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A SHORT and serene ceremony was staged to greet the return of the remains of Che Guevara to Cuba on July 13th.
30 years after the guerrilla hero's assassination by the Bolivian army, Che's bones are now in Cuba and will be housed in a mausoleum being built in Santa Clara, the city he liberated in the revolutionary war.
The mausoleum, being prepared at the Che Guevara monument in Santa Clara, will also house a special library dedicated to the life and works of the Argentinian doctor who became an icon of revolutionary commitment through his untimely death at the hands of the Bolivian military.
His remains were unearthed in the first week of July after months of speculation that the long lost grave of Che and his comrades had been found in Vallegrande, Bolivia.
On July 13th they were flown to the San Antonio Air Force Base near Havana where they were received by President Fidel Castro, members of Che's family and other old comrades in arms.
The brief military ceremony was broadcast live to the Cuban public.
Che's daughter Aleida Guevara March, read and address to President Castro on behalf of the children of Che and his three comrades whose remains were also unearthed in the same grave and also returned to Cuba.
"Today their remains return to us but they do not return defeated, they come as heroes, always young, valient and brave," she said.
"It was more than 30 years ago that our fathers bade us farewell, they left us to continue the ideas of Bolívar and Martí: andto fight for a united and independent continent, but they did not manage to see this triumph. They were conscious that great dreams only come true through enormous sacrifce. We never saw them again."
She ended with her father's words which he spoke on leaving for Bolivia in 1965: "Adios, hasta la victoria siempre" (Farewell, on to victory always).