Frank Calzon. Published Friday, April 14, 2000, in the Miami Herald
U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said that Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives have "had their day in court.'' She demanded that they promise to give up the legal fight once the appeals court issues a decision.
Reno seems to believe that she can tell the Gonzalez family just how far into the appellate process they can or cannot go, something that the U.S. government would not do to any other litigant.
It is as if she felt that the protections enshrined in the Constitution were for her to parcel at will. In Elian's case, the violated principle is "national origin.'' If the attorney general was going to transfer custody of the boy before the appeals court made a determination, what were
those weeks of negotiation with the Miami relatives about? What Reno wanted them to do after the court decided was a shameless effort at intimidation.
Didn't Reno rig the judicial system by taking away the humanitarian parole the Justice Department announced it had issued, transferring all matters relating to Elian to state courts?
At the end of the process, the courts may decide that Elian has to be returned to the custody of his father. Reno repeatedly had spoken on this matter. However, once the case went to the courts, she should have refrained from commenting on it. The judicial process should run its course without
interference from the government's chief law-enforcement official -- whose discretion is all the more advisable as she is responsible for enforcing the verdict of the courts.
Her insistence on a prompt, quick resolution confirms the mindset of those who believe that the United States is merely trying to appease Castro. His threat of a massive refugee outflow is an important issue for the President Clinton, the Defense Department and other agencies.
But that shouldn't be a factor in the court proceedings. Elian and his family have the right to expect the protection of U.S. laws -- not their arbitrary application by Reno. And Cuban Americans have the right to expect fairness from her, rather than a rush to judgment and condescension.
Despite her professed admiration for Miami Cubans, the attorney general isn't above using code words, as in "Cubans believe passionately in what they believe in.'' Of course we do. As do American Catholics about abortion, African Americans about racial discrimination or a chamber of
commerce when facing a tax raise.
She lectures the Cuban-American community about respect for the law and warns against civil disturbance. Let's keep this matter in perspective:
In the 40-year history of the Cuban-American community, there have been riots in Watts, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Liberty City and Seattle, but none in Cuban-American neighborhoods.
Besides, why is she provoking an entire community with the unconstitutional decision to treat its members as unequal to others before the law. If she is concerned about rioting, why provoke an entire community with the suggestion that before the law, its members may be less equal than others in
this country?
Indeed, on the subject of law enforcement, it may be time to ask Reno why criminal indictments have yet to be handed down for the murder of U.S. citizens by Castro's air force, which shot down unarmed aircraft over the Florida Straits in a brazen act of piracy.
No riots occurred then, either. Would any other community -- with or without ``passionate feelings'' -- have waited so patiently for simple justice to be carried out?
The Clinton administration seems to want to ``manage'' Castro by not provoking him. So just as it was better to avoid stirring his wrath than to indict him or his men for terrorism and air piracy, it is safer now to appease him by handing over to his custody -- no, the father's -- a 6-year-old
child whose rights under U.S. law are being violated.
Whatever one may think of such a craven approach to relations with a dictator, something is badly out of kilt when it twists the administration of American law out of shape.
Frank Calzon is the executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, a human-rights organization.
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