Warm welcome for Ché’s daughter

by Jim Savage in Cork

The daughter of the Cuban revolutionary leader Ché Guevara, Dr Aleida Guevara, received enthusiastic welcomes throughout her recent stay in Ireland during a European speaking tour.

Dr Guevara’s visit, which included stopovers in Belfast, Dublin and Cork, was her first to the birthplace of her grandfather, Ernest Lynch, who emigrated to Argentina in the 1880s.

Her stay in Cork included a packed public lecture at Jury’s Hotel attended by over a thousand people, an address to the Cork Council of Trade Unions, a visit to a paediatric hospital and a City Hall reception hosted by the city’s mayor.

Throughout her stay, Dr Guevara, a first degree consultant on paediatric allergology at the William Soler paediatric hospital in Havana, expressed appreciation for the solidarity shown by the Irish people, reserving particular thanks for the provision of much-needed medicines and equipment for use in Cuba’s polyclinics.

On several occasions, including during her meeting with Cork lord mayor cllr Tom O’Driscoll, she stresed her identification with the Irish people’s fight for independence and freedom, which she described as brave and courageous. “They too were colonised and had to struggle for centuries to obtain independence. That’s what makes me admire and respect them,” she said.

However, she expressed strong criticism for the US’s 40-year long blockade. The blockade had brought real hardships to the people of Cuba, she said.

“I feel sorry for the people of the US. He (George Bush) is the president of a mighty nation and apparently is not aware of the amount of human suffering he is causing by his mad and terrorist acts,” she said.