Camilo Guevara March, son of famed revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, has died in Venezuela. He was 60 years old.
Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote on Twitter that “It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to Camilo, son of Che and promoter of his ideas.” The Cuban president extended his sympathies to Mr Guevara March’s family, including his mother, Aleida.
According to the Cuban state news agency Prensa Latina, Mr Guevara March was visiting Caracas from his home in Cuba when he suffered from a blood clot that led to a fatal heart attack.
Mr Guevara March was one of four children born to Che Guevara and Aleida March, and he dedicated much of his professional life to preserving and perpetuating his father’s legacy. Along with his mother Ms March, Mr Guevara March was director of the Center of Che Guevara Studies in Havana and took an active role in protecting his father’s image.
The Center of Che Guevara Studies is the home of a number of documents and other memorabilia from the life of the Argentine revolutionary, who was training as a physician when he was radicalised on successive motorcycle trips throughout Latin America.
Mr Guevara was in Guatemala when a CIA-backed coup overthrew the demoratically-elected president Jacobo Árbenz in 1954. He then departed for Mexico City, where met Fidel Castro and his brother Raul and decided to join their effort to overthrow the US-backed Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in the brothers’ native Cuba.
Mr Guevara quickly became one of the most recognisable and important figures in the Cuban Revolution, marrying Ms March in 1959 and later serving as President of the Central Bank of Cuba and Minister of Industries before turning his attentions to helping revolutionary groups in other countries. He was ultimatley captured and killed in Bolivia in 1967.
ABC News reported that Mr Guevara March, who held a degree in labour law, did not keep a particularly visible public profile. He is survived by a daughter from his marraige to Suylén Milanés, a singer who died earlier this year.
