Jose Garcia-Pedrosa. Published Thursday, January 6, 2000, in the Miami Herald
The custody of Elian Gonzalez ought to be decided by a single standard: the best interests of the boy. A fair and thoughtful application of that standard would not result in his being returned to Cuba. Political considerations, including Fidel Castro's threat of another wave of rafters, should
not govern the decision.
The beginning of a new year (and to some, a new millennium) is a fitting time to remember, renew and apply some of the values that have made the United States, a nation of immigrants, the greatest country in the world: compassion, respect for the rule of law, courage and goodwill.
Those of us who have been attempting to assist Elian to stay in the United States repeatedly have asserted that this case ought to be dealt with as a custody dispute in state courts. That was the federal government's original position. But in early December the State Department issued a press
release, reversing the government's view of the case and asserting that it is a federal immigration matter, to be dealt with within the Kafkaesque world of Immigration and Naturalization Service policies and procedures, subject to political considerations which have nothing to do with the boy's
welfare. That policy change was announced, suspiciously, shortly before the expiration of a 72-hour deadline that Castro set for Elian's return to Cuba.
In Cuba, the one primarily responsible for a child's upbringing is not the parent but the state (as set forth in Article 33 of Cuba's communist constitution). Elian will receive not an education but a shamelessly propagandistic indoctrination. He will be required to spend 45 days a year in the
countryside, with thousands of his peers, cutting sugar cane and learning how to be a good revolutionary. He will be made a ``young pioneer'' and forced to leave school and march on the streets of Havana any time that Castro decides to threaten the United States over whatever incident he thinks mars
his or the Cuban government's image. And Elian's return will be held up as an example of Castro's victory over the United States. The boy will become a symbol of the Cuban revolution.
Consider the plight of this 6-year-old boy, who has survived the horror of watching his mother, stepfather and other relatives drown at sea, who drifted aimlessly in shark-infested waters and who arrived on our shores on Thanksgiving Day.
If he is taken from the loving care of his great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez and his Miami family and returned to Cuba, Elian will be told by his teachers and classmates that his mother was a traitor to the revolution. In Cuba's rigidly ideological, old-line totalitarian system, Elian will be made to
denounce his mother and to repudiate her desperate to attempt to give him an opportunity to be free and to have a future.
Elian's every move, at least initially, will be carefully orchestrated and internationally publicized, as Castro attempts to divert attention from his bankrupt and repressive system by playing the role of benevolent shepherd, welcoming a lost sheep back into the herd.
What a macabre reprieve that is for the head of one of the longest tyrannies in history and a man whose hands are filled with blood. As late as this past November, during the Ibero-American Summit in Havana, Castro was condemned for refusing to respect basic human rights and for incarcerating
those who dare exercise those rights in defiance of official orthodoxy and repression.
What is in the boy's best interests? The answer was provided by Elian's mother, who gave her life, having chosen freedom and opportunity for her son. For her to have died in vain, beyond causing further harm to this innocent boy, would weaken the moral fiber of this great country.
In the end -- regardless how one views the matter -- the case for Elian speaks forcefully for the fundamental values that distinguish the United States from Cuba. For our sake, as well as his, Elian should stay.
Jose Garcia-Pedrosa is one of the volunteer attorneys representing Elian Gonzalez's family in Miami.
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