Meeting Che Guevara's Grandson: Cuba in the early 90's

I first met Che’s grandson – Canek Sanchez- in Havanain 1991.

What you above is his current facebook profile photo, which he posted as purposefully blurry.  The resemblance, though, is obvious.

The other photos you see are those of Che Guevara with Canek's mother, Hildita Gadea.

I was at an afternoon party on the patio of a Cuban friend ofmine, Juan Carlos Fernandez, a former counter-intelligence officer who had morphed into awriter. Canek, then about 18, showed up agitated and angered and accompanied by the son of another good friend.Fam06sm_1, the writer Angel Tomas Gonzalez,

The two young men breathlessly told us adults of something awful thathad just happened. Canek and his pal had put together a rock band andhad just opened their first gig at a nearby Casa De Cultura – a municipal performance space. No sooner had they started playing but a squad of Cuban cops had burst in and chased everyone out, lobbing a tear gas canister or two. Seemed like the state wasn’t too pleased by such a gathering of "hippies."

As he was being manhandled by the cops Canek had told them they were pushing around Che’s own kin.They couldn’t care less, even though you didn’t have to look hard tosee that Canek had the identical dark, penetrating stare of hisguerrilla grandpa.

The story the young me told us assembled on that patio that eveningresonated deeply. Here was a gathering of maybe 25 middle-aged or sointellectuals, all with some bond to the Cuban revolution and each onenow severely shook up. As the wall came down and theSoviet Union disappeared and Fidel just seemed to dig himself andeveyone with him deeper and deeper into an historic trench, doubts and second thoughts swamped Havana's intellectual community.

The confusion eventually settled. My friend, Fernandezl soon moved to Florida. Angel Tomas moved at least temporarily to Spain but later continued commuting back and forth to Cuba..Others present that night (Cuban journalists, writers, translators,musicians etc) went to Mexico and some to Madrid or Paris. When I wentback to Havana five years later, no one was left. And I couldn’t findCanek.

His story wound up being central to my 1996 book Roll Over, Che Guevara but I had simply lost track of Canek, learning only that he was spending a lot of time in Mexico. I know now that is where he lives.

In 2004, the prestigious Mexican leftist weekly Procesolocated him and asked him to sit for an interview. Instead, Canekagreed to a “self-interview” and sent the transcript over to themagazine.

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Fam10sm

To finally get to the point – here’s some of the current thoughts of Che Guevara’s grandson:



“The Cuban Revolution died some years ago: it had to be killed off bythose who act in its name to make sure it didn’t turn against them; itwas institutionalized and smothered by its own bureaucracy, bycorruption, nepotism and the rigidity of the much-celebrated Cuban‘revolutionary’ state.”

“All of my criticism of Fidel Castro come from his walkingaway from the ideals of liberty, from his betrayal of his own peopleand his frightening zeal to place the interests of the state abovethose of his people.”

“Let’s be honest, a young rebel like Fidel Castro in today’s Cuba wouldn’t be sent into exile. He’s be shot.”

Canekwas a brave and bright teenager when I first met him. He had eschewedall the privileges and perks available to him in Cuba as the grandsonof the state’s leading historic icon. He obviously has matured into anequally courageous and honest young man.



On that same trip I gave a couple of conferences, one with the literary journal of the Ministry of Interior! And spent some time with my good friend and now celebrated writer, Daniel Echevarria. Just as a teaser: Daniel was an Uruguayan working with Colombian guerrillas in the late 1960's when he had to flee the country. He highjacked a plane to Havana (sort of, as he paid for all the seats on the small plane). He then became a writer. And later a Great Writer. I will tell his whole story in another posting soon. Some of the pictures from that trip, including one of Daniel, are in the slideshow above.

Posted by Marc Cooper at 4/17/2010 11:43 PM
Categories: Che Guevara, Cuba, Havana, Highjacker
Tags: angel tomas gonzalez marc cooper canek guevara Che Guevara Cuba Havana Highjacker paco ignacio taibo
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