By Ana María Sabat González/ Translated by José Luis Valdés 

The friendship is a feeling that all honest men should honor and venerate. For that reason it is so normal that between two people like Camilo and Che a sincere affection was something relevant.    

The ones who knew them say that Che was very serious and that Camilo used to make him jokes, and that although seemingly he griped, he never, never, was angry.    

But this friendship arose from hearts with the same characteristics. Still in different places and being children, Che and Camilo began to fight for the same ideal: The independence of Spain.    

While in Argentina, - year 1936 - in the patio of Villa Nidia, the small Ernesto with only eight years,  had invented a game in which he and his friends opened trenches and they screamed to all voice: Advance militiamen! Long live the Spanish Republic! in Cuba, Camilo,  still younger,traveled San Francisco's streets, in Havana, requesting money and clothes to send to the Spanish children.    

They had to be loved and to be good friends, they learned of their parents, Emilia and Ramón, Celia and Ernesto that the fair causes are defended until the end and that the true friends are sowed and cultivated.    

Their friendship was born like any other, but this was durable and  consolidated in the guerrilla's fight and with the mutual respect that both felt each other.    

It was told by Che that in the first years of the fight in Cuba, he had lost his backpack, he could only save the blanket and that it was a not written law in the guerrilla that the one who misled his belongings should paddle his own canoe.    

When coming the night and when Camilo saw that Che didn't have anything to eat he shared his only can of milk between both. From this expression of comradeship was born a friendship that still lasted after death.    

Both with epithets that immortalize them, el Guerrillero Heroico (the Heroic Guerilla fighter) and el Heroe de Yaguajay (the Hero of Yaguajay), they are an example for the whole world not only of spotless revolutionaries, but also of loyalty, fidelity and fraternity.

(ICAP) 05-07-2007