South America honours Che Guevara

People across South America have been marking the death of the Argentina-born revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, executed by Bolivian soldiers who captured him in the jungle forty years ago on Monday.

In Bolivia, more than 7-thousand people, most of them born long after Guevara's death, joined a rally at Vallegrande, where the revolutionary's remains were secretly buried for nearly three decades before they were discovered and returned to Cuba . The crowd cheered, giving the clenched fist salute, as Bolivian President Evo Morales told them: "The historic fight of Che Guevara and many other Cuban, Argentine and Latin American revolutionaries will go on until the economic model is changed. I am talking about the end of the inhuman savage capitalism."

In Cuba, Guevara's adopted homeland, at Santa Clara, scene of a crucial battle between Castro's guerrilla army and the dictatorship he was trying to oust, Guevara's widow and daughter laid flowers at a massive bronze memorial statue.

In Argentina, it was a day of reflection for Enrique Martin, a childhood friend of the great evolutionary. They grew up together in a town near Cordoba, where the Guevara family had moved in hopes that the country atmosphere would cure young Che's asthma. Martin told AP Television that Che moved to Alta Gracia in Cordoba from the city of Rosario and spent much of his childhood there before his family moved again, to Buenos Aires. "I still cannot believe where he got with his life. But one day in 1967 I was walking to work at the factory and my work-mates told me "they killed your friend". I could not believe it but they showed me the newspaper and it was a shock, but I still could not believe it. I thought they were never going to get him." he reminisced.

The Guevara family home is typical of many on narrow streets of Alta Gracia, a community 35 miles (56 Kilometres) southwest of Cordoba, where Castro, Chavez and six other Latin American presidents visited a year ago. It is now owned by the city government. Guevara lived in the house for two stretches, first from 1935-1937 and again from 1939-43.

Guevara travelled to Bolivia in 1966, intending to start a social revolution, but was captured by Bolivian soldiers on 8 October, 1967 and executed in the small mountain community of La Higuera the following day. Historians still debate whether the summary death sentence came from local commanders, the Bolivian government or the US Central Intelligence Agency.