What will become of him?
By Congressman Chris Smith. National Review. 4/26/00 6:55 p.m.
The case of Elian Gonzalez has presented the American public with two dramatically different views of what life might be like for children in Cuba — and, in particular, of what would happen to a child who was returned to Cuba after managing to escape to the United States.
The picture suggested by the Clinton Administration and by most news media coverage of the Elian case might have been drawn by Norman Rockwell. The child is welcomed by a loving family, by his classmates and teachers, and life soon returns to normal. The only cloud on the horizon is that the
family is poor — which in this version of events is caused by the U.S. trade embargo rather than by the policies of the Castro government — but on the whole everyone is happy except a few people in Miami who, in this view, are the ones who caused the whole problem in the first place.
In the other picture it is the child himself who is unhappy, and he is likely to be unhappy for the rest of his life. Upon his return to Cuba the child is greeted by mass demonstrations ordered by the government. There are banners announcing that "the Cuban people have reclaimed their son"
who had been "kidnapped" by enemies of the Revolution. A government official announces that the child is a "possession" of the Cuban state. Arrangements are made for a public appearance with Castro himself, provided that measures can be taken to guarantee that the child will not
spoil the occasion by showing fear or some other inappropriate emotion in the presence of the leader.
But in this version of events, the homecoming is only the beginning. For the rest of his childhood, the boy will be in the effective custody not of his father but of the Cuban government. His education will consist mostly of political indoctrination, and when he is eleven he will be taken to a
work camp for weeks or months of forced labor and even more intense indoctrination. The child and his family are watched every day and hour of their lives by government agents. If these agents see anything suspicious — any signs of independent thought or action as the child grows older —
there will be stern warnings from the security forces and from local Communist enforcers. If he should ever dare to speak his mind, he can be arrested and imprisoned for a crime called "dangerousness." And he will never be allowed to leave.
In an effort to find out which of these two Cubas Elian would find upon his return, the U.S. House subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights, of which I serve as chairman, recently held a hearing on "Children’s Rights in Cuba." We heard from experts on Cuban law
and from witnesses who had first-hand experience with the Cuban education system, the law-enforcement system, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, and the other agencies of the government and of the Communist party with which the child would come in contact.
We did not need expert testimony to know that sending a child, or anybody else for that matter, back to Cuba is not the same as sending him to Mexico or France. The U.S. State Department’s 1999 country report on human-rights practices makes clear that "education is grounded in Marxist
ideology." The report also points out that the Cuban state has assumed the right to interfere in the lives of the citizens, even those who do not actively oppose the Government and its practices. People are imprisoned for such crimes as illicit association, clandestine printing, and passing out
literature.
We were nevertheless surprised to learn the extent to which the lives of Cuban children are dominated by the Communist Party and the government it controls. For instance, Article 39 of the Cuban Constitution provides that "[t]he education of children and young people in the spirit of
Communism is the duty of all society." This duty is further elaborated in the Children and Youth Code, enacted in 1978, of which Article 5 requires all persons who come in contact with children and youth "to be an example to the formation of the communist personality." Article 11
requires that teachers show "a high mission to the development of a communist personality in children." And Article 23 limits eligibility for higher education to children who demonstrate "proper political attitude and social conduct." One of our witnesses testified that as a
schoolteacher in Cuba he had been required to serve up "a daily indoctrination of communism." Cuban children are also strongly encouraged to be atheists. Ileana Fuentes, a feminist author and one of the "Operacion Pedro Pan" refugee children whose parents sent them away so that
they could live in freedom, testified that "the Cuban Constitution and the Penal Code both call for sanctions, including prison terms, against individuals who put their religious beliefs before duty to communism." Elian will be forced to be a "young pioneer," which, according to
the Children and Family Code, is ‘a volunteer organization that coordinates tasks and activities to complement the formation of the communist personality.’"
Fuentes continued by emphasizing the government’s role in monitoring every aspect of a child’s life. "The child’s progress will be charted in a personal file that will follow him or her through life. In that file will be recorded not only his young revolutionary zeal, but
that of the parents as well. Only good communists will advance on the educational ladder, and only they will be able to pursue their career of choice." Fuentes and other witnesses also testified that children as young as eleven are taken from their parents during the summer months and sent to
study and perform forced labor on government farms. Parents can visit only on the weekends, and these "schools" are mandatory. "Parents and children who violate this mandate forfeit their right to higher education, and their file will reflect 'deviant ideological behavior unbecoming a
good Cuban revolutionary'," said Fuentes.
The important thing to remember is that all these things happen to children even if they are not famous. If Elian returns, his situation will be far worse than that of an average Cuban child. It is most unlikely that Fidel Castro's trophy child would be permitted to develop any characteristics
or beliefs, or pursue any interests, inconsistent with being the perfect model of "communist personality." To this end, Castro himself has already announced that Elian will be "reprogrammed" upon return to Cuba. This process will take place in a mental health system that
routinely diagnoses critics of the government as mentally ill and proceeds to treat the illness. Ominously, it has been reported that a Cuban "mental health" specialist is already attending Elian at Andrews Air Force Base.
Even before the shocking pre-dawn raid in which federal agents seized Elian at gunpoint, the case was deeply troubling for many Americans. On the one hand, in determining what is in the best interest of a child, most of us would agree there should be a strong presumption that the child's best
interest is to be with his natural parent or parents. But there are exceptions to this rule, however rare, and the most troubling aspect of this case is that there has never been a judicial or administrative hearing to take evidence and find facts in an attempt to consider carefully and objectively
whether this case falls within one of those rare exceptions. Instead the Attorney General seems to have substituted her own intuitive judgment, based almost exclusively on interviews by an INS official in Cuba with the father.
This haphazard fact-finding process essentially ignores the question to what extent the boy's father's actions may have been dictated by fear of the Cuban government, as well as whether the child's own life will be controlled by the government — and not by his father — if he returns.
I hope I am wrong about the future of Elian Gonzalez. Perhaps a thorough and impartial hearing would conclude that Elian's father is acting out of his own free will and that the Cuban government will leave him in peace to raise his son. But we will never know until we have such a hearing. The
proceedings that are currently going on in federal court do not address the merits of these questions. Instead, they are limited to the narrow procedural question whether it was in the Attorney General's discretion to deny a hearing by letting Elian's father withdraw his asylum claim. The government
is arguing that the Attorney General's discretion is so broad that she can either grant or deny a hearing, either keep Elian here or send him back, whichever she chooses. A federal district court agreed with the Attorney General, but so far the appeals court seems to disagree. Perhaps the Attorney
General is correct in arguing that her discretion is broad enough to send Elian back to Cuba without due process of law. But even if this were correct, it would not be right.
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