By Norberto Santana Jr. San Diego Union Tribune. Thursday, January 13, 2000
Since a 6-year-old Cuban boy named Elian Gonzalez washed up alone on Florida shores this Thanksgiving, his fate has dominated news broadcasts and the front pages of major newspapers around the country. Every single presidential candidate and major political figure in the country have chimed in
on whether the boy should be returned to his father and grandparents in Cuba or stay with the father's family living in Miami.
From the outset, President Clinton has tried to avoid this issue, stating that politics should not dictate Elian's fate. But politics have dominated Elian's life ever since his mother, Elizabet, took him on a raft seeking freedom. Elian later joined the countless number of Cubans that have seen
their family members die while trying to cross the Florida straits in rafts. Beyond the legal complexities dictating Elian's future, what makes this issue so compelling is the overarching question of what is more important in a person's life: Freedom or family?
The propaganda war
For Cubans living on both sides of the Florida straits, suitcases and rafts have become symbols of the cruel choices that hundreds of thousands of families have been forced to make for decades. Since the early 1960s when countless young children were put alone on the "Peter Pan"
flights to the United States through the 1980s when numerous others took to rafts, the theme of family separation has become embedded within Cuban culture.
Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro immediately seized upon Elian as a symbol of the hated immigration policy of the United States that does not grant the large number of visa requests from Cubans but does accept those who cross the Florida straits illegally. While an absolute failure in the day-to-day
management of his nation's economy, Castro always has been an expert in the propaganda war.
Conversely, exiles living in Miami have become an example of successful immigration by helping to build a modern and prosperous South Florida, but failed miserably in their decade-old propaganda war against the Castro regime. Their protests that the boy should stay in the United States rather
than return to his immediate family in a Communist Cuba have been difficult for most Americans to reconcile. In a national CNN poll, 56% said the boy should be reunited with his father in Cuba, and 35% backed allowing him to stay in the United States.
A just decision?
On Jan. 5, Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner announced that the service considered parental rights in the case as paramount and that Elian would have to be returned by Jan. 14. Meissner stressed that Elian's father, Juan Gonzalez, twice interviewed by INS
officials in Cuba, convinced them of his sincerity and provided extensive proof that he and his son enjoyed a close relationship.
"The father made it very clear during both of these meetings that he wants Elian returned to him as soon as possible. Based on these meetings, INS believes that the father is expressing his true wishes," she said. "This little boy, who has been through so much, belongs with his
father."
Elian's cousin, Marisleysis Gonzalez -- who lives in Miami -- reaffirms the family's belief that the boy is better off in the United States than in a repressive Cuba.
"This is an unjust decision," she said. "I was surprised. I always thought this was a place of liberty. I told the INS officials that nobody is thinking about the child's rights and the sacrifice that his mother paid to bring him here."
Freedom loses
The age-old ideological battle between capitalism and communism has been settled by the sweep of history. But the new debate taking its place revolves around how the new community of nations will balance democracy and capitalism. Elian's case has encapsulated the debate in a way that policy
forums could never do.
On one side stands the authoritarian approach evoked by the likes of China and Cuba -- societies that demand the political control of a one-party state but are willing to consider limited economic freedom to assist their development as nations. One the other side stands the United States and
majority of the Western World -- societies that at least in principle argue that political democracy and capitalism must coexist for each one to thrive.
Many question why U.S. policy is so different in its relations with Cuba as compared to communist China or Vietnam and Cuba. But both China and Vietnam have instituted real and far-reaching economic reforms that bolster an engagement policy from the United States. Cuba has not.
Despite an international community willing to bend over backward to encourage change in Cuba, the ruling elite refuses to go beyond window dressing. In the last several years, the Pope, along with most European and Latin American countries, has extended an olive branch to Castro's government.
Through a series of investments on the island, many countries have engaged the island's government with the hopes that a political opening would follow.
Yet, frustration also is mounting in foreign capitals because the Cuban government has offered no political openings and only a few meek economic ones. Four leading dissidents continue behind bars because they dared to write a simple document insisting that the island belongs to all Cubans, not
just Fidelistas.
Last week, a traveling delegation of editorial writers from most major U.S. daily newspapers were denied a visa request to visit the island simply because they questioned the visa denied to one of their members from the Miami Herald.
The case for engagement
U.S. and international law heavily favors biological parents in custody disputes. But this is not a normal custody dispute involving citizens of Canada or Mexico. The sad fact is that nothing the Cuban government says or does can ever be taken at face value. That is the price of the one-party
state that Fidel and political elites want to maintain.
On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno brushed aside a Jan. 11 Florida state ruling that Elian should remain in the United States until a March 6 custody hearing. While Reno argued that state courts have no jurisdiction over federal immigration matters, she has left open the possibility
of hearing an appeal in federal courts.
Elian deserves some type of hearing that can assess what is in his best interests and assure that the Cuban government is not pressuring the father. U.S. officials should insist that the father come to the United States to make the case for custody. If he came to U.S. shores, presented his case
and then took his child back to Cuba freely, there could be no higher ideological victory for Cuba. But it seems as if the Cuban government cannot stand a fair debate or one it does not control because it has closely guarded access to the father from day one of the crisis.
U.S. officials should never assist the Cuban government in avoiding a debate on the value of freedom. Indeed, the most positive aspect of engaging such regimes is the constant questioning that should accompany investments.
Norberto Santana is a metro staff writer with the San Diego Union Tribune. He is also a regular commentator for IntellectualCapital.com. His e-mail address is norberto.santana@uniontrib.com. |