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Elián’s Odyssey
by William F. Jasper
In the story of a small Cuban boy is reflected the ordeal of our age — the
struggle of truth and liberty versus lies and tyranny.
When six-year-old Elián González climbed aboard the rickety, homemade boat
with his mother and 12 other refugees, he could not have known all that lay
before him. The small group cast off from Cardenas, Cuba, in the dark, early
morning hours of November 22nd, headed for Miami. That night, far out at
sea, the engine quit, leaving them to drift helplessly. On the following
night, when the rough waves of a storm capsized the boat, the desperate
voyagers clung to the overturned craft for several hours. But the raging
waters picked them off one by one. When the boat finally sank, the remaining
survivors continued to cling to two inner tubes which they had hurriedly
lashed together. Late that night, only four survivors remained: Elián and
his mother, Elizabeth Brotons, and Nivaldo Fernandez and his girlfriend,
Arianne Horta. Sometime during the night, the inner tubes separated, and
Elián’s mother, weak with fatigue, also succumbed to the relentless
aggression of the sea.
On the morning of November 25th, Thanksgiving Day, Elián was rescued by
fishermen Donato Dalrympler and Sam Ciancio about three miles off the coast
of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Alone, severely dehydrated, and barely
conscious, he was praying in Spanish the prayer that his mother had taught
him, to his Guardian Angel. And, according to the boy, his Angel had brought
dolphins, which accompanied, guided, and protected him.
News of Elián’s miraculous survival and rescue exhilarated Florida’s
Cuban-American community. Tens of thousands of them had made that same
perilous journey by sea. And every Cuban exile who has made it to these
shores has family and friends who, like Elizabeth Brotons, perished in the
attempt, or are still held hostage in Communist Cuba.
The escape of one small boy from his island prison did not long evade the
notice of Cuba’s "Maximum Leader," "El Jefe Supremo," Fidel Castro. The
bearded butcher was smarting from a series of stinging public relations
setbacks, the most immediate being the human rights demonstrations at his
Ibero-American Summit and criticism of his dictatorial rule by foreign heads
of state at that event, only a week prior to Elián’s flight. The Cuban
exiles in Florida had spotlighted this public humiliation and trumpeted it
to the world, while also continuing to stymie the Clinton-Castro plans for
normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba. Now, this "miracle
child" had provided Fidel’s hated enemies in the U.S. with another major
psychological victory and rallying point that he could not allow to stand.
Castro determined that he must have the boy back — at all costs. Mobilizing
all of his agents, dupes, and allies in the U.S. Congress, media, academe,
and left-wing clergy, and working in concert with an accommodating Clinton
administration, he set about reversing the tremendous negatives he had been
presented with l’affaire Elián. We must sadly report that it appears he has
very nearly triumphed. Thanks to the complicity of the American media, the
oppressive Communist dictator has largely succeeded in demonizing the Cuban
exile community and convincing a naïve and ignorant American public that
returning little Elián "to his father" is the only right thing to do.
Under normal circumstances, returning a child to his parent (or parents) is
indeed the moral, legal, and prudent course of action, and in the best
interests of the child. But these are far from normal circumstances, and
returning Elián at this time, as advocated by the Clinton administration,
would not only violate the boy’s best interests, but would be a shameful,
cowardly, and immoral action. That need not happen, however. The Castro
lobby has shrewdly exploited familial sentiments and insidiously manipulated
the sense of fairness and decency held by most Americans. Playing cynically
on the theme of "parental rights," the Cuban dictator, who has obliterated
parents’ rights in his own land, has succeeded in neutralizing most of his
opposition. But a widespread knowledge of the following information could
rapidly change that. Consider these little-reported, but publicly
verifiable, facts:
• Parents have no rights in Cuba. The Cuban Constitution and Penal Code make
children property of the Communist state, with penalties (for parents or
anyone else) for interfering with the development of the child’s "communist
personality."
• Elián’s father, Juan Miguel González, is a prisoner of Castro’s total
state; he is not free to speak candidly, without fear of retribution. Thus,
we cannot claim to know his real desires for Elián.
