Che Guevara's legacy fading with the years

By Eduardo Garcia

LA PAZ (Reuters) - Forty years after his death, Ernesto "Che" Guevara is still revered by many in Latin America but his calls for armed insurrection and class warfare now seem outdated in a region that has largely embraced democracy.

A new generation of socialist leaders has come of age since the Argentine-born guerrilla leader was captured in the Bolivian jungle and executed on October 9, 1967.

Those new socialists -- Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Ecuador's Rafael Correa and Bolivia's Evo Morales -- all pay homage to Che and are happy to perpetuate the romantic image of the dashing outlaw with flowing locks and a soldier's beret.

Some of their goals are the same with all three imposing much stronger state control over the oil and gas industries.

But unlike Guevara, they all sought and found power peacefully through the ballot box. Their buzz words are resource nationalism and indigenous rights, not dialectical materialism and Marxism.

Latin America has changed radically since Guevara's era. The civil wars and military dictatorships which once ravaged the region have in most cases ended, allowing for democratic change that makes armed revolution redundant.

"In the 1960s and 1970s, people rightly took up arms to change a system, a model, in search of justice and equality," Bolivian President Morales told Reuters this week when asked about Guevara's legacy. "But these are different times."

Morales, who is Bolivia's first democratically-elected indigenous president, has a portrait of Guevara made of coca leaves on the wall of his presidential palace in La Paz and speaks of the guerrilla leader in reverential tones.

"After 40 years, Che is still a symbol of liberation, of sovereignty, dignity and above all of justice and equality," said Morales, who is expected to attend commemorative ceremonies this weekend in the remote region of Bolivia where Guevara was captured by U.S.-backed soldiers and executed.

But such reverence is perhaps on the wane.

COLD KILLER?

Only last month, a new biography, "The Hidden Face of Che," depicted Guevara as a cold-hearted killer who oversaw executions and presided over a "purifying commission" in Havana after helping Fidel Castro seize power in Cuba in 1959.

Brazil's most widely read weekly news magazine Veja published a highly critical article on the cult of Guevara this month entitled "Che -- The Farce of the Hero."

In Venezuela, President Chavez lauds Guevara but has named his own socialist revolution after South America's 19th century liberator Simon Bolivar, not Guevara.

In Ecuador, President Correa has sung songs in public in tribute to Guevara but says his government is concerned with present day problems and not the struggles of the 1960s.