Published Monday, July 3, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Exiles' Elián protests backfired in Cuba
Community more alienated from island
Herald Staff Report
HAVANA -- Since Elián González was rescued off Fort Lauderdale on Thanksgiving Day, Cubans have been bombarded with images of Miami Cuban exiles on state-run media -- giving them a taste of exile feelings.
On television shows like The Roundtable, created to inform Cubans of Elián's plight, interviews with exile leaders -- recorded by CNN and other American networks -- were shown, followed by Cuban scholars dissecting their every word.
Exile leaders like Ninoska Pérez Castellón of the Cuban American National Foundation and Brothers to the Rescue founder José Basulto have been regulars.
In a rare and unprecedented event on the censored news shows, Cuban TV even broadcast clips of exiles criticizing Cuban President Fidel Castro. One showed Armando Gutierrez, spokesman for Elián's Miami family, calling Cuba a place of tyranny and dictatorship -- ``a place where Elián
will never be free.''
Apart from those rare episodes, however, the Cuban government has tried to discredit the exile community. Rarely are Miami Cubans mentioned without the word ``mafia.''
The Cuban daily newspaper, Granma, referred to political leaders by derisive nicknames, often substituting ``the fierce she-wolf'' (la loba feroz) for Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and calling Gutierrez el cerdo -- the pig. Gutierrez did not return a call to his home, but Ros-Lehtinen said she was not
bothered by the epithet.
``It's a tremendous honor every time the communists attack me,'' Ros-Lehtinen said, adding that she had put the phrase on her car license plate.
The images -- along with the tactics used by Miami Cubans to keep Elián in the United States -- further alienated exiles from Cubans on the island, said Juan Carlos Aguero, a high school teacher who said he used to respect exile efforts before the Elián case.
``They've lost a lot of prestige here,'' he said.
Since Elián's return to the island, the carefully selected images of Miami Cubans have been overwhelmingly negative.
NEGATIVE IMAGES
Consider two often-repeated clips: in one, a woman outside the Miami family's former home in Little Havana is ripping an American flag; in another, a woman overcome by grief upon Elián's return to Cuba, says ``Knock down that airplane, knock down that airplane.''
Aguero, 30, said he takes all state broadcasts with a grain of salt and gets information elsewhere -- from friends abroad and people who visit the island.
But he said he is discouraged by what he has seen of Miami, particularly the woman asking for the plane to crash. ``What are the Cuban people supposed to think of that?'' Aguero asked.
Guillermo Pérez, 39, a mechanical engineer who now drives a taxi, said the images only confirm his feelings about the exile groups. He said he hopes those images are spread through the United States and the world.
``Finally the North American people will see the horrible things the Miami mafia does,'' he said.
The son of two Communist Party members, Pérez said he has never had any affection for Miami exiles. To him, the Cuban American National Foundation is full of people who backed former Cuban President Fulgencio Batista.
The foundation did not respond to calls, but the organization is made up of a mixture of exiles.
The foundation has repeatedly said its goal is to undermine the Castro regime and help people in Cuba bring democracy to the island -- not re-create the Batista regime.
Basulto, of Brothers to the Rescue, said it isn't surprising that Cubans are getting misimpressions of Miami exiles after watching selected TV clips. He said the goal is to smear the names of exile opponents so people in Cuba will lose respect for them.
``It's part of the vilification of their foes, their opponents,'' said Basulto, ``to make themselves look good and us look hateful.
``The tactic of the Cuban regime is always to try to discredit individuals rather than ideas, and this is what's happening in this case, and have turned some of us into cartoon characters with the goal of discrediting our ideas,'' Basulto said.
A SIMPLE CASE
To Perez, Elián's case was simple -- a son belongs with his father. Perez became addicted to The Roundtable, which focused on the case daily. As a result, his knowledge of South Florida political leaders became extensive.
To a visitor in a taxi cab, a 1980 Russian car he cranks up with a wrench, Pérez talks as easily about the politics of President Clinton as those of Miami Mayor Joe Carollo and Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas.
On a recent morning, Granma published a summary of a New York Times article about how the Elián case has polarized Miami along ethnic lines.
Pérez quickly laid blame on Penelas, whom he said angered many blacks and white non-Hispanics when he said Miami-Dade Police wouldn't assist federal authorities in removing the boy from his Little Havana home.
EXILE POLITICS
To him, Penelas' words were just another example of exile politics gone astray.
Odalys and José of Vedado, a Havana neighborhood -- the couple declined to give their last name because of fear of retribution -- said they believe that exiles were misguided.
Neither supports Castro, but they think Elián would have had a better future in Miami.
