and consumerism in China or Vietnam, or confined behind the grim ramparts of communist throwbacks like Cuba and North Korea. If that’s the case, Bolivian leader Evo Morales must not have gotten the memo.
In a sharp contrast with Bolivia’s history – it was in fact Bolivian troops which executed the violently homicidal Cuban Communist leader Che Guevara in 1967 for attempting an ill-fated repeat of Cuba’s communist revolution – the country’s leftist President Evo Morales has now ordered the Bolivian army to adopt a chant popularized by Guevara and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, “Patria o muerte, venceremos (Fatherland or death, we shall overcome!)”