CUBANET ... CUBANEWS

April 24, 2000



Simply Un-American

From Miami raid to follow-up, the Clinton-Reno team was shameless.

By National Review staff. National Review, 4/22/00 12:55 p.m.

In editorializing on the Elian Gonzalez case, we've asked the question "Are We Still America?" It seems that question may have been answered in Miami on Saturday morning, just before dawn.

Shortly after the siege of the home of Lazaro Gonzalez, great-uncle of Elian (on his father's side), Lazaro pleaded with an angry, yet restrained Miami crowd to be peaceful. This is not Cuba, he admonished.

That's exactly the advice Janet Reno needed to hear and heed before making the call to send more than 130 federal marshals and INS agents into the peaceful home, armed with assault weapons and tear gas.

At her press conference Saturday morning Janet Reno was shameless. Key words like "heal," "reunite," "constructive," and "calm" joined phrases like "put this behind us," "pursuant to law," and "the most important thing is that Elian is safe." If it weren't for her Parkinson's-induced thumb tapping on the podium, one could have been lulled uninterrupted into her peaceful delusion.

Clinton, at a brief Rose Garden press conference later in the morning, mimicked Reno, while continuing to distance himself from any responsibility in the Elian Gonzalez ordeal. In his Clintonian way, he carefully avoided images of INS agents storming the home in the dark to grab the child. Rather, he said that Elian has been "reunited with his father Juan Miguel Gonzalez," that the attorney general "went to great lengths" to generate a "voluntary transfer," and that when efforts failed "the law was upheld." Like Reno, the president talked of "restraint," "patience" and "compassion" — words that ring in stark contrast to the reality revealed in videos of the pre-dawn raid.

One needs only to hear a distraught Marisleysis Gonzalez, cousin of and mother figure to Elian, to be reminded that this morning's actions had little to do with anything "calm." She reported that INS agents, wielding the "F" word with bravado, unnecessarily ransacked the Gonzalez home, and ignored her pleas to put the weapons away. "Don't let him see the guns," Marisleysis begged.

Many questions remain unanswered. It's clear that the family had been in negotiations with the Justice Department and Juan Miguel throughout the night; Janet Reno claims that the family had been told that time had run out. Young Marisleysis says the family was on hold with the Justice Department and had no idea what was about to happen. When they heard the front door being knocked down, she explains, they thought a fight had broken out among protesters outside the house. Elian, along with the other children in the house, was taken to a room to hide from the unknown intruders — which explains the photo of the fisherman who saved Elian on Thanksgiving Day, Donato Dalrymple, in a closet holding the boy. That an assault weapon was pointed at them is inexcusable.

The future for Elian seems grim. The image of Clinton's impeachment lawyer, who is representing Juan Miguel Gonzalez, praising Janet Reno's actions, reminds us that the buck does indeed stop with the President and his Attorney General. And this operation has been Clintonian from the very beginning. Janet Reno may be making every effort to keep Juan Miguel and Elian in the country until the wheels of justice make known what's in the boy's best interest. But she won't make them stay.

And let's make no mistake: Juan Miguel has not had one second of freedom in the United States. He's been staying at the home of a Cuban diplomat — essentially on Cuban soil. An endless line of visitors has included American Marxists from the Congressional Black Caucus, the National Council of Churches, and their fellow travelers. His mother is being held by the Cuban government back in Cardenas and his current wife's first child is still in Cuba. There is no reason to believe he's ever spoken for himself and his son. He's been running this operation from the beginning. When Fidel wants them back, they'll go back.

Clearly, the "best interest of the child" is little more than a slogan for the Justice Department and INS. The images of this weekend ought to be remembered as voters go to the voting booths this November. What exactly has the Clinton-Gore administration done for America?

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