• Associated Press, Friday, June 6, 2008 10:15 AM

The commercialization of Ernesto "Che" Guevara's image is contributing to tension between rich and poor in some countries, according to Aleida Guevara, the eldest of Guevara's four children by his second wife, Cuban revolutionary Aleida Marc.

Guevara helped Fidel Castro overthrow Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and was executed in 1967 while trying to foment a revolution in Bolivia. He became a pop icon thanks to a 1960 photograph. Variations of the image -- featuring Guevara with a defiant stare and starred beret -- can now be found the world over on T-shirts, posters, coffee mugs and refrigerator magnets.

"Something that bothers me now is the appropriation of the figure of Che that has been used to make enemies from different classes. It's embarrassing," Guevara wrote during an Internet forum sponsored by Cuba's government ahead of what would have been her father's 80th birthday on June 14. She also decried the use of her father's image to sell British vodka, French soft drinks and cell phones in Switzerland. "We don't want money, we demand respect," wrote Guevara, who is a trained physician like her father.

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