APPENDIX II

MESSAGE FROM ERNESTO "CHE" GUEVARA

Havana Prensa Latina in Spanish 0021 GMT April 17, 1967-E

(Text of Ernesto Che Guevara's article to the Executive Secretariat of the AfroAsian-Latin American Peoples Solidarity Organization)

Havana, April 16-Following is the text of the article which was sent by Maj. Ernesto Che Guevara to the Executive Secretariat of the Afro-Asian-Latin American Peoples Solidarity Organization (AALAPSO) and which will appear in the first issue of the magazine "Tricontinental" in June.

The battle cry is to create two, three... (Prensa Latina ellipsis) many Vietnams. This is the hour of the kilns, and only the light is to be seen. Jose Marti. Twenty-one years have passed since the end of the last world war, and many publications in an infinite number of languages are hailing the event which was symbolized by Japan's defeat. There exists an atmosphere of apparent optimism in many sectors of the various camps into which the world is divided. Twenty-one years without a world war in these days of harsh confrontations, of violent clashes, and sudden changes, looks like a large number. However, without analyzing the practical results of this peace, for which we are all prepared to fight (poverty, degradation, and growing exploitation over vast areas of the world-Prensa Latina), the question arises as to whether it is real.

It is not repeat-not the intention of these notes to relate the various local conflicts which have succeeded one another since Japan's surrender. Nor is it our task to enumerate the growing number of civil wars which have erupted during these years of so-called peace. It will suffice to cite the Korean and Vietnam wars against such excessive optimism.

During the Korean war, after years of fierce struggle, the northern part of the country was engulfed in the worst devastation in the annals of modern warfare; it was riddled with bombs, and was left without factories, schools, or hospitals and without any kind of housing to shelter a population of 10 million. Scores of countries led militarily by the United States took part in that war under the false flag of the United Nations, with the massive participation of U.S. soldiers and the use of an inducted South Korean population as cannon fodder. On the other side, the Korean Army and people and the volunteers from the Chinese People's Republic received supplies and advice from the Soviet military apparatus. The North American side employed all kinds of destructive weapons, excluding thermonuclear weapons, but including bacteriological and chemical arms on a limited scale.

In Vietnam there has been an almost uninterrupted chain of military action, supported by the patriotic forces of that country, against three imperialist powers: Japan, whose power dropped vertically after the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; France, which recovered its Indochinese colonies from that vanquished nation and forgot the promises made during a difficult hour; and the United States in this latest phase of the struggle.

There have been limited confrontations on all continents, although for a long time, there only occurred sporadic liberation struggles and military coups on the American Continent until the Cuba revolution sounded the bugle of alert on the importance of this region and drew the anger of imperialism thus forcing the revolution to defend its shores at Palva Giron first, and later during the October crisis. The latter incident could have led to a war of incalculable proportions during the clash between the North Americans and the Soviets over Cuba. However, at present the differences are centered around the Indochinese Peninsula and the adjacent countries. Laos and Vietnam are shaken by civil wars which cease to be such with the appearance of U.S. imperialism and all its might, and the entire area has become a dangerous fuse ready to detonate.

In Vietnam the confrontation has taken an extremely acute turn. It is not-repeat-not our intention to give a history of this war either; we will only recall certain points of it.

In 1954, following the crushing defeat at Dien-Bien-Phu, (?the Geneva Agreement) was signed dividing the country into two zones and stipulating that elections should be held within 18 months to determine who should govern Vietnam and how the country would be reunified. The North Americans did not-repeat-not sign that document, and the maneuvering began to replace the French puppet Emperor Bao Dai with a man suitable to their purposes. He turned out to be Ngo Dinh Diem, whose tragic end—that of the orange squeezed dry by imperialism-is known to everybody.

In the months following the agreement optimism reigned among the popular forces. Redoubts used to fight the French in the south were dismantled, and fulfillment of the terms was awaited. But the patriots soon realized that there would be no elections unless the United States felt able to impose its will at the polls, something that it could not-repeat-not do even if it made use of all the methods of fraud known to it.

Fighting in the south resumed, and it kept gaining in intensity up to the present, when the U.S. Army contains almost half a million invaders, while the puppet forces are decreasing in number and above all, have completely lost any fighting spirit.

About 2 years ago the North Americans began systematically bombing the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in another effort to curb the south's will to fight and force a conference from positions of strength. At first the bombing raids were more or less isolated and were cloaked in the guise of reprisals for alleged provocations from the north. Later their intensity and method were elevated until they became a gigantic drive carried out by U.S. air units day after day for the purpose of destroying every vestige of civilization in the northern zone of the country. It is an episode in the notorious escalation.

The material aims of the Yankee world have been satisfied in large part despite the stout defense put up by Vietnamese antiaircraft units, the more than 1,700 planes downed, and the aid in war materiel from the Socialist camp.

