Yahoo! July 6, 2000
Elian's Father Honored As a Hero
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA, 6 (AP) - Praising Elian Gonzalez's father for shunning bribes to defect during his seven-month fight to bring his son back to Cuba, President Fidel Castro awarded him one of Cuba's highest civilian honors, formally making him a modern day communist hero.
Juan Miguel Gonzalez said during the ordeal that anti-communist Cuban exiles in Miami, who abhor Castro and his government, had offered him $2 million if he would stay in the United States with Elian. Gonzalez, a member of Cuba's Communist Party, said at the time he was offended by the offer.
``His conduct was filled with glory and he gained for always the admiration of his people,'' Castro said at the Wednesday night ceremony.
Gonzalez had tears in his eyes when Castro pinned on his dark suit the Carlos Manuel de Cespedes medal and compared Elian's father to Cespedes, an independence hero and the father of Cuba.
``A small boy and a humble Cuban father, whom very few people knew just a few months ago, came back converted into gigantic moral symbols of our homeland,'' Castro told the audience of 5,000, including top government and party officials.
Then, directly addressing Gonzalez, Castro said: ``You showed that in the decisive moments in the history of a country, the conduct of a man can overcome all of the traitors put together ...
``Our most important revolutionary duty is to fight to make sure that this does not happen again,'' Castro said. ``We will keep fighting. And we will conquer!''
``I owe this to all the people of Cuba,'' Gonzalez, 31, said, following a standing ovation. ``I have not done anything out of this world. I have done what any other father would have.''
Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly and Gonzalez's adviser during the fight for his son, earlier read a resolution by Cuba's ruling Council of State selecting Gonzalez for the award.
``Juan Miguel Gonzalez stoically endured the most cruel suffering of his son, of himself and of his family,'' it said. He ``resisted with his entire being the threats, the pressures and the slanders and rejected with honor the intents to bribe and of force, always maintaining his fidelity to the
nation.''
Several hours before, state television aired images of a timid but happy Elian as he rode his bicycle and tried on a pair of inline skates in his hometown, then splashed in a pool at a nearby resort.
The images, taken Tuesday afternoon during a surprise visit by Elian and his family to their hometown of Cardenas, were some of the first shown of the boy since his return to Cuba on June 28.
The video clips showed scores of residents cheering as a bus carrying the family drove down the streets of the small port city, about 90 miles east of Havana. At his school, Elian was greeted by his classmates, and a teacher leaned down to show him pictures and something written in a book.
As soft music played in the background, the 6-year-old was shown curiously rummaging through his clothes and toys at the homes of his paternal and maternal grandparents. His face lit up when he seemed to recognize toys he had not seen since November, when his mother took him with her on a boat
bound for the United States.
Elian became the subject of an international custody dispute after the boat sank, killing his mother and 10 others. The boy, then 5, was found off the coast of Florida on Thanksgiving Day, floating on an innertube.
Cuba says Elian gave a human face to its four-decade political battle with the United States, allowing many ordinary Americans their first close look at the communist nation. The case also underscored U.S. immigration policies that Cuba says encourages its residents to make illegal attempts to
reach the United States.
``With Elian, coverage has been given to an affair that habitually was a theme only for political scientists and specialists,'' Alarcon said in an interview published Wednesday in a special newspaper supplement about Elian.
For the first time, he said, many Americans heard of the Cuban Adjustment Act, a 1966 law that allows Cubans who reach U.S. soil to apply for permanent residency, even if they entered the country illegally.
Despite the televised images taken by a sole government cameraman, all other journalists have been kept away from the boy since shortly after he arrived.
Cuban officials long promised to prevent the kind of massive media coverage the child experienced during the five months he stayed with his Miami relatives while they fought all the way to the Supreme Court in a losing battle to keep him in the United States.
Cuba Airs First Images of Elian
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA, 6 (AP) - A shy, but joyful Elian Gonzalez was seen riding his bicycle in his hometown and splashing in a pool at a nearby resort as state television Wednesday night aired some of the first images of the boy since his return to Cuba a week ago.
With soft music playing in the background, the video clips chronicled part of the surprise visit Elian and his family made Tuesday afternoon to Cardenas, where the child was born and raised. On the streets of the small port city, scores of residents cheered as a bus carrying the family drove by.
The 6-year-old was shown curiously rummaging through his clothes and toys at the homes of his paternal and maternal grandparents. He looked thrilled to find a pair of inline skates, which he tried on over his bare feet and skated a bit down a hallway.
At his school, Elian was greeted by his classmates, and a teacher leaned down to show him pictures and something written in a book.
The clips were shown shortly before Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, received one of Cuba's top civilian awards for his ``heroic behavior' during his fight to bring his son Elian back to Cuba.
