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Monday, May 26, 2008

Guevara monument in Venezuela destroyed

Guevara monument in Venezuela destroyed
Government unveiled tribute to revolutionary icon less than two weeks ago

A Venezuelan official said the glass monument to the Cuban revolutionary
Ernesto "Che" Guevara was shot at and attacked with a sledgehammer.
AP

CARACAS, Venezuela - A glass monument to revolutionary icon Ernesto
"Ché" Guevara was destroyed less than two weeks after it was unveiled by
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's government.

Images of the 8-foot-tall glass plate bearing Guevara's image, now
toppled and shattered, were shown Friday on state television, which said
the entire country "repudiated" the vandalism.

The monument on an Andean mountain highway near the city of Merida was
unveiled Oct. 8 by Vice President Jorge Rodriguez and Cuba's ambassador
to Venezuela to mark the 40th anniversary of Guevara's death.
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Chavez venerates Guevara as a model socialist for all Venezuelans. He
named a state-funded adult education program "Mission Ché Guevara," and
murals of the iconic revolutionary have become a common sight in Venezuela.

Police said they had yet to identify those responsible. The Venezuelan
newspaper El Nacional published a copy of what it said was a flier found
by the monument signed by the previously unknown "Paramo Patriotic Front."

"We don't want any monument to Ché, he isn't an example for our
children," the flier read. It called Guevara a "cold-blooded killer" and
said the government should raise a monument in Chavez's hometown of
Sabaneta, in the nearby lowland plains, if it wants to commemorate the
Argentine-born revolutionary.

Venezuela to replace monument
But the government will put up the monument again in the same spot,
Deputy Culture Minister Ivan Padilla Bravo told the state-run Bolivarian
News Agency. He said the vandals not only shot at the glass plate but
also appear to have taken a sledgehammer to it.

Although no suspects have been identified, Padilla said it must be the
work of a group with links to Venezuelans and Cubans living in Miami,
who oppose both Chavez's government and that of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21384205/

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