Yahoo! April 18, 2000
Cuba To Protest UN Rights Resolution
HAVANA, 18 (AP) - Bitterly denouncing the U.S. and Czech governments, Cuba planned a protest march of 100,000 people for Tuesday against a proposed U.N. human rights resolution sponsored by the Czechs criticizing the communist island.
The march before the Czech Embassy here is timed to coincide with the start of a debate before the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
Cuban state television broadcast a statement Monday saying the move to censure Cuba is ``directed by the United States and seconded by the hypocrisy and racism of Europe with the miserable complicity of lackeys headed by the Czech Republic.''
The statement charged that the action ``is creating an atmosphere propitious for carrying out monstrous crimes,'' citing the case of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez, who is being held by his great-uncle's family in Miami against the will of the boy's father.
It accused the United States of ``making extraordinary efforts, using all its power and political and economic influence'' to convince countries that voted against such resolutions in the past to accept it this time, or at least to abstain.
A similar resolution censuring Cuba was narrowly approved last year after being defeated in 1998 for the first time since 1991.
Cuba has refused to permit a specially appointed U.N. rapporteur to visit the island, arguing that he was controlled by the United States.
Little Havana Is Home Away From Home
By Alan Clendenning, Associated Press Writer.
MIAMI, 18 (AP) - Palm trees. Stucco houses in pastel hues. The smell of rich, sweet coffee and the smoke of roasted pork wafting through the narrow streets. It could be Cuba without Fidel Castro.
This is Little Havana, the parallel universe for thousands of Cuban exiles who have turned it into their home away from home.
The waves of Cubans fleeing communist Cuba reshaped this once white neighborhood almost 40 years ago. The 41/2-month struggle to keep Elian Gonzalez from being sent back to Cuba has energized this close-knit community, bringing its Cuban colors out in force.
``This street was no-name street,'' said Sergio Perez, 49, standing near the house where 6-year-old Elian moved in with relatives last fall. ``Now it's Elian's street.''
Little Havana has been part of Miami for decades and, Elian notwithstanding, its true heart is Eighth Street, called Calle Ocho by everyone, even Anglos. Stretching west of downtown for more than a mile, it is like another world within a sprawling city of 400,000 people.
From Domino Park to the Orange Bowl to Calle Ocho, all of the business signs are in Spanish. The houses are modest, with small yards and tall, steel fences and security gates.
Only boys wear shorts. The men - the traditional Cuban men - wear pants. Most people call dollars pesos. There are low-slung churches in the primarily Roman Catholic community, many with open doors. On Palm Sunday, the singing could be heard easily by passers-by.
Then there is the food: Cuban sandwiches like medianoche - that means midnight - with piles of pork and ham and cheese, grilled hot. There is also moros y christianos, which is black beans and white rice stirred together.
Everywhere there are sidewalk windows, traditional places in Latin America to swap the latest gossip and argue politics for the cost of a potent cup of coffee. The community was aghast two years ago when state health officials began insisting on sliding glass or screens between the cooks and
their customers.
Street vendors sell ``pinchos'' - chunks of sticky, aromatic pork barbecued on wooden sticks. There is the steady rhythm of salsa music from car radios and houses long after dark. Parades coincide with Carnival and major dates on the church calendar.
Like many others, Perez came to the United States and moved into the neighborhood in 1980 after Castro let 125,000 Cubans travel to Florida during the three-month Mariel boatlift. But Cubans have been coming to South Florida for decades.
In the 1960s, 400,000 to 500,000 Cubans fleeing Castro came to the United States. Many settled in the five-square-mile area that would become Little Havana.
Back then, it was a collection of neighborhoods, all lower-middle-class and white. There was a large Jewish contingent.
But there was no white flight, historians say. The Anglos simply moved out slowly, heading to the suburbs or farther north. For the Cubans, rents were cheap and stores were within walking distance, which was good because they couldn't afford cars. Few believed they would stay for long.
``None of these people expected this to be permanent exile,'' said Jaime Suchlicki, director of the Institute for Cuba and Cuban American Studies at the University of Miami. ``Everyone thought Fidel would fall, he would be gone and they would go back to Cuba.''
