Mausoleo del Che Guevara
( Che Guevara Mausoleum )The Che Guevara Mausoleum (Spanish: Mausoleo del Che Guevara, officially Conjunto Escultórico Memorial Comandante Ernesto Che Guevara) is a memorial in Santa Clara, Cuba, located in "Plaza Che Guevara" (Che Guevara Square). It houses the remains of the revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara and 29 fellow combatants killed in 1967 during Guevara's attempt to spur an armed uprising in Bolivia. The full area, which contains a bronze 22-foot statue of Guevara, is referred to as the Ernesto Guevara Sculptural Complex.
Guevara was buried with full military honors on 17 October 1997 after his remains were discovered in Bolivia, exhumed and returned to Cuba. At the site, there is a museum dedicated to Guevara's life and an eternal flame lit by Fidel Castro in his memory.
Santa Clara was chosen as the location in remembrance of Guevara's troops taking the city on December 31, 1958, during the Battle of Santa Clara. The result of this final battle of the Cuban Revolution was Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista fleeing into exile.[1]
Nearby, in another part of the city, a Fulgencio Batista military supply train derailed by Guevara during the battle also remains in its original location.
Return of remainsIn October 1997, Guevara's remains, and those of six revolutionaries who died with him in Bolivia, arrived in a motorcade from Havana in small wooden caskets aboard trailers towed by green jeeps.[2] As the remains were unloaded before a crowd of several hundred thousand people, a choir of schoolchildren sang Carlos Puebla's elegy to Guevara, "Hasta Siempre" (Until Forever) and then Fidel Castro declared the following:
Why did they think that by killing him, he would cease to exist as a fighter? Today he is in every place, wherever there is a just cause to defend. His unerasable mark is now in history and his luminous gaze of a prophet has become a symbol for all the poor of this world.[1]
His speech was followed by a coordinated 21-gun salute in both Santa Clara and Havana, while air raid sirens were set off across the length of the island.[1]
In addition to those of Che Guevara the remains of six other guerrillas who lost their lives in the 1966–1967 Bolivian Insurgency were also entombed in the mausoleum on October 17, 1997:
Carlos Coello (Tuma) – Cuban, killed in action at Rio Piraí on June 26, 1967. Alberto Fernandez Montes de Oca (Pacho) – Cuban, killed in action at Quebrada del Yuro on October 8, 1967. Orlando Pantoja Tamayo (Olo) – Cuban, killed in action at Quebrada del Yuro on October 8, 1967. René Martínez Tamayo (Arturo) – Cuban, killed in action at Quebrada del Yuro on October 8, 1967. Juan Pablo Navarro-Lévano Chang (El Chino) – Peruvian, captured and executed in La Higuera on October 9, 1967. Simeon Cuba Sarabia (Willy) – Bolivian, captured and executed in La Higuera on October 9, 1967.
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