• Available evidence indicates that Juan González not only knew of and
approved of his ex-wife’s plans to escape with Elián to America, but
intended to do likewise himself.
• Juan González’ failure to make the half-hour trip to Florida to pick up
the son he claims to love — after being provided a U.S. visa and free,
round-trip air fare — must at least be considered probable evidence of
coercion.
• According to a human rights representative from India who visited Elián’s
father in Cuba, Juan González is under virtual house arrest.
• If "Papa Fidel" is truly concerned about uniting parent and child, why
doesn’t he release the thousands of family members — spouses, parents,
children, grandparents — he is holding hostage, who have been petitioning to
leave Cuba for years? And why do none of the "Return Elián" apologists show
the same concern for the plight of these families?
• As a Christian, and because of his unprecedented international celebrity,
Elián will be especially marked for persecution and brainwashing in "Papa
Fidel’s" militant atheist state.
• If allowed to grow up here, Elián will have the freedom to decide if he
wants to emigrate to Cuba; the reverse is not true if he is returned to
Castro’s gulag now.
• The bizarre biting of Elián’s tongue and checking of his "private parts"
by his paternal grandmother Mariela Quintana — as she admitted on Cuban
national TV — raises the very serious concern of child abuse and molestation
if he is returned.
• Elián himself has repeatedly expressed his desire to stay in the U.S. and
his opposition to returning to Cuba. Although a child’s wishes should not
always be determinative in custody cases, neither should they be ignored,
especially in a case such as this.
• Elián’s mother, Elizabeth Brotons, risked and gave everything, including
her life, for Elián’s freedom. According to the other two survivors, Nivaldo
Fernandez and Arianne Horta, her dying wish was that Elián reach America.
Should not a mother’s last request count for something?
"Parents’ Rights" in Cuba
The state of parents’ rights and children’s rights — as with all human
rights — in Cuba is not a pretty picture. "Inalienable," God-given rights,
as recognized by our Founders, do not exist in Castro’s Stalinist paradise.
Cuban legal scholar Alberto Luzarraga points out that a basic understanding
of Cuban law is key to the question of whether Elián González should be
returned to his father in Cuba. The central issue, he notes, rests on
whether Elián’s father has real or only illusory parental rights in Castro’s
Cuba and whether, if even effective rights exist, he has the sole right to
speak for the child. According to Dr. Luzarraga, who holds a Ph.D. in Civil
Law from the University of Villanova in Havana, and an MBA from the
University of Miami, the Cuban Constitution is resolved to build socialism
and, led by the Communist Party, to build a Communist society. In Article 6,
the Union of Communist Youths is exclusively recognized by the State "to
promote the active participation of the juvenile masses in the tasks of the
socialist construction" of society.
Under Article 38, Luzarraga notes, the parents have the "duty" to "actively
contribute to their children’s education and their integral formation as
useful citizens including preparations for life in socialist society."
Article 62 criminalizes resistance or opposition to these edicts, stating
clearly that "no rights granted by this constitution and the laws can be
exercised against the existence of and objectives of the communist state.
The infraction of this article is punishable."
Now, contemplate Article 5 of Cuba’s Code of the Child and Youth: "Society
and the state work to ascertain that all persons who come in contact with
the child … constitute an example for the development of his communist
personality." That’s all persons — including parents.
"To insure no deviation from Marxist dictates," says Dr. Luzarraga, "a
‘cumulative dossier’ is compiled for each student wherein his political
attitude is recorded. Your merits and demerits are minutely recorded and
form the basis for your opportunities to obtain a higher education. This is
persecution pure and simple and on a daily basis. Persecution is a
recognized basis for asylum." This should be commonly understood by
Americans, but, unfortunately, it is not, he told THE NEW AMERICAN. "This is
exactly what Pope John Paul II was talking about when he visited Cuba in
1998. The Holy Father criticized Castro’s interference in the family —
taking children away from their parents and sending them to Communist camps
where they are indoctrinated in atheism and taught to spy on their families
and neighbors."
