Mercedes Benz Insults Cuban American Community

There are multiple heroes from the American revolution; real true to life action figures, such a Paul Revere galloping across New England on horse back or George Marion under the
nom de guerre as the Swamp Fox waging a guerrilla war in Virginia and the Carolinas. These are the men who are lionized in popular literature, Longfellow poems and action movies. So why when Mercedes Benz wants to sell its revolutionary car to Americans does it choose an international terrorist such as Che Guevara? If it really wanted to drive the revolutionary concept it might have chosen Robespierre or Lenin whose bloodlust has been obscured by time but the memory of Che Guevara still lives in the Cuban American community.

Felix Rodriguez, one of three Cuban exiles recruited by the CIA to help Bolivian soldiers search for Guevara, said he had entered the Mercedes-Benz web site to express his anger at the use of the guerrilla's image. In a comment he posted, Rodriguez said: "I know who Che Guevara was and he was a criminal, a murderer and a person who hated the United States of America. I do not understand how a company like Mercedes-Benz, which sells luxury cars, can use a figure of a man who preached class struggle ... who preached violence and bloodshed and wanted to do away with capitalism and establish socialism."

Rodriguez has owned three Mercedes but his present one is now for sale.