Che50 years ago

was murdered on October 9, 1967
in the hamlet of the Higuera, Bolivia.
His body was exposed a day later
in the laundry of the hospital Lord of Malta,
in the town of Vallegrande, with the purpose
to show their defeat and discourage
the outbreak of insurrection on the continent.
The opposite happened: during the following
two decades of young people from fields
and Latin American cities embraced
the example of Che and made it theirs
the revolutionary dream.

In contrast to the political classes
cynical and corrupt that swarm in the region,
the figure of Che Guevara remains valid
due to the values ​​it embodies: the spirit
of rebellion, contempt for the material,
the seamless congruence,
heroism without brakes.
Neither the triumph of noeliberal capitalism in the shipwreck
of the armed revolutions struck
in the myth of the guerrilla.
His life and death "intertwined epic and tragedy"
feed the necessary utopia and remind the world
one of its outstanding: social justice.

50 years after Che's death, Revista Proceso

offers this special edition fascinating stories
around his murder, the disappearance
of his corpse and the subsequent rescue of his remains;
it also collects testimonies and reflections
of whom, in one way or another,
they conquered man
"of flesh and bone" and scrutinized in their myth:
family members, biographers, executioners
and survivors of his guerrilla in Bolivia.

Revista Proceso
Special Issue No. 55
• www.proceso.com.mx