In her powerful new book, Blessed By Thunder: Memoir of a Cuban Girlhood,
Dr. Flor Fernandez Barrios describes her own heart-rending childhood
experience of being wrenched from her weeping mother’s arms at the age of
ten and sent to Fidel’s glorious work camps. What was supposed to be a
45-day camping adventure turned into a two-year ordeal in hell:
malnutrition; rancid, worm-infested food; mud-floor huts with clouds of
mosquitoes; ever-damp burlap hammocks; nonexistent hygiene; bullying,
beatings, and harassment; slaving in Castro’s sugar and tobacco fields from
sunup to sundown; incessant indoctrination and group criticism sessions.
This forced separation of children from their parents continues still.
The Father’s Desire
What’s wrong with this picture?: A "loving father" claims his young son was
kidnapped and taken to a foreign country, where he is, allegedly, being
exploited and endangered by unscrupulous relatives. The foreign government
gives the father a visa and every reasonable assurance of safe travel to
come and pick up his son, all expenses paid. What father worthy of the name
wouldn’t make the half-hour trip immediately? Yes, it’s a no-brainer. Only a
totally unfit father, or one who is being coerced to parrot the lines fed to
him by his police-state controllers, would allow his child to languish under
such supposedly terrible conditions.
Must we really point out that Castro’s Cuba is a brutally repressive police
state, one of the few remaining dictatorships where it is still a crime to
try to leave the country without the regime’s permission? Is it not obvious
that Fidel has staked everything on winning this fight for "Our Elián":
printing hundreds of thousands of Elián placards, posters, T-shirts, and
billboards; ordering daily mass demonstrations; filling the airwaves with
violently "anti-Yankee" propaganda; disrupting all of the island’s work and
production schedules; squandering scarce resources on his Elián campaign?
Having made such an all-out commitment, is Castro likely to spare any effort
at insuring that Mr. González performs according to his orders? Fidel’s
operatives are notoriously capable in the arts of persuasion. For firsthand
evaluation of Cuba’s torture techniques, the reader may wish to sample the
prison memoir of Armando Valladares, Against All Hope, or Hijack, the late
Anthony Bryant’s report on his dreadful torments in the Cuban Inferno.
There is a substantial body of evidence, both factual and alleged,
indicating that Juan Miguel González did want Elián to come to the U.S., and
would probably still want to come here himself, if freely allowed to do so.
This is a partial list of the evidence:
• On November 22, 1999, at 9:01 p.m., Georgina Cid, an aunt of Juan Miguel
González, received a call at her home in Miami, alerting her that Elizabeth
and Elián were on their way from Cuba. The call, she says, was from her
brother, Juan González (Juan Miguel’s father), and originated from the
González’ home telephone number in Cardenas, Cuba, where both Juan Miguel
González and his father Juan González live with their wives and Juan
Miguel’s infant son. The call from the González phone in Cuba is confirmed
by Mrs. Cid’s phone records.
• According to Elián’s great-uncle, Lazaro González, who was given temporary
custody of the boy, Juan Miguel had asked him in a telephone call from Cuba
to protect Elián "by whatever means available." When Lazaro called Juan
Miguel to tell his nephew that his son was okay, Juan Miguel told him, "Take
care of him for me until I get there."
• William González says that in 1998 he visited his cousin, Elián’s father,
in Cuba, and discussed with Juan Miguel Juan’s plans to come to Miami.
• The Miami Herald discovered that on November 26, 1999, the day after Elián
was rescued, Juan Miguel González had obtained certified copies of Elián’s
birth certificate and his marriage certificate to his deceased ex-wife,
Elizabeth. These documents would be required for Juan Miguel to obtain a
non-immigrant visa. More proof he was hoping to leave — legally?
• Elián’s father told reporter Mauricio Vincent of the socialist Madrid
paper, El Pais, that he wanted Elián to go to America.
