Published Thursday, January 13, 2000, in the Miami Herald
One brief remark on 'return' ignites a passionate debate
By Martin Merzer And Alfonso Chardy, mmerzer@herald.com
Four seconds of videotape -- and what a 6-year-old boy said during those four seconds -- ignited a new controversy Wednesday and elevated the heated emotions already surrounding Elian Gonzalez, a child whose every move and utterance is now analyzed.
The tape, shot by WPLG-Channel 10, showed a mischievous, playful Elian gazing up at a passing jetliner and saying . . . well, that's where the controversy begins.
Channel 10 reported that he said: ``Yo quiero que tu me regreses pa' Cuba.'' I want you to take me back to Cuba. That tape and interpretation were broadcast Tuesday night and then rebroadcast Wednesday around the world.
But many others, including a court-certified interpreter hired by The Herald, thought Elian said: ``Yo quiero que no me regresen pa' Cuba.'' I want that they not take me back to Cuba.
``It's very clear,'' said Anthony Rivas, who has been certified to interpret in federal court since since 1984. ``He's saying, `I won't be returned to Cuba.' ''
Nevertheless, thousands of South Floridians gathered around television sets, cupped their ears, concentrated very closely and still couldn't agree on what they heard. Among other things, the boy's words were partially obscured by the sound of the passing plane.
Controversy raged throughout the day -- with demonstrators gathering outside Channel 10's studio and passersby hurling insults at Channel 10 crews at Elian's relatives' home in Little Havana -- more evidence of the volatile atmosphere that surrounds this case.
At one point Wednesday night, a man identifying himself as Gerardo Barrios Sr. nailed a wooden sign to a telephone pole next to the house. It said: ``We don't want Channel 10 here.''
The two main issues:
What did Elian say Tuesday night outside that house?
Regardless of the answer, what significance -- if any -- should be invested in Elian's words, considering his age and his growing awareness that he holds the spotlight of attention?
``This is a 6-year-old kid who's living a storybook existence,'' said Leonard Haber, a Miami clinical psychologist who frequently works with children. ``It's unnatural, unreal, unlike anything he or anyone else ever experienced.
``It doesn't really matter if he says `Take me' or `Don't take me' because he's not capable of understanding what's going on. It's like he fell out of a fable.''
Controversy No. 1: What did Elian say?
INTERPRETER'S VIEW
At the request of The Herald, Rivas, who served on the examining committee for court-certified federal interpreters, repeatedly viewed and listened to the tape at Channel 10's studios, where it was played on sophisticated equipment and, at times, slowed down.
His conclusion: ``Yo quiero que no me regresen pa' Cuba.'' I want that they not take me back to Cuba.
Several Herald reporters and editors, fluent in Spanish, viewed a different copy of the tape at The Herald. All agreed with Rivas.
At the same time, most at Channel 10 insisted that they heard Elian asking to return to Cuba, though some disagreed. During the 6 p.m. newscast, General Manager John Garwood read an unusual, on-air statement.
``We carefully consulted trusted associates as to the accuracy of what was said before airing that story last night . . . '' he said. ``Even now, due to the quality of the audio, there remains confusion, controversy and differences of opinion on precisely what was said or what Elian really
meant.''
No such uncertainly existed among Elian's relatives.
``What he said on the tape is, `I don't want to be sent back to Cuba,' '' said Lazaro Gonzalez, Elian's great-uncle.
SOME CONFUSION
But some confusion reigned at the scene Tuesday night. After Elian said whatever he said, some bystanders cheered their approval. Others could be heard yelling, ``No, No, No.''
Neither the grammar of the statement nor the position of the camera nor the context of the situation helped very much.
Many may have been confused by the sentence's structure. As a child often does, Elian started the sentence with a positive construction -- ``I want . . . '' -- as if he were going to say he wanted to be returned. But then he apparently slipped a muddled ``not'' into the middle of the sentence.
In addition, Elian faced away from the camera, so it was not possible to watch his lips.
And as he made the statement, he and a young playmate twirled in glee, arms raised to the sky, a situation that suggested he was simply fooling around, acting like . . . a kid.
Which leads to controversy No. 2:
What difference could his statement make? The boy is only 6, he recently survived a harrowing ocean voyage that killed his mother, and his world has been turned inside out.
'A SYMBOL'
``He's not just a hero, but he's adored,'' Haber said. ``He's a symbol of freedom and democracy in Miami and in America. And he's a symbol of Cuba.''
Joni Goodman, director of Miami-Dade County's Guardian Ad Litem program, which represents children in court proceedings, said she did not know the details of Elian's case. But she is familiar with the behavior of children his age -- and their spoken wishes are not always consistent with their
best interests.
``A 6-year-old falls into the category of a child who doesn't have the same kind of clear judgment that an older, more mature child would have,'' she said. ``But I would never say that you should disregard what the child wants.''
At the same time, Haber and many others -- experts and laymen -- wondered about the damage being inflicted on Elian by the constant attention now being paid to him.