Instead, they opened stores and restaurants and fixed up the houses they bought, adding Latin touches like tile roofs, stucco walls and flower-filled gardens.
Some made enough money to move to more affluent neighborhoods, but they were replaced by the Mariel Cubans and, during the last decade, tens of thousands of immigrants from Cuba and Central American countries.
They did more than transform Little Havana.
``My god, the Cubans changed the city,'' said Wayne Smith, a senior fellow at Center for International Policy in Washington and the former chief of the State Department's U.S. interests section in Cuba.
``I've always given the Cubans great credit, or almost sole credit, for transforming Miami into the bustling international economic commercial center it is today.''
With the Elian saga, the Cubans have been given another opportunity to condemn Castro. Signs tacked to houses throughout Little Havana say ``Back To No Future'' and ``No Castro No Problem.''
Laura Isaac, 67, believes Elian would return to a country without enough milk and food. The retired teacher is happy her views are heard across the country and beyond.
``Now the world knows what we know: That Cuba is no place for this child,'' Isaac said.
For her, and for thousands of Cubans, home is Little Havana. If they win their battle, it will become Elian's home, too.
Doctor Says Miami Family Wrong for Elian
By Lisa Baertlein
MIAMI, 17(Reuters) - The U.S. government and the Miami relatives of Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez were locked in an angry impasse on Monday as they waited for a federal appeals court ruling that could determine how soon he will be reunited with his father.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta was considering a last-ditch request by Elian's Miami relatives to prevent the 6-year-old's return to Cuba pending legal appeals, and a government counter-request to order him handed over.
``We will wait for the court to rule and then we will move,'' Immigration and Naturalization Service spokeswoman Maria Cardona said.
The decision could come at any time. If it favors the government, it would remove an obstacle in administration efforts to reunite the child with his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, and end a bitter custody battle that has become a crusade for President Fidel Castro and his enemies among Cuban
exiles in Miami.
The INS on Monday released a letter from the pediatrician who has been advising the government on Elian in which he urged that the boy be removed from the Miami relatives because he was being ``horrendously exploited''.
``Elian Gonzalez is now in a state of imminent danger to his physical and emotional well-being in a home that I consider to be psychologically abusive,'' Dr. Irwin Redlener, president of community pediatrics at Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York, wrote in the letter.
Officials in President Clinton's administration said over the weekend that once the 11th Circuit ruled, it was ready to move to return Elian to the custody of his father.
The administration is increasingly impatient to wrap up a saga that began when Elian was rescued in the waters off Florida Nov. 25, 1999, after surviving a disastrous migrant voyage from Cuba in which his mother and 10 other people died.
The Justice Department hoped to see a father-son reunion last Thursday, when it ordered the Miami relatives to hand over the child at a local airport. The plan was to fly the child to Washington, where his father has been waiting for 10 days to take custody.
But Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, who has looked after the child since he was rescued and believes he should not grow up under communism, ignored the deadline -- effectively daring federal agents to run the gantlet of hundreds of exile protesters around his Little Havana home.
The Miami family said in a statement on Monday there had been no legal requirement to deliver Elian into government hands last Thursday.
``We reiterate that Lazaro will not disobey the law,'' the statement said, referring to the family's assurances it will not block the way if federal agents come to get Elian.
But Cardona disputed the claim that Lazaro Gonzalez had broken no law. ``When he took the responsibility to care for Elian temporarily ... he also took on the responsibility to abide by any INS instructions that were given to him about the parole of the child,'' she said.
Lazaro Gonzalez remained defiant over the weekend, buoyed by a continued vigil around his house by supporters who believe they are fighting for the boy's ``freedom.''
The family, seeking an asylum hearing, appealed a federal court decision in March that upheld immigration authorities' view that Elian belongs with his father.
The Atlanta court is to hear the appeal in May, but before that, it must rule on where Elian should live pending the hearing.
Fighting the government and U.S. public opinion, lawyers and family representatives sought to build their case by alleging the father had abused Elian and the boy's late mother, and that he really wanted to defect but could not speak freely.
Juan Miguel Gonzalez showed increasing anger and frustration with the relatives and denied the charges.
