Cuba's Che Guevara monument visited by nearly 5 mln people

HAVANA, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- Cuba's Che Guevara Mausoleum in eastern Santa Clara has been visited by more than 4.8 million people since it was opened 29 years ago, the site's director Noris Cardenas said on Wednesday.

Cardenas said foreign visitors come from various countries, mainly Argentina, Guevara's birthplace, and Germany, France, Italy and the UK.

What they have in common is admiration for the Argentinean revolutionary who joined the Cuban leader Fidel Castro's cause of liberation.

The mausoleum is dominated by a 6.8-meter-high statue of Che Guevara that has come to symbolize Santa Clara, the town liberated by the guerrilla forces under his command in December 1958.

The site opened on Dec. 28, 1988, but it wasn't until October 1997 that it became the official resting place of Che Guevara, who had been assassinated 30 years earlier in Bolivia.

For 2018, the mausoleum has prepared a special program of activities to mark what would have been Che Guevara's 90th birthday on June 14.

The mausoleum tells the story of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, known worldwide as Che Guevara, or simply Che, an Argentinean doctor, revolutionary, statesman and writer.

After helping to liberate Cuba, Che went to Bolivia to continue his mission to free the oppressed indigenous peoples of Latin America, but was ambushed in 1967 by mercenaries.

His remains were located three decades later by a team of experts and returned to Cuba. Enditem