On February 18th, Sister Jeanne O’Laughlin told the Miami Herald that
Elián’s maternal grandmother, Raquel Rodriguez, had stated that she wanted
to defect, and that Elián’s father had known in advance of, and had approved
of, his ex-wife’s plan to escape with his son. O'Laughlin, the president of
Barry University, hosted the meeting between Elián and his grandmothers.
On February 20th, the day the story appeared, O’Laughlin retracted her
statement and said that Rodrieguez had not personally told her of her desire
to defect. O’Laughlin claimed not to have told the Herald of any personal
knowledge of the wish to defect. O’Laughlin also said she would give no
further interviews. The Herald assured THE NEW AMERICAN that it was standing
by its story and provided us with sufficient details to convince us that
O’Laughlin had indeed told them the defection story. Why then did she
reverse herself? Fear, perhaps, that her revelations in the Herald may have
doomed Elián’s family in Cuba? Was that fear helped along by a phone call
from Cuba, or from one of Castro’s agents here? We don’t know; Sister
O’Laughlin is not talking now.
In his December 13th interview in Cardenas, Cuba, with the INS, Juan Miguel
González spoke well of his ex-wife Elizabeth’s common-law husband, Lazaro
Munero, Elián’s stepfather, who organized the ill-fated escape attempt and
died at sea. Juan Miguel said Munero "would come here and talk to me and eat
here. My parents also liked him a lot. I liked him also because he never
mistreated my son, whom he loved very much, and I appreciated that from
him." Subsequently, Juan Miguel changed his story to conform with the Castro
regime’s smear of Munero as a vicious criminal who beat and abused Elizabeth
and forced her and Elián to accompany him to Florida. According to survivors
Nivaldo Fernandez and Arianne Horta, Munero was kind to Elizabeth and Elián;
he sacrificed himself, giving them his small share of precious water. This
comports with the earlier portrait given by Juan Miguel. Why did he change
his story? The answer is self-evident to anyone who is not terminally stupid
or willfully blind: Elián’s father caved in to the Communist authorities,
either out of fear of reprisal against himself, or to protect his wife,
baby, or other family members.
On January 31st, Reverend Kilari Anan Paul, an evangelist and founder of
Gospel to the Unreached Millions, went to Cuba to see if he could meet with
Juan Miguel González in person. He had been in favor of returning Elián to
his father, but the Cuban visit changed his mind. Rev. Paul, a Hindu convert
to Christianity from India, says Cuban officials refused to allow him to
meet with Juan González alone, without their interference, so he did not see
him. But he did talk to at least three sources there — a friend of González,
a relative, and a church leader — who claimed Elián’s father truly wants his
son to stay in America, and wants to come himself, with his family. "The
truth must be told," Reverend Paul insists.
Those who know him best insist Juan Miguel’s statements and behavior are
evidence that he is being coerced. "This is not Juan Miguel talking," says
Alfredo Martinez, a boyhood friend who has known Elián’s father all his life
and who has recently come to the U.S. from Cuba. "This is all manipulated by
the Castro government." Uncle Delfin González says of Juan Miguel, "My
nephew is a very good actor." Cousin Marisleysis González, who has become
Elián’s surrogate mother, says, "I am positive his father is not speaking
from his heart. If he could speak freely, as I am, I am sure he’d speak for
Elián’s freedom."
Why is this so difficult to understand? Why can’t those who insist that
Elián be with his father insist also that Juan Miguel González come to the
U.S. so that his fitness as a father and his will concerning Elián can be
truly determined? The poor man is trapped in a deadly vise; only persons
totally insensitive or cruel could take his force-fed words at face value
and contend that sending Elián back to Cuba is the desire of a father’s
heart.
Let him come here freely — and let him bring his wife and baby also. And let
him meet with Elián and his relatives without the prying eyes and ears of
Castro’s omnipresent agents, which we witnessed in the tightly controlled
"visit" by Elián’s grandmothers. Sr. Jeanne O’Laughlin, a friend of Janet
Reno, had favored returning Elián, which surely was a major factor in her
selection by Reno as a "neutral" party to host the reunion between Elián and
his grandmas. However, as Sister O’Laughlin states, she saw firsthand the
fear and trembling, and she saw the Cuban government’s heavy-handed attempts
to control the event. "I became a wiser woman at that moment, wincing at my
own naïveté," she said, in a potently revealing New York Times op-ed (see
page 19). We have no excuse for further naïveté.
