By Olga Lorenzo. The Age, Australia. Friday 28 April 2000
THE sorry tale of six-year-old Elian Gonzalez could and should have been a public relations disaster for Fidel Castro, that skilled manipulator of international public opinion. Instead, partly because of poor judgment and lack of leadership on the part of Miami's Cuban community, and partly
because of the almost irreconcilable circumstances of the boy's case, it has become yet another public relations triumph for the Cuban leader.
In November last year, a mother, divorced from her child's father for some years, gambled her own and her child's life attempting to escape from her homeland.
There is no reason to think she didn't have a fine appreciation of the risks involved. Seaworthy craft are scarce, valuable and under government control. To be captured on the high seas by the Cuban authorities brings certain imprisonment, and afterwards, loss of basic rights and social
isolation. To sink brings drowning or sharks.
In 1994, in a supposed effort to cut the number of people losing their lives in the straits, an agreement was reached between the US and Cuba that requires anyone picked up by either country to be returned to Cuba. Elian's mother could have joined the visa queue. The US grants 20,000 visas a
year to Cubans, but hundreds of thousands apply.
Why are so many so desperate to leave?
My uncle died a few years ago, just after I sent him a pair of shoes from Australia. He had not been able to leave the house until then for lack of footwear. He begged me for powdered milk; instead I sent money. It never arrived; more than eight out of 10 of my letters and parcels are
confiscated - they go into the pockets of party members.
All my phone calls to my relatives are monitored. I know that it is hard to live with dignity when there is no toilet paper, no soap, no deodorant, no shampoo, and almost no decent food or living space. All this in a fertile and potentially productive island of about 11million. And one that knew
such productivity and technical advance that televisions were widely available in Havana before they were in much of the US.
Many claim it is the fault of the US embargo. Yet for 30 years, the Soviet Union pumped $US10million every day into Cuba's coffers, and still there was no meat, no medicines, no toiletries.
Could trade with the US equal and better $US3billion dollars a year? This seems impossible, considering that Cuba has to import much of its food and commodities. Basically, the factors that made communism fail in Europe are exacerbated in this tropical nation: why work if there is no incentive?
Many suspect the US embargo may actually be maintained to keep Castro in power by allowing him to portray himself as the hero of a beleaguered nation. If he was to fall, America's shores would be flooded with even more unwanted Cubans and the world would call for the US to step in and help clean
up its small neighbor's costly mess.
As for Elian Gonzalez, one has to remember that the relatives who wanted to keep him were his father's family. His father did not appear in the US for five months.
And after meeting his grandmothers, Dominican Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, president of Miami's Barry University and until then a staunch advocate of Elian's return to his father, promptly changed her mind. In the US, it was widely reported that upon being reunited with their grandson, the
grandmothers unzipped his trousers and fondled his genitals. Although I know this happens among very poor and backward Cuban folk, it is inconceivable that these women would do this under the electrified circumstances without knowing how it would be seen. It certainly could be interpreted that the
two women were trying to say that Elian deserved better than Cuba currently offers.
If Cuban Americans have failed in the propaganda war, it is because of a lack of wisdom and cunning. What if Elian hadn't been paraded behind the chain-mesh fence of the simple concrete house, innocently displaying his new toys? The boy was seen as being manipulated for propaganda reasons,
rather than as a victim of Castro's regime.
Elian will probably now return to Cuba with his father. Maybe his father genuinely wants him and will give him a loving home. As long as Elian doesn't want to be a political scientist, a journalist, a political cartoonist, as long as he isn't homosexual, as long as he doesn't want to travel
overseas, or criticise his government, he will probably survive, with no more or less dignity than others.
Cuban-born Olga Lorenzo is a Melbourne freelance journalist and author.
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