Forty years ago, Che Guevara, the Cuban revolutionary, was captured in a special military operation in Bolivia. Guevara was summarily executed by the Bolivian Army in the town of La Higuera near Vallegrande on October 9, 1967. His body was lashed to the landing skids of a helicopter and flown to neighboring Vallegrande where it was laid out on a gurney in the local hospital and displayed to the press. Shortly after, the body disappeared for 30 years, a mystery that generated hot conspiracy theories and speculation.

Thus ended the life of a man who some call "rebel and terrorist," while others refer to Guevara as "a revolutionary romantic." 

Che Guevara soon became the subject of dozens of books, hundreds of articles, poems, novels and films. Not only his friends but also his enemies, have written about him. To many, his rebel image has become just as dangerous as Guevara himself was while alive.

Born in Rosario, Argentina, the eldest of five children in a family of Spanish and Irish descent, Ernesto Guevara de la Serna was proclaimed "a Cuban citizen by birth" in recognition of his role in the triumph of the revolutionary forces. He was the minister of industries and the president of the National Bank of Cuba. Before 1965, he was effectively in charge of the country's entire economy. According to Time magazine, he signed all Cuban banknotes issued during his fourteen-month stint with his nickname, "Che." Throughout his time in the Cuban government, Guevara refused his due salaries of office, insisting on drawing only his meager wages as army comandante in order to set a "revolutionary example."

Guevara gained a reputation for bravery and military prowess second only to Fidel Castro himself. During the guerrilla campaign, Guevara was also feared for his ruthlessness, and was responsible for the execution of a number of men accused of being informers, deserters or spies.

As such, not all of Guevara's biographies are complimentary. The exiled Cuban writer Humberto Fontova maintains in his book,

The Real Che Guevara, that Castro first noticed Che  when the latter carried out an execution of a prisoner after a fellow guerrilla had refused to do so. Fontova claims that in a letter to his father, Che confessed: "At that moment I discovered that I really liked killing."

And then there is Jacobo Machover's new revisionist biography, The Hidden Face of Che, which provides more facts about the brutal side of his nature and also argues that "the swooning French intellectuals who headed for Cuba after Castro's victory essentially created the legend of the dashing guerrilla comandante." To Jean-Paul Sartre, for instance, Che was "the most complete man of his epoch."

For 30 years, the details of the revolutionary's death and burial remained a mystery. It is known that on October 8, 1967, Che Guevara, who had received multiple gunshot wounds to the legs, was interrogated in a rural school building in La Higuera and was subsequently executed. The executioner was Mario Terán, a sergeant in the Bolivian army who had drawn the winning straw after an argument broke out over who was to have "the honor" of killing the revolutionary. Guevara did have some choice last words before his death; he allegedly told his executioner, "I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man." 

After a military doctor surgically amputated his hands, Bolivian army officers transferred Guevara's cadaver to an undisclosed location and refused to reveal whether his remains had been buried or cremated. In 1997, the skeletal remains of a handless body were exhumed from beneath an air strip near Vallegrande, identified as those of Guevara by a Cuban forensic team working at the scene, and returned to Cuba. On October 17, 1997, his remains, along with those of six of his fellow combatants killed during the guerrilla campaign in Bolivia, were laid to rest with full military honors in a specially built mausoleum in the city of Santa Clara, where he had won the decisive battle of the Cuban Revolution.

It also became known what had happened to Guevara's amputated hands. Following an attempt on his life, then Argentinean Interior Minister Antonio Arguedas decided to transfer them to Cuba and request political asylum there.

But earlier this year, yet another bombshell was dropped when former CIA operative Gustavo Villoldo claimed that Che Guevara's remains at his mausoleum in Cuba did not belong to him.

Villoldo, 71, a Cuban exile who says he was a major player in Guevara's capture in the Bolivian jungle, claims that the makeshift grave the remains were pulled from held seven bodies while he buried only three. But an article published in Cuba's national daily Granma stated that there were no grounds to doubt that Che Guevara's ashes were in Cuba.

Now Villoldo plans to auction off a strand of Guevara's hair and other items, including a map used to track down Guevara and photographs of his body. "I'm doing it for history's sake and to have closure. This is a very unique piece," Villoldo said.

Villoldo said he expected the items to fetch as much as $8 million at auction, which is scheduled for October 25. The price seems to be realistic, since Che Guevara's is a well promoted image.

The famous photo of Che, taken by Alberto Korda, has received wide distribution and modification, appearing on t-shirts, protest banners, and in many other formats. The Maryland Institute College of Art called this picture "the most famous photograph in the world and a symbol of the 20th century."

Guevara's likeness in his trademark beret with a star has become a pop icon of the 20th century. His picture can be seen on posters, baseball caps and computer ads. After his death, Guevara became an icon of socialist revolutionary movements and a cultural icon worldwide, as well as a fetish for revolutionaries across the world - Communists, anarchists, Trotskyites, and anti-globalists. Guevara's status as a popular icon has continued throughout the world, leading commentators to speak of a global "cult of Che."

As of late, Che Guevara's relatives started suing companies for the unauthorized use of his image, especially on beer and liquor labels. A center monitoring the use of Che Guevara's name and the dissemination of his image has been established. It hunts down rebel companies that use the iconic image without official permission and, of course, cash payment.

Che Guevara is survived by five children who share his tenacity and fight for the purity of his name. His widow, Aleida March, heads the Che Guevara Center in Havana. She recently wrote a book of reminiscences about her husband.

It features, among other things, Che's unpublished letters and even a historically crucial chapter about his life in Congo and Tanzania in 1965-66.

Today in Bolivia, the late rebel is referred to as Saint Ernesto. In the La Higuera church,  icons to Che hang next to those of Christ, the Virgin Mary and Pope John Paul II. The building where Che Guevara's body once lay is a place of pilgrimage. The inscription on one of its walls reads: "A person is alive as long as the memory of him is alive."

Note: Recently, it became known that Cuban doctors performing eye surgery on poor people in Latin America performed cataract surgery on Mario Terán, Guevara's executioner. Granma wrote: "Forty years after Mario Terán attempted to destroy his dream and ideal, Che Guevara has returned with yet another victory. Now the elderly man will be able once again to see the colors of the sky and forest, enjoy the smiles of his grandchildren, and watch his favorite soccer matches." 

By Sergei Sychev