``The way they manipulated him (Elian) ... That's abusive. Everything that they've done with him is abusive,'' he said in an interview with CBS broadcast on Sunday.
Some hard core supporters of the relatives around the Lazaro Gonzalez house said they would not give up Elian without a fight.
``There's going to be a big Waco here. We're not going to let that child be dragged out of that house. It's a disgrace what's going on here,'' said Doris Socorro, in a voice cracking with emotion.
She was referring to the April 19, 1993, FBI raid at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. About 80 people died when the compound caught fire.
Miami Cuban-Americans Still Alone
By Mark Stevenson, Associated Press Writer.
MIAMI, 18 (AP) - After years of going it alone, the city's Cuban-American community is making a display of reaching out to other ethnic minorities - without much success.
With the national spotlight squarely on Little Havana and efforts to keep Elian Gonzalez from being returned to Cuba, the Cuban-American community's isolation is starkly clear: The crowd is almost entirely white or Cuban.
This is happening in a county with a rich mix of minority groups. While Cubans are the largest ethnic group, with about 800,000 of the more than 2.1 million people, there are 500,000 whites, 400,000 other Hispanics, and more than 400,000 blacks, including 150,000 Haitians.
But many of those groups resent the Cuban-American power structure here and aren't rushing to offer support on the Elian issue. The reluctance is rooted both in the history of Miami's race relations and what some call preferential treatment for Cuban Americans.
Haitians and Mexicans point to recent cases of immigrants from both countries being routinely deported while Cubans are guaranteed residency.
``It's definitely an issue of double standards,'' said Leonie Hermantin, executive director of Miami's Haitian American Foundation.
The Cuban-American political strength intimidates the city's other factions into silence, said Fred St. Amand, a Haitian funeral parlor owner. One non-Cuban who lives near the Gonzalez home this week said he fears physical retribution if he voices his opposition to the protest.
The home has flown Cuban and American flags for months. Suddenly this week there are flags of other Latin American nations - Brazil, Mexico, four Central American nations, as well as Puerto Rico.
Leaders in the Cuban community claim there is wide support for efforts to keep 6-year-old Elian in the United States and said they are simply welcoming participants from other Latin factions.
Ramon Saul Sanchez, the leader of the exile community's Democracy Movement, said he has extended an invitation to other ethnic and political groups ``to fight the omnivorous power of the INS, a power that comes not from Congress, but from xenophobia.''
But many leaders in those communities say the invitation is as clumsy as it is insincere.
A sign at the home this week compared the effort to civil rights legends - ``Are Harriet Tubman or Rosa Parks better than Lazaro Gonzalez? No!!'' - did little to win supporters in the black communities.
``That reflects a lack of appreciation of the history of black people in this country,'' said Marvin Dunn, chairman of the psychology department at Florida International University.
When a rare black face was spotted in the crowd last week, an announcer at Miami's Spanish-language, pro-exile AM radio station Radio Unica welcomed the visitor as a ``gentleman from Africa'' and proof of worldwide support. But the man was Cuban.
Miami has a troubled racial history, though there have been no signs of racial tension over the Elian issue.
In May 1980, as the Mariel boatlift began, rioting that would kill 18 people erupted in predominantly black Liberty City after an all-white jury acquitted four former Miami police officers of fatally beating a black insurance executive.
Riots broke out again in 1982 after a black man was shot by a Cuban police officer, and in 1989 when an unarmed black speeding suspect was shot by a Colombian police officer.
And now there is a new issue dominating the headlines for the city's largest minority group: Elian.
``It concerns me,'' said Arva Moore Parks, a local historian who was born in Little Havana and has written books about the city. ``This (Elian) seems to have polarized the community more than anything in a while.''
Recent polls show that most Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade County say the boy should remain in Florida with his relatives. But other Hispanics are more evenly split, and a majority of the area's white and black non-Hispanics say the boy should be returned to his father in Cuba.
A recent Miami Herald poll show most blacks think Elian should be returned to his father in Cuba.
``We have two communities diametrically opposed on this issue,'' Dunn said. Rifts between Cuban Americans and blacks in Miami, which he said have been made worse by the Elian saga, ``would take time to heal.''
And Parks said the city would heal: ``Any community that can survive May 1980 can do anything.''
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