Odalys, a hairstylist, said she sympathizes with Miami exiles who she said suffered the pain of 40 years of Castro revolution.
But seeing exiles protest outside the home of Elián's Miami relatives hurt their cause, because it left the impression they were using the boy for political reasons, she said.
``I know they're trying to remove the stakes from their hearts -- it's the same one we have in ours,'' she said, ``but trying to fight Fidel Castro by politicizing the plight of a 6-year-old boy was absurd.''
As a result, said her boyfriend José, a jeweler, exiles played into Castro's hands making it easier for the Cuban leader to say, ``See! I told you they were bad people.''
To José, who has a visa he will use to leave for Miami shortly, exile leaders and Castro have much in common: Both are ``extremist, intolerant.''
Castro declares a new war against the U.S.
Mark Fineman. Los Angeles Times. Published Sunday, July 2, 2000, in the Miami Herald
MANZANILLO, Cuba -- With more than 300,000 people gathered Saturday in a sweltering downtown plaza here, Cuban President Fidel Castro and his ruling inner circle delivered the nation's first official reply to the return of castaway Elián González: a defiant declaration of yet
another ideological battle against the United States.
The new official targets: U.S. immigration and trade policies toward the island.
``We don't care who becomes the next U.S. president,'' Castro said in a statement read to the rally. ``None of the aspirants inspire confidence in us. It's useless for them to try to win a few voters by investing unnecessary time in declarations and promises against Cuba. . . . Four decades of
underestimation and humiliating failure should be enough'' for Washington to realize that ``Cuba was, is and will continue to be free forever.''
Cuba's gray-bearded leader, who made Elián's return from the United States a personal, paternal and national crusade, did not outline a specific strategy. But in the two-page letter, he said neither Elián's return nor the results of the U.S. elections in November will ease tensions
between two nations that have been enemies for 40 years.
Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque announced that the mass Elián rallies that have been held in a different city around the country each Saturday since December would continue indefinitely, along with round-table discussions among senior government members and Communist Party faithful
broadcast live every weekday afternoon. Instead of Elián, the focus will be on U.S. trade and immigration policies.
Castro did not attend the rally. He was on Havana's seafront, 400 miles away, overseeing an in-your-face army graduation ceremony in front of the U.S. diplomatic mission that was televised soon after coverage of the Manzanillo gathering ended.
Even Castro's younger brother, Raúl, the 73-year-old leader's official successor and defense minister, joined in this opening offensive.
During a rare, 15-minute meeting with the foreign media as the masses filed out of the plaza here toward home, the younger Castro declared: ``Now begins the second stage, which also will be triumphant.''
Citing the 1966 U.S. legislation that was Cuba's principal target of the day, Raúl Castro said flatly: ``The Cuban Adjustment Act has to end. Because Cuba will not change.''
Jovial, self-assured and clad in a dress uniform heavy with medals, Raúl Castro, who is 69 and chief of the Cuban army, added with a shrug: ``What other solution do we have? What other solution do the Americans have? Invade us? I would not like to see that, because we would pay a terrible
price. And they would pay as terrible a price as us.''
The Cold War-era congressional act presumes that all Cubans who leave this Communist-run island for the U.S. are political refugees. Together with the 38-year-old U.S. economic embargo, it was meant to help bring down Castro's government.
But the law has become the cornerstone of the Clinton administration's so-called wet foot/dry foot immigration policy, which permits Cubans -- and only Cubans -- who reach America's shores to remain, while those intercepted at sea are sent home.
Cuba asserts -- and many U.S. law enforcement officials agree -- that the law and the policy are fueling a multimillion-dollar, Miami-based human smuggling trade that left more than 60 Cubans dead last year alone in the treacherous straits that separate Florida from Cuba, just 90 miles away.
The renewed militancy of the Cuban leadership may also affect ongoing efforts in Washington to ease the U.S. embargo on Cuba and permit U.S. sales of food and medicine to the island. A struggle is going on among Republican factions -- some of which favor relaxing the sanctions -- and GOP
congressional leaders who object to the change in policy.
Democrats and the White House have complained that the Republican proposals do not go far enough and hinder the administration's pursuit of foreign policy objectives.
Washington Post and Associated Press dispatches supplement this report.
U.S. sales to Cuba hits bump
Published Saturday, July 1, 2000, in the Miami Herald
WASHINGTON -- (AP) -- Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott says he will try to block an agreement by House Republicans to allow U.S. food sales to Cuba.
Farm-state lawmakers had hoped to attach the legislation to a military spending bill that Congress completed Friday, but the Senate wouldn't agree to it. Lott, R-Miss., criticized the House agreement and the more liberal legislation approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
``I oppose both and if I can find a way to kill them, I will,'' Lott said.
