The company that manufactures Mercedes-Benz luxury cars unleashed outrage among Cuban-Americans in Miami and other cities on Thursday for using the image of Argentine revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara to promote their vehicles.
While Daimler AG, the German company which controls Mercedes-Benz, quickly apologized for the use of the image in a presentation in Las Vegas this week, the damage was done.
Many Cuban exiles in South Florida who have fled the island since Fidel Castro took power with the help of Guevara in 1959 not only rejected the ad campaign but also expressed disgust that such a prestigious company would use the image of the revolutionary blamed for executions and implementation of communism on the island.
Among those denouncing the glorification of Guevara was a Cuban-American from Miami who helped track down Guevara in Bolivia before his execution in 1967.
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 website to express his anger at the use of the guerrilla’s image.
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