"Revolutionary groups have kidnapped Mr. Burke Elbrick, ambassador of the United States, and have removed him to a place where is a prisoner. This action adds to the innumerable revolutionary acts that have already been carried out: bank robberies to get money for the revolution; the occupation of barracks, where arms and munitions were seized for the struggle against the dictatorship; the invasion of prisons, from where revolutionaries who want to participate in the popular struggle have been liberated and the destruction of prisons which symbolise the oppression and the injustice of gaolers and torturers.
The seizure of the ambassador is only one action in a revolutionary war which is advancing every day and will reach this year the stage of rural war. By the kidnapping of the ambassador, we shall demonstrate that it is possible to defeat the dictatorship and exploitation. If we arm ourselves and if we are organised we shall appear where the enemy expects us the least and we will disappear at once, demoralising the dictatorship, sowing terror and fear among the exploiters, as well as hope and confidence of victory among the exploited.
Mr. Burke Elbrick represents in this country the interests of imperialism which is allied to the big employers, the landowners, the big national banks in fact to the regime of oppression and exploitation.
So the seizure of the ambassador is a clear assertion that the Brazilian people will not stop and will never relax the weight of the struggle against them. We all know that it is a fight without a truce, a long and hard fight, which will not end with the replacement of one general by another, but which will end with the end of the exploiters regime and the installation of a government which will free the workers of the whole country from the situation in which they are placed.
This is now the week of independence. The people and the dictatorship celebrate it in different ways. The dictatorship organises festivals, parades and march-pasts, and fire-works. In fact, it isn't celebrating anything at all. It is throwing dust into the eyes of the exploited, creating a false joy in order to perpetuate a life of misery, exploitation and repression. But one cannot hide the sun with a sieve. How can one make a people forget their misery when it is in their very flesh?
In a few weeks/days time Twentieth Century Fox will release their version of Che. The film is a revolting and typical piece of Americanised cultural trash. It shows the length to which capitalism is prepared to go in order to increase profits. Many comrades will undoubtedly want to see Che in much the same spirit as they went to see The Green Berets. Undoubtedly there will be many imaginative protests in England as there have been in the United States. In Scandinavia the left was so successful that The Green Bèrets could not be exhibited publicly. However, we suggest that the protests are organised in such a way that Twentieth Century Fox get no publicity. Comrades should arrange to see the movie free as there is no sense in increasing Fox's profits. Also comrades should sell the Cuban version of Che's diaries (available from The Black Dwarf) outside and inside every cinema.
For the benefit of comrades we publish below an except from this appalling film to give you some idea of the shit you will be watching. There is always the possibility, however, that those who maintain that Cuba is "petit-bourgeois country will accept this version of CHE as it is close to their own. Shit on them, but first shit on Twentieth Century Fox. Comrades wanting to sell Che's Diaries: Please ring Dave Kendall at 01-734 4827.