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goodbye Alberto Granado, Che Guevara's companion

The 'Che' was not the 'Che', when, with Alberto Granado are running around South America aboard the 'Powerful', the motorcycle on which in 1952 the two friends, both college students, found utopia. Jovial, funny, irreverent alter ego of Che, of Granada remains formidable portrait drawn in 'Motorcycle Diaries'. Granado was to record the details in the diaries of an extraordinary adventure that allowed the two friends to discover, also, an inner continent, marked by a deep and durable friendship

by italiacuba.it
an interview with Alberto Granado

D- reading the diary of your journey with Che is clear that this experience has been instrumental in the formation of your conscience on several occasions in fact next to your cultural interest for the pre-Columbian civilization, it is clear commitment to make so that the living conditions of local populations mutassero. That Guevara then made a radical decision to fight, but you have broken the trip to stay in the leper colony of Venezuela. What prompted you to go to Cuba and then as you develop your experience in all these years?
R- After fifty years since that trip, I can not help but say that my life has revolved around the figure of Ernesto Che Guevara and the Cuban revolution.

One of the responsibilities that we have we have known men like Che and Fidel is to understand how to be men of flesh and blood, and not myths over reality . Too often in good faith, friends and enemies tend to raise interest for the figure of Che Guevara beyond human limits, so that does not seem possible to follow his example. I want to tell a story that I consider typical: when I went to see that in Cuba the first time, was president of the National Bank. I asked the secretary to announce and he replies that the commander Guevara could not be bothered because he was studying financial mathematics .
D- Having a partner who has experienced first hand the reality of Cuba's immediately after the revolution to this day makes me wonder how this situation developed and what do you think the problems that this reality is now to face.

R- When I decided to live in Cuba, the revolution had already taken a social connotation and realized that my dream has always cultivated. But was the speech that Fidel Castro was held that year in the Serra teacher to track the goals of the Cuban revolution, which finally led me to remain in Cuba to make my contribution .

Immediately after the revolution, the U.S., in fact, had convinced many doctors to leave the island, so it seemed important to help form a group of scientists in the medical, chemical and biochemical . Luckily I can say that from a medical school that existed in '60, we are now in 18 schools. From a 0% of research institutions, today Cuba has an international reputation in genetic engineering and molecular genetics.
D- your words lead me to ask you another question that follows from this discussion: the international prestige of Cuba in the field of medicine, is universally acknowledged (by all the countries of Latin America who can go to Cuba to seek treatment), nevertheless the consequences of the embargo have been very serious in this area. For this I ask: what are the health issues currently in Cuba, and what should be the priority of the movement of solidarity?

R- Indeed the end of relations with the Soviet Union has caused serious problems Cuban economy and thus also to medicine , but fortunately there is a clear health policy in Cuba, no clinic was closed, and indeed in some regions has further lowered the rate of infant mortality. Not having a large availability of antibiotics, for example, has developed a policy to prevent a lot taking care of hygiene.

It 'clear that As the economic blockade by the United States is strengthening wanted (everyone knows the Torricelli Act) any act of solidarity becomes very important. What is vital for us not only that we send aid, but we are allowed to buy what the country needs . The solidarity movement must therefore be push because the block is removed. Of course I will not say that it is not welcome any financial help, especially for children and schools. For example we are now paperless, we need a lot of paper.

The Cuban people are still growing despite the difficulties and it's a people worthy of being helped . It 'clear that after thirty years we must revise some points on the development, we must think that we started with a literate country and have developed great strides both in the economic and scientific, having been forced to stop abruptly this course creates a certain disillusionment. Some do not know how to react and go, but it is still a very small percentage. The majority of youth and the Cuban people believe in revolution and argues .
D- There is a generational problem in Cuba? Young people are the ones that feel most uneasy about the economic crisis?

R- It could certainly not be there in Cuba as in all countries a similar problem, but the difficulties young people are also able to grow. I'll tell you an anecdote. This year, the zone of Guantanamo, generally little rainfall, has suffered numerous floods, and then there was the need to collect sugar cane before it was lost. The Communist Youth was taken charge of the problem and asked three hundred volunteers.

He presented five hundred, but when you leave we realized that there were only two hundred pairs of boots. He held the team and decided that nobody would leave until they had found all the boots needed. prevailed in the end the opinion of some barefooted as did those who had fought against the Spaniards in the last century or fellow Fidel in '59. But there's more: the teachers gave up their shoes at Guantanamo because they were less necessary to go to teach rather than to go to cut cane.
D- There are still some questions you would like to address. The first regards the situation of Latin America in that famous journey you and what have clearly become aware of the realities of individual countries. What has changed now?

R- When we started we wanted to know Latin America, did not think that in those countries lived social and political problems as severe. Same Argentina only knew the reality of the city and the middle class. On our way we run the exploitation of not only men but also the environment. If we compare the reality with that of today, we see that the difference is that today we are richer but the poor are still poor: For example, Argentina that in the fifties had a scientific level comparable to that of Europe and a well-structured school, now delegated to a private school education of the rich, while the public schools is increasingly left to itself with non-existent facilities and poorly paid teachers.

My assessment is that Latin America is worse now than when we visited, we have confidence in the people and therefore we are confident that they will fight because the situation changes .
D- What are Cuba's relations with other countries in Latin America?

R- The relationship with the people, and I stress the people, Latin Americans are also very narrow because only the fact that Cuba has resisted U.S. aggression thirty-five years, is an example to look to the exploited of all countries.
D- The uprising in Chiapas in Mexico has dramatically revived the problem of marginalized indigenous minorities. As has been experienced in Cuba, so close to Mexico, this reality?

R- First of all, the Zapatista uprising was a clear refutation to those who believed that liberalism would have done away with the popular uprisings.
D- final question to be answered to a question that my generation will pose for thirty years and which only a friend who can answer. On why He has left Cuba and its place in the revolutionary government, to die in Bolivia, rivers of words have been written. You who have lived with him those last days in Cuba, what do you think of that choice?

R- Che had always expressed the belief that the revolution could triumph only when all the countries of Latin America were freed U.S. imperialism. No one would have wished that he would leave but those who knew him knew that the party to support the revolution of other people, fell into his vision of life. It 's totally false that there were differences with Castro .

The last time we met, sitting at a table, he announced that he would leave for the United States and I told him: "You know Pelao that there are two things that I can not give up: the rum and travel"

And he said: "You know I've never been drinking involved, and even the travel if I can not bring back my machine gun ". In this way I had communicated its intentions. Actually he did not do that follow the path he had mapped out: he did not believe in a form of seizure of power other than the armed , in which we did not agree, since the days of our trip.