By Angus MacSwan
MIAMI, Jan 6 (Reuters) - For hardline Cuban exiles in Miami, the custody dispute over the Cuban youngster Elian Gonzalez is the latest clash in a four-decade war against Cuba's Communist leader Fidel Castro.
So far the struggle has been fruitless.
In the years since Cuba's 1959 revolution brought Castro to power and forced thousands of Cubans to flee to their homeland, the war has moved from such dramatic and bloody confrontations as the doomed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 to today's efforts to slow traffic in Miami.
``This isn't a losing battle -- it's a lost battle,'' said Geoff Thale, senior associate at the Washington Office on Latin America think tank.
But from the moment Elian Gonzalez was brought ashore, a tiny survivor of a disastrous migrant-smuggling voyage in which his mother and 10 others were drowned, he was adopted by anti-Castro Cubans in Miami as a symbol of their cause.
A U.S. decision on Wednesday that the boy should return to his father in Cuba angered and dismayed many Miami Cubans, who staged protests in the city's downtown on Thursday to force a reversal of the ruling.
Their actions also indicated frustration at their inability to change the situation in Cuba over 41 years, analysts said.
``I think this is definitely about Castro,'' said Lisandro Perez, director of the Florida International University's Cuban Research Institute.
The CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion, commando raids and assassination plots, a U.S. economic embargo and the fall of Communism elsewhere have all failed to budge Castro, now 73 years old and still hailing the benefits of socialism for his impoverished island.
U.S. public and business opinion is growing that the embargo is a counter-productive policy that only hurts ordinary Cubans. Washington, while keeping the embargo largely intact, says its policy is now geared to preparing Cuba for a transition rather than trying to on topple Castro.
``Essentially we're in a waiting game, waiting for Castro to go. The object (of the exiles) now is to score points, so the way this episode played out is not surprising,'' Perez said.
The hardline exiles were shooting themselves in the foot with their actions, said Max Castro, a Cuba expert at the University of Miami's North South Centre. They were alienating fellow Miamians and challenging their only ally, the U.S. government.
``What problem is it for Fidel Castro if traffic in Miami is stopped? All this strengthens his hand. He must be looking at all this with amusement.''
The Elian decision also heightened the hardline exiles' deep conviction that over the years they have been betrayed, Max Castro said. That belief dates back to the Bay of Pigs and the widely held view in Miami that President John Kennedy's failure to send in air support sealed the fate of the
exile army.
``There are people who are using this (Elian case) cynically but there's genuine pain and anguish on the side. That's been exacerbated,'' added Max Castro, who is not related to the Cuban leader.
He theorised that Cuban Americans have been a success as an immigrant community but not as an exile community.
The successive waves who have reached Miami, from the first refugees, many from the privileged classes, to later arrivals who, like Elian's mother, risked perilous voyages across the Florida Straits, have turned Miami into a Cuban-dominated city.
The business elite is Cuban, the city and county mayor are Cuban and Spanish is spoken as widely as English. And for many, Castro is a daily topic of conversation.
Hardline exiles over the years have dominated U.S. policies toward Cuba, at times resorting to violence against those who advocated contact with Havana. For visiting national politicians, support for the embargo and denunciations of Castro were obligatory.
``U.S. policy that was created in the Cold War has been kept in place because of right-wing Cuban Americans and American politicians,'' said WOLA'S Thale.
``But I think the truth is that the Cuban American community is changing. It is no longer monolithic and the hardliners don't reflect the breadth of views,'' he added.
Incidents such as the near-riot outside a ground-breaking concert by Los Van Van, the popular Cuban dance band, in October 1999 only reinforced the view of the hardliner as an intolerant and obsessed minority.
They lost a powerful and charismatic leader with the death in 1997 of Jorge Mas Canosa, founder of the Cuban American National Foundation and an influential figure in Washington.
No leader has emerged to take his place, although one aspirant, Ramon Saul Sanchez, was leading Thursday's protests.
The problem is, Perez said, ``He's not in Cuba.''
16:06 01-06-00
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