BUENOS AIRES: Fidel Castro and his Venezuelan ally, Hugo Chávez, toured the Argentinian boyhood home of the Cuban president’s fallen comrade and legendary guerrilla, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, at the weekend. It was a first visit for both.

“Fidel! Fidel!” and “Hugo! Hugo!” the crowd of 2,000 chanted as the 79-year-old Castro, wearing his trademark green military fatigues, got out of his limousine. Mr Chávez was right by President Castro’s side as they entered the house amid a crush of security agents.

While Mr Castro made no public comment, he smiled broadly and shook hands with supporters. Mr Chávez said the two were delighted: “Fidel invited me to come and get to know the house. For me, it’s a real honour being here.” “We feel it! We feel it! Guevara is right with us!” the crowd shouted during Saturday’s visit to the house.

Mr Castro, 79, first visited Argentina in 1959 after the Cuban Revolution and was there this week for a summit inducting Venezuela into the Mercosur trade bloc. Guevara spent much of his childhood in central Argentina, where his family hoped a mild climate would ease the boy’s severe asthma. They later moved to Buenos Aires, where Guevara went to medical school before embarking on his motorcycle trip around South America that inspired him to give up medicine for leftwing revolution.

He died in 1967 leading a guerrilla war in Bolivia. His remains were taken three decades later to Cuba, where they are entombed under a huge monument. On their tour, Presidents Castro and Chávez viewed Guevara’s birth certificate, handwritten letters and a motorbike like the one he rode across South America. “I’m sure Fidel will be touched because he knew Che so well,” a tour guide, Lauren Gonzalez, said.

Ariel Vidoza, a childhood friend of Guevara, answered Mr Castro’s questions about her playmate’s childhood. “We played in this house ... I tried to watch over him because of his asthma problem.” Guevara eschewed middle-class comforts even then: “Che didn’t like the rich. He preferred to play with us, the poor ones.”

Guevara launched an armed revolt in 1966 to bring communism to Bolivia after helping to lead the Cuban revolution that ousted dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and brought Mr Castro to power. He waged a guerrilla insurgency for 13 months but was captured and executed by the Bolivian army aged 39.

Mr Castro’s visit came as Cuba prepares to mark the 53rd anniversary on Wednesday of the 1953 attack on the Moncada military barracks in eastern Cuba, widely regarded as the birth of the Cuban revolution.

On Friday, presidents Castro and Chávez, who admires the Cuban leader as a political mentor, rallied thousands in Cordoba against US-backed free market policies that they blame for many of Latin America’s woes. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service

JOHANNESBURG: When Jacob Zuma enters court for his corruption trial this month, more will be at stake than the reputation of South Africa’s former deputy president. The case against Zuma, once the front-runner to succeed President Thabo Mbeki, has exposed splits in the ruling African National Congress (ANC), the party that under Nelson Mandela led South Africa from apartheid to multiracial politics.

Analysts say the ANC is facing its worst crisis in years.

Zuma is charged with taking bribes from a friend in exchange for political favours, including contracts in a multimillion dollar government arms deal. He is due in court on July 31.

He has said the graft case is a shadowy political conspiracy against him — charges echoed by his supporters who say he is being sidelined ahead of a key ANC congress next year which will pick the party’s next leader to take it into elections in 2009.

Zuma, who was fired last year after he was linked to a corruption case involving a former aide, was acquitted last month on a separate rape charge but despite the court cases, he has remained popular and retained a senior position in the ANC.

But his legal woes have highlighted internal divisions, although the ANC has dismissed media speculation about a looming leadership vacuum and sharpening internal power struggles.

“The speculative prediction that the ANC may not ‘survive intact’, is nothing more than an expression of the vain wishes of its inventors,” Mbeki, who is due to step down in 2009, said recently.

But political analysts say that whatever the verdict for Zuma, the ANC’s internal rifts will not disappear overnight.

“Any person who says there is unity in the ANC is talking nonsense,” said political commentator Sampie Terreblanche, an emeritus economics professor at the University of Stellenbosch.

“The ANC is trying its best to put up new wallpaper to cover up the cracks in the wall,” he said, referring to repeated party statements declaring unity.

Some analysts say the rifts exposed by Zuma’s trial — coupled with criticism of Mbeki’s centrist policies for failing to ease poverty — could force party leaders to change the way they operate.

A charismatic leader with little formal education, Zuma is seen by many ANC rank-and-file as a more down-to-earth and approachable politician than Mbeki — an economics graduate of Sussex University in England.

Zuma is a veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle and like Mandela spent time imprisoned on Robben Island.

“There are quite a lot of people that see in Zuma ... someone that will bring about an alternative policy, a pro-poor policy. We need a pro-poor policy,” Terreblanche said.

Another possible contender for the leadership could be wealthy businessman Cyril Ramaphosa, said by associates to be preparing a bid for the post, to be decided in December 2007.

Ramaphosa has spotless credentials from the anti-apartheid struggle and is one of the country’s best known figures.

Whoever wins the leadership battle will likely become the next president of the continent’s biggest economy.

Despite disappointment with the slow pace of reforms, the ANC still commands the loyalty of most South African voters.

Political analysts say this is because none of the country’s opposition parties appeals to the black majority.

However, longtime allies in the labour movement and Communist Party have openly questioned the party’s direction.

In June, the South African Communist Party (SACP) threatened to break away from the alliance and contest elections on its own, a move which could challenge the ANC from the left.

And a month earlier, the influential labour group COSATU said the country was sliding towards “dictatorship” under Mbeki, accused by some of cultivating a centralised style of leadership that appears intolerant of divergent views.

Where Mandela tended to court the media, Mbeki often lashes out at what he has called the racist agenda of the white-dominated press.

He frequently levels similar accusations at opposition parties when they take his government to task over its perceived inability to act on crime, HIV/AIDS and the crisis in neighbouring Zimbabwe — issues on which the ANC has repeatedly drawn criticism.

Zuma has acted as a lightning rod for some of this dissatisfaction with Mbeki. His supporters say his sacking was designed to thwart his ambitions.—Reuters