KEY POINTS:
By night in the main square of the dusty town of Vallegrande, the only sound is the buzz of prayer coming from the church. Inside, devoted Catholics sit and stand around the image of Our Lord of Malta - the only black Christ in Latin America, brought to
this Bolivian town during the Spanish conquest.
But this is not the only foreign element of devotion. Father Agustin, the Polish priest, reads out prayers written down by local people: "For my mother who is sick, I pray to the Lord and ... ", hesitantly, "to Saint Ernesto, to the soul of Che Guevara."
"Saint Ernesto," the parishioners murmur in response.
It was here in Vallegrande, 40 years ago, that the corpse of Ernesto "Che" Guevara lay on display, eyes open, in the hospital laundry. And it is here that his unofficial sainthood is becoming firmly established.
"For them, he is just like any other saint," Agustin says ruefully.
On a bench in the square, Freddy Vallejos, 27, says: "We have a faith, a confidence in Che. When I go to bed and when I wake up, I first pray to God and then I pray to Che - and then, everything is all right."
Guevara was captured on October 8, 1967 and , executed the following day in a little adobe school in La Higuera, and his body brought the 113 kilometres to Vallegrande.
Forensic experts found his skeleton 10 years ago and it now rests in a mausoleum in Cuba.
Standing at the site of his first grave, the president of the Che Guevara Foundation, Osvaldo 'Chato' Peredo, said: "Why do we say Che is alive? Because of his grandeur, his transcendence. For us, Che is here, very much alive, in everything."
In his 1967 dispatch to London's Guardian newspaper journalist Richard Gott, in Vallegrande on the day of Guevara's death, wrote: "He may well go down in history as the greatest continental figure since Bolivar. Legends will be created around his name."
Gott was right. Today the laundry where Guevara's corpse was laid is a place of pilgrimage.
In this region, images of Che hang next to images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Bolivia's President Evo Morales. Stories of miracles have mushroomed. The road that connects Vallegrande to La Higuera leads to a cluster of humble houses, walls plastered with Che's images.
In the middle of the village is a square with a small bust of Che; next to it is a large altar with a cross and a big grey sculpture of Guevara. Melanio Moscoso, 37, sits against a wall next to a Guevara poster.
"We pray to him, we are so proud he had died here, in La Higuera, fighting for us. We feel him so close."
With local sainthood and worldwide immortality, history has not proved true the claim Guevara made on the day he was captured.
"Halt, do not shoot, I am Che Guevara and I am worth more alive than dead," he said, as he lay wounded on a rock. In that same stone today, a shiny white inscription reads: "Che is alive."
CHE GUEVARA
* Born in 1928 in Argentina.
* Studied medicine at Buenos Aires University.
* In 1955 he met Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.
* Guevara joined Castro's "26th July Movement".
* From 1959-1961, Guevara was president of the National Bank of Cuba, and then Minister of Industry.
* He wanted to spread revolution in other parts of the developing world. In 1965 Castro announced that Guevara had left Cuba.
* Guevara spent several months in Africa attempting to train rebel forces in guerrilla warfare.
* He travelled to Bolivia to lead forces rebelling against the government.
* He was executed in 1967 at La Higuera. In 1997 his remains were discovered, exhumed and returned to Cuba, where he was reburied.
-Observer
