John LeBoutillier. NewsMax.com. NewsMax.com. Tuesday April 18, 2000
Bill Clinton and Janet Reno spend virtually every waking moment plotting how they can ship little Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba.
The New Leftists – ranging from Hillary to the Congressional Black Caucus and especially the national news media – are eagerly pushing to have the boy sent back ASAP.
What is life like in Cuba? What will Elian's future rights be in Cuba as compared to his rights here in America?
What do these wonderful "liberal" champions of human rights and freedoms here in American know about Cuba?
Check this out:
Is there "Freedom of the Press" – so valuable to Ted Koppel and Dan Rather – in Cuba?
Answer: The authorities routinely continued to harass, threaten, arbitrarily arrest, detain, imprison, and defame human rights advocates and members of independent professional associations, including journalists, economists, doctors, and lawyers, often with the goal of coercing them into
leaving the country.
The authorities regularly search people and their homes, without probable cause, to intimidate and harass them. State security agents searched the homes of hundreds of human rights advocates and independent journalists, seizing typewriters, personal and organizational documents, books, and
foreign newspapers.
You know how the lawyer for Elian's father Juan Miguel Gonzalez, Clinton's Impeachment lawyer, is paid by funds laundered through the United Methodist Church and the National Council of Churches. Do these American religious groups know how their religious brethren are treated in Cuba?
Answer: The government prohibits, with occasional exceptions, the construction of new churches, forcing many growing congregations to violate the law and meet in private homes. Government harassment of private houses of worship continued, with evangelical denominations reporting evictions from
houses used for these purposes. Officials of the Cuban Council of Churches (CCC) reported that in 1997 the local government authorities had demolished two homes used as churches in the eastern provinces.
In September independent journalists reported that the Evenecer church in a home in Caibarien, Villa Clara province, was confiscated by local officials of the Communist Party's office of religious affairs and the Ministry of Interior.
State security officials visited some priests and pastors, prior to significant religious events, ostensibly to warn them about dissidents, in an effort to sow discord and mistrust between the churches and peaceful pro-democracy activists.
You know how it has become "politically correct" here in the United States to have compassion for patients with AIDS. How does Cuba treat AIDS patients?
Answer: The government has kept tight restrictions on freedom of movement for persons found to be HIV-positive, initially restricting them to sanitoriums for treatment and therapy before conditionally releasing them into the community.
You know how Big Labor here in the United States is all for Clinton and Reno, right? I guess they, too, want to ship the boy back to Cuba. Well, how about workers' rights in Cuba? How about workers' safety – which spawned OSHA – and child labor laws, one of labor's first victories here
in America?
Answer: The "demands of the economy and society" take precedence over individual workers' preferences. The law prohibits strikes; none are known to have occurred.
Workplace environmental and safety controls are usually inadequate.
All students over age 11 are expected to devote 30 to 45 days of their summer vacation to farm work, laboring up to 8 hours per day. The Ministry of Agriculture uses "voluntary labor" by student work brigades extensively in the farming sector.
You know how Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Jesse Jackson and other black leaders are so desperate to exile Elian back to Cuba. Why? Is Cuba "better" for blacks than is our "racist" country?
Answer: There have been numerous reports of disproportionate police harassment of black youths.
You know how the liberals here in America are always talking about "campaign finance reform" and how the "two-party political system is broken." Well, what's the electoral system like in Cuba?
Answer: Citizens do not have the legal right to change their government or to advocate change, and the government has retaliated systematically against those who sought peaceful political change. The constitution proscribes any political organization other than the Communist Party.
The authorities tightly control the selection of candidates and all elections for government and party positions.
Communist Party membership is in fact a prerequisite for high-level official positions and professional advancement.
You know how the liberals hate police brutality here in America. What will Elian face when he dares oppose the government in Cuba?
Answer: There were instances in which members of the security forces beat and otherwise abused human rights advocates, detainees, and prisoners.
You know how the liberals decry "racial profiling" here in America. Does this dreaded action take place in Cuba?
Answer: There have been numerous reports of disproportionate police harassment of black youths.
Remember the brief mention in our media of how Juan Miguel's parents are locked up in a "compound" in Havana while he's here? Funny, no one ever talks about that anymore. Does Castro play games with parents in order to exert pressure on people?
Answer: State security officials on two separate occasions told the elderly, pensioned mother of political prisoner Jesus Chamber Ramirez to travel 700 miles from her home in Santiago de Cuba to Havana because, they claimed, her son was being taken to a diplomatic mission to process his
departure from the country. Chamber was not brought to Havana; the ploy was a state security ruse to bring pressure on Chamber by making his mother undertake the expensive and arduous journey. Chamber, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for "enemy propaganda" and "disrespect for
government authority," regularly was denied family visits because of his insistence on treatment as a political rather than a common prisoner.
You know how Elian has been allowed to watch TV and make phone calls. Will he be able to call his cousins in Miami when he's shipped back to Cuba? Will he be able to speak freely to them?
Answer: The authorities utilize a wide range of social controls. The Interior Ministry employs an intricate system of informants and block committees to monitor and control public opinion.
The Department of State Security often reads international correspondence and monitors overseas telephone calls and conversations with foreigners. The government controls all access to the Internet, and all electronic mail messages are subject to censorship.
This is the country and the system Clinton and Reno and the liberals want to send this boy back to.
Oh, I almost forgot: each and every "answer" listed above comes directly from the current U.S. State Department Report on Human Rights in Cuba!
So, Clinton's Justice Department wants to send Elian back to what Clinton's own State Department calls one of "the most repressive regimes in the world."
What phonies and hypocrites our liberals are.
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