40th death anniversary of Che Guevara observed

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SANTA CLARA, Cuba, Oct 9 (AFP): Leftist leaders and sympathisers marked the 40th anniversary of the death of revolutionary icon Ernesto 'Che' Guevara Monday in Cuba, where he is buried, and Bolivia, where he was killed in 1967.
Acting president Raul Castro led the main event in Cuba under a giant bronze statue of the guerrilla fighter in the town of Santa Clara, some 300 kilometres (186 miles) east of Havana.
Convalescing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, 81, was absent, but a homage he penned was read in public. The Argentine-born doctor- turned-guerrilla was "a flower torn up prematurely by the stem. I bow my head to pay tribute-with respect and gratitude-to the exceptional warrior," Castro wrote.
Guevara's Argentine widow Aleida March, 71, attended the event, along with his four children Aleida, Camilo, Celia and Ernesto. Guevara had a daughter with his first wife, a Peruvian revolutionary, both of whom are dead.
Guevara's youngest son, Ernesto, honored his father by roaring in on a wine-red motorcycle along with 37 members of Cuba's Harley- Davidson motorcycle club, all dressed in black and wearing chains around their necks.
The drive-by memorialised Guevara's ride across Latin America in the early 1950s on his Norton 250, immortalised in the book-and the 2004 movie-"The Motorcycle Diaries."