A painful fact remains: Vietnam, that nation that represents the aspirations and hopes of victory of an entire neglected world, is tragically alone. That nation has to support the onslaught of U.S. technology, almost defenseless in the south and with some possibility of defense in the north, but always alone.

The progressive world's solidarity with the people of Vietnam is reminiscent of the bitter irony that the encouragement of the Hoi Polloi carried with it for the gladiator in the Roman circus. The thing is not-repeat-not to wish the victim success, but to share his lot, accompany him to death or victory.

When we analyze the Vietnamese isolation we are assailed by the anguish of this illogical moment in mankind's history. U.S. imperialism is guilty of aggression; its crimes are tremendous and are distributed all over the world. We know that, gentlemen! But the guilt is shared by those who, in the moment of truth, hesitated to make Vietnam an inviolable part of socialist territory-running the risk of a war worldwide in scope, to be sure, but at the same time forcing the North American imperialists to make a decision.

And the guilt is shared by those who keep up a war of insults and tricks, begun quite a while ago by the representatives of the two biggest powers in the socialist camp. Let us ask, in hope of obtaining an honorable answer: Is Vietnam isolated or not-repeat-not, balancing dangerously between the two warring powers? What greatness, that of this nation! What stoicism and courage! And what a lesson this struggle contains for the world.

It will be a long time before we know whether President Johnson seriously intended to initiate some of the reforms necessary to a people-to file off some of the roughness from the class differences that are peeping through with explosive force, more and more frequently. What is certain is that the improvements announced under the pompous title of battle for the Great Society have gone down the drain in Vietnam.

The most powerful imperialist power is feeling the drain caused by a poor and backward nation, and its fabulous economy is weakened by the war effort. Killing is no longer the easiest job for the monopolies. Arms of strife, and not-repeatnot in sufficient number, is all these marvelous soldiers have in addition to love of their country and its society, as well as a tried and tested courage. However, imperialsim is bogging down in Vietnam. It cannot find a way out and is desperately seeking someone who will allow it to emerge from this dangerous predicament with dignity. However, the "four points" of the North and "the five"

of the South are torturing it, and are making the confrontation even more decisive.

There is every indication that peace, that precarious peace which received.that name only because there has been no world war, is once again in danger of breaking in the face of any irrevocable and unacceptable step on the part of the Americans. And we, the exploited of the world, what is our role? The peoples of the three continents are observing and learning their lesson in Vietnam. With the threat of war, the imperialists are exerting blackmail on humanity. The just reply is not-repeat-not to fear war. The general tactics of the people must be to hit hard and incessantly at every point of confrontation. However, wherever this wretched peace of ours has been broken, what shall our task be? To free ourselves at all costs.

The world offers a very complex picture. The task of liberation is still awaiting countries in Old Europe which are sufficiently developed to feel all the contradictions of capitalism, but so weak that they can no longer follow along the path of imperialism or embark upon that path. During the next few years, the contradictions will acquire an explosive nature, but their problems, and, therefore, their solution is different from that of our dependent and economically backward nations.

Imperialism's basic field of exploitation takes in the three backward continents: America, Asia, and Africa. Each country has its own characteristics, but the continents, taken together, display them.

America constitutes a more or less homogenous entity, and the U.S. capitalist monopolies maintain absolute primacy almost throughout its entirety. The puppet governments, or, in the best of cases, the weak and fearful governments, cannot oppose the orders they receive from their yankee master. The North Americans have almost reached the peak of their political and economic domination. They cannot advance much further. Any change in the situation could bring about a reduction of their primacy. Their policy is to hold on to their gains. At the present time their line of action is reduced to the use of brute force to prevent liberation movements, regardless of their nature.

Under the slogan "We will not-repeat-not permit another Cuba," lies the possibility of attacks with impunity, such as the one against Santo Domingo or earlier, the Panama massacre, and the clear warning that the Yankee troops are prepared to intervene anywhere in America where the established order has been altered to the detriment of its interests. This policy makes for complete impunity. Discredited as it may be the OAS is a convenient disguise. The United Nations organization's inefficiency borders on the ridiculous or on the tragic. The armies of all American countries are prepared to intervene to crush their peoples. A de facto international organization for crime and betrayal has been created. Moreover, the autonomous bourgeois countries have lost all their ability to oppose imperialism-if they ever had it, and only constitute the caboose. There are no other changes to be made: Either socialist revolution or else a caricature of a revolution.

The Asian Continent presents different characteristics. The liberation struggle against a string of European colonial powers resulted in the establishment of more or less progressive governments, whose later evolution, in some cases, meant strengthening the primary goals of national liberation and, in others, a return to the pro-imperialist positions.

