The New Defeats Of ‘Che’

Havana/The face of the Argentine guerrilla is awaiting two expulsions, one unilateral and the other by democratic vote. In his reorganization of Casa Rosada, the government of Argentine president Mauricio Macri will eliminate all the paintings in the Hall of Latin American Patriots and the gallery of popular idols, which means the removal of the portrait of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, among many others.

In early February, the Argentine government removed from the president’s official residence the portraits of Hugo Chavez and Nestor Kirchner. In the new phase, also eliminated will be the face of the guerrilla, those of Eva Peron, Salvador Allende, Pancho Villa, Simon Bolivar, Tupac Amaru, Augusto Sandino and the photographs of Charly Garcia, Diego Maradona, Alberto Olmedo, the Coca Sarli and The Gauchito Gil.

As sources from Casa Rosada explained on Monday, the idea is to replace the portraits and photographs left by Cristina Fernandez “with quality works whose theme is related to Argentine history and, when possible, that recall events that have occurred in this sector of La Casa Rosada.”

Guevara’s face could also disappear from the central plaza at the Bogota site of the National University of Columbia. A Political Sciences student, Juan Carlos Rubiano, asked the rector of the institution for authorization to convene a virtual consultation so that students, professors and workers can make the decision to remove the portrait of the Argentine guerrilla, created in the eighties.

The portraits of the presidents will be relocated to the Bicentennial Museum for permanent display

This request is in addition to the one made in 2005 by another student, Edgar Eduardo Muñoz Manrique, who argued the protection of the collective rights of the public and cultural patrimony of the nation. His actions led to removing the image in the square, despite the rejection of the idea by the great majority of students of the Atheneum, who repainted the face of Che.