Cuba\'s veteran communist leader Fidel Castro paid respect to his old comrade-in-arms, fellow revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, in an article on Monday marking the 40th anniversary of his death.

I take a pause in the daily fight to bow my head with respect and thanks before the exceptional fighter who fell on October 8, 40 years ago, Castro wrote in an editorial in the Communist party\'s official newspaper Granma.

Castro, who in illness handed the reins to his brother Raul 14 months ago, thanked the Argentine-born Guevara for what he tried to do, and could not, in the country of his birth, for he was like a flower torn up prematurely by the stem.

Che was to be honoured today with ceremonies in Cuba, where his myth was forged, and Bolivia, where he was executed 40 years ago while spreading the gospel of Marxist revolution.

The main ceremony will be headed by a leader of the revolution, the daily Juventud Rebelde reported Sunday, without specifying if it would be the 81-year-old Fidel Castro, convalescing from stomach surgery, or Raul.

The doctor-turned-guerrilla leader Che took part in the Cuban revolution in 1958, and became a key member of the government formed by Castro after he toppled the former dictator Fulgencio Batista.

The Bolivian army and Cuban-American US Central Intelligence Agency agents captured an ill Guevara in Bolivia, where he was leading rebels trying to spread revolution, and executed him the next day, October 9, 1967. He was 39.

His remains were later transferred and buried in Cuba, his adoptive homeland.

AFP