In a presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Daimler AG, the company that owns Merces-Benz, managed to sully its relationship with a large swath of the Cuban-American buyer base, the Miami Herald reports.
Promoting a new Mercedes-Benz application called CarTogether, which helps drivers carpool, Daimler executive Dieter Zetsche stood on stage before a big photo of Che Guevara with the Mercedes logo emblazoned on the revolutionary's beret in place of the usual star.
“Some colleagues still think that car-sharing borders on communism,” Zetsche reportedly said. “But if that’s the case, viva la revolución!”
What?
Does anyone really think that? Either way, many Cuban exiles in Florida are appalled that Daimler would use the image. One of them is Felix Rodriguez, who was recruited by the CIA to aid Bolivian soldiers in tracking down and killing Guevara in 1967.
“I know who Che Guevara was," Rodriguez reportedly wrote, "and he was a criminal, a murderer and a person who hated the United States of America.”
And although Daimler quickly apologized for the image, Rodriguez also wrote that he will never buy a Mercedes-Benz again. And he's telling his friends not to, as well.
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