``It's like a drug,'' Haber said. ``You can be addicted to it, and when it goes away, you can crash.
``This is a great story and it's a tragedy, all rolled into one.''
Herald staff writer Jasmine Kripalani and Herald translator Renato Perez contributed to this report.
Returning Cubans buck the trend
JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@herald.com
Five weeks after he was arrested in an alleged plot to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro, Francisco Cordova's 30-foot lobster boat was stolen from its dock in Marathon. Two weeks later, the boat turned up in Cuba.
Cordova, who was cleared of the plot accusation in a trial in Puerto Rico, doesn't blame Castro for the loss of his boat. He chalks it up to a little-known phenomenon -- Cubans in South Florida who take boats to the island illegally.
Some simply grow disenchanted with a U.S. lifestyle that once seemed alluring. Some are running from the police. Some want to visit relatives in Cuba. A few later return to Florida.
Elian Gonzalez's late stepfather, Lazaro Munero, was one of the South Florida residents who sneaked back to Cuba. So was one of the six migrants roughly handled by the Coast Guard off Surfside last summer.
FLEEING CHARGES
Cordova says the man who stole his boat was apparently fleeing charges of passing counterfeit money.
It's unclear how many people sail boats to Cuba. The Cuban government briefly jails most of them.
U.S. Coast Guard and Florida Marine Patrol officials know the phenomenon well.
``We get people going back and forth to Cuba all the time, said Florida Marine Patrol Capt. Bob Donnelly. ``They come here but can't fit in or have some problem, so they go back for a while and sometimes even return again later. A Coast Guard official said: ``There is significant anecdotal
evidence of a small but regular number of folks who go back because they can't adjust here.
HIJACKINGS
In the 1960s and 1970s, disgruntled Cubans living in the United States hijacked many jetliners to Havana. But with increased airline security and stiff jail terms awaiting them in Cuba, boats are now the preferred means of returning. Most of the returnees appear to be young fishermen from Cuba's
northern coast, men whose sea experience and access to boats on the island make it easy for them to make the illegal 90-mile trip from Cuba to Florida.
But once in Florida they learn that they lack the education and language skills needed to find good jobs, and that making a living as commercial fishermen here is not as easy as it was in Cuba.
``We have a lot of regulations here, Donnelly said. ``You have to have a license, and you have to have experience before you earn a license, so it's tough to get started.
``They get into trouble here and suddenly we hear they're back in Cuba, said Donnelly, adding that he has heard of four or five such cases in the Marathon area over the past year.
Lazaro Rafael Munero was another who crossed the Florida Straits both ways. Munero was the stepfather of Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old Cuban boy at the center of an international custody dispute.
Munero arrived in Florida in 1998, aboard a 12-foot boat. But he missed his wife, Elizabet Brotons Rodriguez, and her son Elian, so he returned to Cuba last October aboard a motorized inflatable raft.
PRISON TERM
He spent 62 days in a Cuban prison, but then loaded his family and 11 other people on a small aluminum boat and set off for Florida again. This time, the boat sank, and only Elian and two others survived.
``It is easy, if you know what you're doing, so fishermen do it all the time, said Carlos Hernandez, 29, one of the refugees involved in the incident at Surfside on June 29 last year.
In that incident, Coast Guard crews used jets of water from fire hoses and pepper spray against six Cuban migrants in a boat off Surfside beach, then tried to block them from swimming to shore and used pepper spray on one migrant who was treading water.
Hernandez, now a fisherman in Marathon, said he left Cuba in 1994 on a raft but borrowed a small boat from an uncle in Florida and returned to Cuba in 1995 to see his ailing mother.
Cuban law bans those who leave illegally from returning to the island for at least five years, and Hernandez said he spent four months in prison. But he soon began saving money for his second escape to Florida.
Hernandez said he did not try to hide when he returned to Cuba in 1995, and presented himself to the coast guard outpost in his hometown of Caibarien, a fishing town on the north-central coast.
"I had to convince them that I had come back from here, Hernandez said. ``No one would believe me.
High school debaters going to Cuba
ASHLAND, Ore. -- (AP) -- Twenty-seven Oregon teenagers headed to Cuba next week expect to disagree with their hosts. They also hope that from their discord will come understanding, empowerment, respect and genuine friendships.
Fulfilling a dream of Ashland High School debate coach John Tredway, 17 teens from Ashland High and 10 others from around Oregon plan to fly to Cuba on Tuesday with nine adult chaperons for a week of debates.
The Clinton administration adopted a policy last January promoting people-to-people contact with Cuba, while maintaining the economic embargo imposed in the early 1960s.
``Governments are too caught up in what they think their obligations are to the people they represent to actually make contact,'' said Poppy Alexander, a 17-year-old Ashland senior. ``We are not looking in terms of politics. We are looking in terms of humanity.''
The debate is ``not about competition,'' Tredway said. ``It is more about promoting peace, friendship and communication.''
To that end, the U.S. team is taking donated medical equipment and supplies, which are scarce in Cuba, and will give their counterparts T-shirts and baseball caps commemorating the visit.
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