By Vanessa Bauzá and William E. Gibson. Staff
Writers. Posted June 28 2001. Sun-Sentinel
Havana · A year ago today, Juan Miguel González scooped up his
son Elián, boarded a Learjet and flew home, leaving behind a trail of
failed legal appeals and a dejected exile community.
And while most people in Cuba and the United States were happy his
seven-month saga had finally come to an end, Elián González
continues to affect the political landscape of both countries.
In Cuba, the "battle for Elián" has led to an ideological
campaign to reaffirm revolutionary fervor, especially among the island's youth.
A year later, Fidel Castro's government has learned to use anti-American news
events beyond Elián as a rallying cry for national pride.
In Washington, the powerful Cuban-American lobby, which suffered a political
blow after Elián, has rebounded thanks in large part to President George
W. Bush's razor-thin victory in Florida. Cuban-American leaders have tried to
temper their rhetoric and have maintained some support in Washington.
Once an anonymous waiter at an Italian restaurant, Juan Miguel González
has adopted a more public role in the past year, standing in the front row at
many political rallies and sometimes even at Castro's side.
He is cheerful and pleasant when approached by the curious at the
restaurant.
"I'm back at work, Elián is back at school, everything is
normal," he said recently, before ducking into a meeting. Earlier this
month, his wife gave birth to a son, whom the couple named Lianny, combining the
names of Elián and Hianny, the couple's middle son.
González said Elián is excelling in his schoolwork, will enter
the third grade in the fall and had earned a purple belt in karate.
A plainclothes state security official hovered nearby as González
spoke, a reminder that all has not returned to normal. At the home of Elián's
maternal grandparents, another security officer turns away foreign media.
And when Elián and his grandfather, accompanied by two government
officials, recently pulled up in the back seat of a white Soviet Lada, the
driver noticed the foreign press and sped away, tires squealing.
The Cuban government says it wants to protect Elián and his family
from being hounded by the press or visitors. It has largely succeeded, watching
over the family's movements without giving truth to many exiles' predictions
that Elián, now 7, would be paraded around at Cuban rallies.
In one year, Elián has appeared at only a few events, most notably
his birthday party with Castro and his visit with his father to the Bay of Pigs
anniversary celebration at Playa Giron.
Rallying Cause
Yet as much as the boy is shielded from the public eye, his story has been
kept alive by Cuban officials who want to rally the populace around Castro's
revolution. Rarely a week goes by when the daily government-run newspapers do
not remind the people of their "victory" in bringing Elián
home.
The struggle for Elián gave rise to almost weekly rallies -- there
have been more than 75 so far -- with the government busing in thousands of
workers and students.
And Castro has recently spearheaded another campaign, urging the people to
fight for the release of five Cuban spies recently convicted in a Miami federal
court. The Cuban government has maintained that the men are "innocent
patriots" who infiltrated Miami exile groups in an attempt to protect their
homeland from terrorist attacks.
In Cuba, the Elián saga also gave rise to the "Battle of Ideas,"
an ideological campaign aimed at renewing revolutionary fervor.
Mostly, it seems a battle to win the hearts and minds of Cuba's youth, which
is critical considering 70 percent of Cuba's population was born after the 1959
revolution.
"Those who were born 20 years ago have never lived a historic moment.
They were not born when the revolution triumphed, they weren't born during the
Bay of Pigs or the Cuban Missile Crisis," said Dagoberto Rodriguez Barrera,
director of the North American division of Cuba's Foreign Ministry. "They
were able to live the tension and pain of Elián. They learned that the
historic difficulties between our countries are not just pages in a book."
Young Cubans, others say, have been disinterested not because they lack
connections to history, but because of economics.
With little money for a night on the town, many Cubans tune in on Saturday
night to the government-run TV station that airs back-to-back American movies.
The island's dual economy has made it impossible for most people to survive on
their state salaries alone, and many young professionals have left their chosen
careers to work in higher-paying jobs as waiters or taxi drivers. Some have
dropped out of the official economy altogether, finding it more profitable to
invent a living on the black market.
Several leading dissidents on the island believe the ideological battles
that have followed in the wake of Elián are too "superficial"
to affect people's perceptions of the United States.
Lack of unity
"The ideological work the Union of Young Communists does and its
intensification during the `Battle of Ideas' gives the appearance of a political
unity that isn't there," said independent journalist Raúl Rivero. "The
people, and especially the youth, are fascinated by American culture."
In Miami, Cuban-American leaders have also tried to rally the youth around
their cause.
During the height of the Elián González case, Cuban-American
groups like New Generation Cuba, or Nueva Generación Cuba, showed up on
the scene. New Generation touted itself as offering a fresh, anti-Castro
perspective and putting a new face on the Cuban-American community.
"The focus of the group from day one was to say, `Look, we're not the
intransigent people," said Fred Valdes, a founding member of the group. "We
can't preach to the choir anymore."
The group started an hourlong English-language radio show five days a week,
which has since fizzled to one day a week.
On the rebound
In Washington, the powerful Cuban-American lobby, battered by a loss of
prestige and political clout, has recovered in large measure because of the
election of President Bush, Washington analysts say.
The Elián case revealed both the adamant stance of the Cuban-American
leadership and also, according to opinion polls, widespread ambivalence by other
Americans about the U.S. embargo of Cuba. In the wake of the case, the
Cuban-American lobby was nearly overwhelmed by a rush last year to ease the
embargo.
Prodded by farmers and pharmaceutical interests, clear majorities in the
House and Senate favored sales of food and medicine to the island, and some
limits on sales were removed. But the Cuban-American lobby retained the loyal
support of House Republican leaders, who fended off more sweeping changes to the
embargo.
The wounded but still potent Cuban-American lobby threw its support behind
Bush's re-election, a crucial factor in the president's slim victory in Florida.
Bush's election gave the lobby a powerful ally in the White House. The president
has appointed Cuban-Americans to prominent positions, and he has reaffirmed his
support for the embargo.
The Cuban American National Foundation reorganized itself, altering its
message to aim for broader appeal.
The foundation named former State Department diplomat Dennis Hays to be its
Washington director and established a new capital office, dubbed an "embassy."
"It's not an accident that they chose for that senior Washington
position someone who is not Cuban-American and has a different style and pattern
of interaction with the public," said Richard Nuccio, a former adviser on
Cuba to President Bill Clinton.
The new image, Nuccio said, is more appealing to "Mom and Pop Six-pack
in Illinois, who couldn't make sense of these people. ... But in some ways, [the
foundation] can never make a complete comeback. Its aura of invincibility was
shattered by the Elián González case. Some members of Congress
felt free to speak out when the Elián case was going on, and they don't
seem to have retreated from that vocal opposition."
Staff Writer Madeline Baró Diaz contributed to this report.
Vanessa Bauzá can be reached at vmbauza1@yahoo.com. William E.
Gibson can be reached at wgibson@sun-sentinel.com.
Copyright 2001, Sun-Sentinel Co. & South Florida
Interactive, Inc. | 