Families Rent Asunder
From the earliest days of his despotic reign, Castro’s wretched regime has
been about tearing families apart. In her important new book, Operation
Pedro Pan: The Untold Exodus of 14,048 Cuban Children (1999), Yvonne Conde
has documented the extraordinary story of the thousands of "Peter Pan"
children who were sent out of Cuba by desperate parents between 1960 and
1962. Many of them ended up in orphanages and foster homes throughout the
U.S., and it was months, years, or even decades before their parents escaped
from Cuba to reunite with them.
In 1991, Major Orestes Lorenzo flew his Cuban MiG-23 to Florida and defected
to the U.S. He obtained visas for his wife and children to join him, but
Castro refused to let them leave. His wife was alternately pressured,
harassed, and offered bribes to denounce him as a traitor on radio or
television, Lorenzo told THE NEW AMERICAN. She refused. She was threatened
and taunted on the street. She and the children were forced to go to
Communist psychologists. She was told her husband had found a new woman in
America. Maj. Lorenzo offered himself in exchange for their freedom, but
Cuba refused the offer. A year after his dramatic defection, Lorenzo flew
back to Cuba in a small, private plane and landed at a prearranged, secluded
spot, picked up his wife and children, and flew back to America. This daring
exploit is recounted in his inspiring memoir, Wings of the Morning.
Thousands of families have been petitioning Fidel’s regime for years for the
release of their loved ones. Among them is José Cohen, who escaped on a raft
with his brother in 1994. In 1996 he obtained U.S. visas for his wife and
three children, but Castro refuses to give them exit visas. Mr. Cohen, who
has not seen his family in nearly six years, told THE NEW AMERICAN, "They
are hostages of Castro; he has no valid moral or legal reason to keep them
there — except to punish me." His youngest daughter, Yamilla, age 13,
recently was forced to join in the government-organized Elián
demonstrations. "That’s the way of things there. I am positive Elián’s
father is only saying what he is being told to say," says Cohen. "Everyone
who knows the reality of Cuba understands that. It’s ridiculous to think
otherwise." Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera, president of the Miami-based New
Generation Cuba, informed THE NEW AMERICAN that her group is pursuing
hundreds of cases similar to Mr. Cohen’s, some of which are highlighted on
the group’s newly launched Internet web site (www.ngcuba.org).
If an East German mother had been shot dead while climbing over the Berlin
Wall with her child, would we have favored throwing the child back over the
wall to the Communist side because the father was still there? Or a Jewish
father who gave his life trying to get his son out of Nazi Germany: Would we
have said it was in the boy’s best interest to be sent back to Hitler just
because the mother, who was still a Nazi captive, said so? Or the Negro
slave who sacrificed her life to escape a cruel master and get her child to
freedom: Would we have argued that justice was best served by returning the
child to slavery because the father assured us he loved his shackles and
wanted to remain a slave? In each of these cases, we know with certainty
what was the will of the dying parent, while the true desires of the living
parent must be divined through chains, prison bars, and other instruments of
coercion and brutality.
Nivaldo Fernandez remembers the last words Elizabeth Brotons spoke to him as
they clung to the inner tubes in a merciless sea: "I am very tired. Make
sure that my son is saved. Make sure he touches land in Miami." In the eyes
of Fidel Castro, this heroic mother was a criminal because she had baptized
her son. She committed more terrible crimes by teaching little Elián how to
pray the "Our Father," the "Hail Mary," and the "Guardian Angel" prayers.
She committed the ultimate crime of treason by trying to escape the
suffocating tyranny of Castro’s Communist gulag. Our crime would be in
sending her son back to that hellish dungeon. |
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