Gonzalez had tears in his eyes when President Fidel Castro pinned the Carlos Manuel de Cespedes medal to his dark suit after a two-hour ceremony at the Karl Marx theater, attended by about 5,000 people.
``I owe this to all the people of Cuba,'' Gonzalez said, following a standing ovation by the thousands in attendance, including top government officials and the Communist Party leadership.
``I have not done anything out of this world,'' he said. ``I have done what any other father would have.''
Directly addressing Gonzalez, Castro said: ``You showed that in the decisive moments in the history of a country, the conduct of a man can overcome all of the traitors put together, just as those who tried to cheapen your child.
``Our most important revolutionary duty is to fight to make sure that this does not happen again,'' Castro said. ``We will keep fighting. And we will conquer!''
Beforehand, Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly and Gonzalez's main government adviser during the fight for his son, read a resolution by Cuba's ruling Council of State.
``Juan Miguel Gonzalez stoically endured the most cruel suffering of his son, of himself and of his family,'' it said. ``Resisted with his entire being the threats, the pressures and the slanders and rejected with honor the intents to bribe and of force, always maintaining his fidelity to the
nation.''
The resolution compared Gonzalez to Cespedes, an important hero who fought for Cuba's independence from Spain and the father of the country.
After a string of musical and dance performances leading to the awarding of the medal, a huge portrait of Elian was lit up at the back of the stage. A military man and color guard in dress uniforms marched around the inside of the theater and up onto the stage.
The television images of Elian shown in the hours before the ceremony were the first new glimpse of the boy seen by the Cuban public since Thursday, the day after he returned. At the time, state television repeatedly showed images of Elian's airport homecoming and a brief clip of him playing
with children around his age the evening of his return.
The award is for ``extraordinary behavior in the tough battle for the liberation of Elian,'' state media reported.
Cuba says Elian gave a human face to its four-decade political battle with the United States, allowing many ordinary Americans their first close look at the nation.
``With Elian, coverage has been given to an affair that habitually was a theme only for political scientists and specialists,'' Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly, said in an interview published Wednesday in a special newspaper supplement.
``Millions of people, housewives, people with nothing to do with this, soon began to see the story of a Cuban boy as the daily top news event,'' he said of how Americans followed the case.
The supplement, titled ``Elian in the homeland,'' wrapped up events leading up to and including Elian's return on June 28.
Cuban officials long promised to prevent the kind of massive media coverage the child experienced during the five months he stayed with his Miami relatives while they fought to keep him in the United States.
The Miami family was given temporary custody of the boy after he was rescued off the Florida coast. Elian's mother and 10 others perished during a sea journey from Cuba to the United States.
Trade Deal Between Caribbean, Cuba
By EILEEN Mcnamara, Associated Press Writer.
CANOUAN, St. Vincent 5 (AP) - In a sign of warming relations with Cuba, Caribbean leaders signed an agreement Wednesday promising freer markets and closer cooperation on tourism projects with the communist island.
The pact - heralded by Fidel Castro in a written statement as part of a ``path toward higher achievement'' - also shows a growing willingness to defy the United States, which for decades fought to curb Cuba's influence in the region.
``We will keep on fighting until the (U.S.) policy of blockade, the economic warfare, the subversion, the destabilization and the slander against Cuba have ceased,'' Castro said in the statement read by Cuban External Trade Minister Ricardo Cabrisas.
The agreement with the 15-member Caribbean Community, or Caricom, was signed at a meeting of leaders in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
It comes a week after President Clinton said he is inclined to sign legislation easing the 38-year-old embargo on Cuba by allowing Havana to buy U.S. food and medicine on strict terms.
Leaders did not immediately provide copies of the agreement, but Alister McIntyre, deputy negotiator for Caricom, said it would allow smaller islands to export goods to Cuba duty-free while continuing to tax Cuban items.
The agreement also calls for countries to develop joint tourism marketing packages like one Cuba has with Jamaica. Resorts in the two countries plan to advertise a joint ``Reggae-Salsa Holiday'' travel package to Europeans.
Caribbean leaders said they see the agreement as another step in undermining the U.S. embargo and bringing the once-isolated nation into the world market.
``The U.S. has run out of excuses,'' Dominica's Prime Minister Rosie Douglas said. ``There is no argument they can make to leave Cuba out in the cold. Cuba is part of the Caribbean.''
Caribbean islands had followed the lead of the United States in shunning Cuba after Castro's 1959 revolution.
A partial reprieve came in 1972, when Caricom members Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Jamaica established diplomatic relations with Havana. But it wasn't until 1997 that other islands joined the rapprochement.
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