The legislation is ``not just about Cuba,'' but also about getting food and medicine to Libya, Iran, and other countries ``that are tyrannical, do horrible things to their people, and in some cases are even a threat to world peace,'' he said.
In addition to liberalizing trade with Cuba, both the House agreement and the Senate bill would prevent a president from blocking shipments of food and medicine to any country without congressional approval.
OTHER COUNTRIES
The Clinton administration decided a year ago to allow sales of food and medicine to Iran, Libya and Sudan but was barred by law from easing the embargo on Cuba.
Direct sales of medicine to Cuba have been allowed since 1992 under restrictions similar to those that would be imposed on food shipments under the House agreement: Cuba must pay cash for the goods or else obtain credit from a third country.
Cuba buys about $2 million worth of U.S. medicine and medical products annually, according to the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a business-funded group that monitors Cuban affairs.
FARM APPROVAL
Farm and business groups have endorsed the House agreement, but Democrats who oppose the Cuban embargo say the deal did not go far enough. In addition to putting tight financial restrictions on the food sales, it would write into law an existing ban on U.S. tourism in Cuba.
``It is virtually impossible for Cubans to pay cash for anything at this point. They are going to be denied the same tools for purchase that every other country is allowed,'' said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.
``With poor countries in particular, that means there will be no real assistance provided.''
The House legislation was a compromise between farm-state lawmakers, led by Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., and anti-Castro members of the Florida delegation.
Ex-U.S. official to lead pro-embargo drive
By Juan O. Tamayo. jtamayo@herald.com. Published Friday, June 30, 2000, in the Miami Herald
One day after the return of Elián González to Cuba, the top Cuban-American political lobbying group announced Thursday that it is hiring a senior State Department expert on Cuba to spearhead a nationwide campaign to combat efforts to ease the U.S. embargo.
In naming Dennis Hays, 47, to the post of executive vice president, the Cuban American National Foundation signaled that it is moving quickly to try to counter what many analysts say is the most severe challenge to American policy toward Cuba in decades.
In addition to the U.S. government's backing of Elián's return to Cuba, Republicans in the House of Representatives earlier this week agreed to support the lifting of the 40-year prohibition on sales of food and medicine to the island. Throughout the Elián saga, many Cuban
Americans have argued that U.S. politicians and voters don't understand or know about human rights abuses that occur under the government of Fidel Castro.
Hays will ``play a key role in . . . getting the truth out to the American people about Fidel Castro and current U.S. policy, said Jorge Mas, chairman of CANF.
Hays, who will be the highest ranking non-Cuban working for CANF, retired Monday from the State Deparment where he most recently served as ambassador to Suriname. But he is best known for resigning as head of the State Department's Cuban Affairs Office in 1995 to protest a U.S.-Cuba accord that
for the first time returned home Cuban rafters intercepted at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard.
Hays will be in charge of the foundation's Washington office. The foundation also will expand its Washington presence from three to as many as eight staffers, Hays said.
Hays said the foundation's campaign would entail ``very proactive and aggressive efforts to meet with political leaders and newspaper editorial boards across the United States, plus five TV spots on Castro's wrongdoings.
One spot focuses on Castro's harboring of 77 fugitives from U.S. justice, including financier Robert Vesco and Afro-American activist Joanne Chesimard, convicted in the 1973 killing of a New Jersey state trooper.
It will be first shown in the district of Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., who is leading the House side of the campaign to lift most restrictions on U.S. food and medical sales to Cuba, Hays said.
Mas told a news conference in Washington that Hays' vast foreign policy experience ``will be invaluable as we continue to forge ahead in an era where American values . . . have often taken a back seat to economic schemes.
Asked how much the overall campaign would cost, Hays said CANF's membership had made ``commitments for what it takes.
Hays said part of the campaign will also be aimed at countering the negative image of Cuban exiles as right-wing radicals and ungrateful immigrants who defied U.S. laws over the Elián González case.
``That's a concern, image, Hays said. ``It's clear from news stories that there's a lot of bad information and misinformation that is in the public domain. Something needs to be done to correct that.
``It's important to focus on the facts, and the facts are that Cuba is a failed society and that people are suffering from the regime's policies, he added in a telephone interview from Washington.
Hays and his deputy at the Cuban Affairs Office, Nancy Mason, asked for transfers to other posts in 1995 after Undersecretary of State Peter Tarnoff secretly negotiated a migration deal with Cuban officials.
The deal required U.S. authorities to return to Cuba any rafter interdicted at sea, while Havana promised not to punish the returnees. Until then, all Cubans found on the high seas had been accepted by the United States as refugees from Castro's communist government.