From the economic viewpoint, the United States had little to lose and much to gain in Asia. The changes favored it: There is a struggle to displace other neocolonialist powers. To penetrate new spheres of action in the economic field, at times directly, and at others using Japan.

But there are special political conditions, particularly in the Indochinese Peninsula, that give Asia characteristics of major importance and plan an important role in U.S. imperialism's global military strategy. U.S. imperialism is encircling China by means of South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, South Vietnam, and Thailand, at least.

This double aspect-a strategic interest as important as a military ring around People's China, and the ambition of its capital to penetrate those great markets it still does not-repeat-not dominate-makes Asia one of the most explosive spots in the world of today despite the apparent stability that exists outside the Vietnamese area.

Geographically belonging to this continent, but with its own contradictions, the Middle East is in ferment. It is still impossible to foresee where the cold war will lead that is being waged between Israel, backed by the imperialists, and the progressive countries of the area. This is another of the threatening volcanos in the world.

Africa displays the characteristic of an almost untapped field for neocolonial invasion. Changes have occurred which to some extent forced the neocolonial powers to yield their old absolute prerogatives. But when the process goes forward uninterruptedly, colonialism is followed without violence by a neocolonialism of equal effects as far as economic domination is concerned.

The United States had no colonies in this region and is now striving to penetrate its partners' old private grounds. It may be said that Africa, in U.S. imperialism's strategic plans, constitutes a long-term reservoir. U.S. imperialism's current investments are of importance only in the Union of South Africa and have begun penetration of the Congo, Nigeria, and other countries, where violent competition is beginning-peacefully so far-with other imperialist powers.

It still does not-repeat-not have important interests to defend, except its presumed right to intervene anywhere on earth where its monopolies smell good profits or the existence of large reserves of raw materials.

All this background justifies the question as to possibilities for the short- or medium-term liberation of peoples.

If we analyze Africa we see that fighting is going on with some intensity in the Portuguese colonies of Guinea, Mozambique, and Angola, with particular success in the first and varying success in the last two. A struggle still continues between Lumumba's successors and Tshombe's old accomplices in the Congo, a struggle that currently seems to be favoring the latter, the men who have "restored peace" to much of the country to their own benefit, although war remains latent. In Rhodesia it is a different problem, British imperialism used every mechanism available to it to turn power over to the white minority that holds it at present. From England's viewpoint, the conflict is absolutely unofficial; but this power, with its customary diplomatic skill—also known as hypocrisy in plain languagefeigns annoyance over the measures adopted by the Ian Smith government and is supported in its sly attitude by some commonwealth countries that follow its suit, while it is attacked by a good many countries of Black Africa, whether or not-repeat-not they are docile economic vassals of British imperialism.

The situation in Rhodesia could become extremely explosive, if the efforts of the black patriots to rise in arms crystallized and if this movement received effective support from neighboring African nations. But as of now all problems are aired in organizations as innocuous as the United Nations, the Commonwealth, or the Organization of African Unity.

Nevertheless, Africa's political and social evolution does not-repeat-not indicate a continental revolutionary situation. The struggles for liberation from the Portuguese should end victoriously, but Portugal means nothing on the imperialist list. Confrontations of revolutionary importance are those that place the entire imperialist machinery in check, although this should not-repeatnot make us stop fighting for the liberation of the three Portuguese colonies and a radicalization of their revolutions.

When the black masses in South Africa or Rhodesia begin their real revolutionary struggle, a new era will have started in Africa, or when the impoverished masses of some country rise to redeem their right to a decent life from the hands of the ruling oligarchy.

Up to now there has been a succession of coups in which one group of officers takes the place of another or of some ruler who no longer serves the interests of the caste or of the powers that manipulate him behind the scenes, but there are no popular upheavals. traces did appear in the Congo inspired by the memory of Lumumba, but they have been losing strength these past months.

In Asia, as we have seen, the situation is explosive, and the points of friction are not-repeat-not just Vietnam and Laos, where fighting is going on. Others are Cambodia-where direct U.S. aggression might begin any time-Thailand, Malaysia, and of course Indonesia, where we cannot believe the last word has been said in spite of the destruction of the Communist Party in that country when the reactionaries took power, and to be sure, the middle East.

In Latin America, an armed struggle is being waged in Guatemala, Colombia, Venezuela, and Bolivia, and the first outcroppings are making their appearance in Brazil. There are other focal points of resistance that appear and are extinguished. But almost all countries of this continent are ripe for a struggle of such a nature that in order to succeed it cannot be content with anything less than establishment of a Socialist-type Government.

This is practically a one-language continent, except for Brazil, whose population and the Spanish-speaking peoples can understand one another because of the similarity in their languages.

There is so close an identity among the classes of these countries that they achieve a kind of "American international" identification, much more complete