By Orestes Lorenzo. The New York Times. February 5, 2000
ORLANDO, Fla. -- The Clinton administration has made up its mind about Elián González. It intends to send the boy back to Cuba, depriving him of the freedom he would find in America. I understand that this is not in bad faith: just like millions of well-meaning Americans, the
government insists that this is a simple child custody case.
But I know that when it comes to Cuba, family matters are never that simple. I was a fighter pilot in the Cuban military until 1991, when I flew to Florida in my MIG-23. Although my wife and two children had visas to join me in America, the Castro regime wouldn't let them leave. The next year, I
was able to fly back to the island covertly in a private plane and rescue them.
A friend said to me recently that, as someone who had endured separation from my children, I should support returning Elián to his father. "You are mistaken," I responded. "I left my family to make a path toward freedom for them."
In fact, during that period of separation, I offered to turn myself in to the Cuban government in exchange for allowing my family to leave Cuba. In other words, it is more important to me that my children grow up in freedom than that they grow up with me. It is more important than even my own
life.
And although Elián's father claims that his son belongs to him, I believe that children are not possessions -- they belong only to themselves, with liberty as an inalienable right. To return this child to Cuba would be to deny him his right to freedom. Those who, with good intentions,
support his return to Cuba should know what it means to be brought up there.
If sent back, Elián, like the rest of the children in the island, will be forced to repeat daily that he "will be like Ché." He will be taught to hate those who disagree with Communism and to adore a dictator. He will be forced to participate in demonstrations of
intimidation organized by the regime --after a while, I wouldn't be surprised to see Elián appear at an official function to denounce the "Miami mafia."
The government will decide for him what books he can read and what movies he can watch. The independent media will be prohibited to him forever.
If he is lucky, perhaps some day Elián will get a job with a foreign corporation. But his paycheck, of course, will go to the government, not to him. Or, if Elián decides to be a writer when he grows up, he will have to submit his works to the government for approval. If he decides
to be a journalist, he will be forced to turn his back on the truths that surround him.
If he has the talent of an artist, he will have to suppress it or compromise it to fit in with the official ideology. In Cuba, Elián will never be able to write, paint, compose or create with the untamable inspiration that ends in art. If Elián wants to express what he feels, if
someday he says he disagrees with the way the country is governed, if someday he focuses on prohibited subjects, if someday he writes a poem about those whose are rotting in prison because they dared to speak their minds, Elián will suffer that same fate of a dark cell or he will escape from
Cuba to live in the liberty that may be denied him today.
Attorney General Janet Reno favors returning him to live with his father based on "the bond with his father." But she forgets that such a bond is subject to our society's moral principles. Do we accept such an argument, for example, when the parent is a criminal in prison? Of course
not.
We recognize the relationship between children and their parents as a bond of love, founded in decency and liberty. Millions of Americans have separated themselves from their children and have died fighting for those bonds. Thousands of American soldiers are today far from their children
defending the same.
I fear that Elián's future is now being decided less by reason and a sense of justice than by bureaucracy and the diatribes of a dictator. I can only hope that in the end, the law that will prevail is the one that recognizes the supreme right of liberty for all.
Orestes Lorenzo, a day trader, is the author of a memoir, "Wings of the Morning." |