``In that job I would have been responsible for enforcing a policy that I felt was not appropriate or justified, Hays said Thursday.
Hays, a California native who graduated from the University of Florida, spent 26 years in the State Department, including assignments in Jamaica, Burundi and Guyana.
Elian
By Frank Davies. fdavies@herald.com . Published Sunday, July 2, 2000, in the Miami Herald
WASHINGTON -- At a recent party, Elián González giggled as he adjusted his balloon hat, knelt on the floor and pieced together a small wooden airplane, rode a giant toy llama and sang along with the Spanish-language video of Lion King II.
At Rosedale, his temporary Washington home before leaving for Cuba on Wednesday, Elián and his classmates studied and played where George Washington and John Adams held meetings and Aaron Burr fled after he mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
There, in one of Washington's oldest buildings, Elián's daily routine was to join four classmates for studies in the morning and water-gun battles in the afternoon.
The Cleveland Park neighbor who threw the party for the Cuban entourage two weeks ago noticed that at first Elián did not smile as much as the other Cuban children. Then he opened his mouth and she saw why.
``There was this big gap -- two missing front teeth. He was pretty self-conscious about it,'' recalled Judy Kopff.
Elián was a bit shy at first, she said Saturday, looking through photos she took of the party for about 20 children, 50 adults and several U.S. marshals who provided security.
But she knew how to draw him out.
``I was told he loved Oreos, and that did the trick,'' she said.
Until his departure, little has been known about Elián's life in the historic home in an affluent, tree-shaded neighborhood just up the street from the National Cathedral.
There were outings to the National Zoo, but no public appearances for the young shipwreck survivor.
Life at the Rosedale Estate revolved around class, board games, TV and the adults' trips to the Giant Food a block away.
Sally Cowal, president of Youth for Understanding, the student-exchange organization that operates the property, said the group added two things for the 14 Cubans who stayed in the guest house -- a jungle gym and satellite dish on the pre-Revolutionary War structure.
``The night before everyone arrived, Juan Miguel asked me to tell the children what I had told him -- to be careful in the house, because it's old,'' Cowal said. ``They were fine. Outside, they played like normal kids. Inside, they were careful.''
That was a concern for Judy Kopff when she and husband Gary took up the suggestion of a neighborhood group and decided to invite the entourage over for a barbecue. The Kopffs' large collection of life-size toy animals are irresistible, but some are fragile.
The Kopffs were visited by the marshals and Cuban officials from the Interests Section, who were enamored of a menagerie of huge toy animals, from a porcelain-faced llama named Dolly, to brass monkeys and peacocks, stuffed bears, two eight-foot giraffes and a seven-foot ostrich.
``It developed into this huge party, and the kids just had a ball,'' said Judy Kopff, who is adept at making balloon creations. Each child received balloons, a small pump, party favors and a toy gold medal to wear around the neck.
``Elián was extremely well-behaved and patient,'' said Kopff, who operates a financial strategy firm with her husband.
For the kids, a high point of the party was watching DVD Disney movies in Spanish -- Mulan, Lion King II, Lady and the Tramp and Jungle Book.
``Watching them sing the words to the songs was heart-warming,'' wrote Kopff in a description of the party she contributed to a neighborhood e-mail group, after Elián and his family left Wednesday.
``We didn't discuss any of the political or legal issues about Elián or Cuba,'' she said. ``This was just a play day.''
Although Rosedale occupies a prime 6.5-acre chunk of D.C. real estate, the house is relatively modest, with low ceilings, narrow halls, simple furniture and six small bedrooms upstairs for 14 people.
``It sure isn't glamorous -- it's a step above a student hostel,'' Cowal said. ``But the adults said they liked it more than Wye.''
When Elián was reunited with his father after the April 22 raid that took him from his Miami relatives, the family spent a month at a private home in the Wye Plantation, a beautiful but isolated spot on Maryland's Eastern Shore.
At Rosedale on Wednesday, the Cuban families packed their possessions-- including the high-powered water guns, Cowal believes -- while they waited for word from the Supreme Court.
When the decision came, Cowal, who speaks Spanish, translated from the TV news.
``There was real joy, hugs, relief,'' Cowal said.
The house they left figured in another custody dispute.
In the 19th Century, the granddaughter of the builder married the Mexican ambassador and lived at Rosedale.
They allowed the Mexican emperor Maximillian to adopt their son -- and later tried to get him back, prompting a lengthy court fight in two countries eventually mediated by Secretary of State William Seward.
``So Elián was not the first child staying here who was the subject of an international custody dispute,'' Cowal said.
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