Wall Street Journal. Editorial. January 25, 2000
Say this for Fidel: the man knows spin. After weeks of holding mass demonstrations intended to embarrass the United States into sending six-year-old Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba, the bearded one dispatched the boy's more camera-friendly grandmothers to America to make the case for him. And make
that case they did, in a meeting with Janet Reno, at a prayer service at New York's Riverside Church and in an appearance on NBC's "Today" show.
We wonder: Has anyone else noticed that the grandmothers and their handlers did not even try to visit Elian in Miami last on their list, in what now looks to be a calculated (and internationally televised public) snub? Where would you go first if you were free to decide?
Make no mistake, that noise you hear in the background is the grinding of political axes. The same people who screech so loudly about Elian's fate having been "politicized" are the folks who cheer the INS decision to take this case from a Florida family court. In the case of the
National Council of Churches, the grandmothers' sponsors, they are the folks with a long-established soft spot for Fidel's Cuba. And they are the folks who oppose any U.S. pressure on Fidel to allow Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, to come with his new family to America, where we might hear
what he really thinks without the proverbial gun pointed to his head.
Unfortunately they also have the backing of the Clinton Administration. On Saturday, for example, Attorney General Janet Reno issued a statement of support saying that the rights of parents are a "cornerstone" of U.S. law. This echoed INS chief Doris Meissner, who called for the public
to "respect and uphold the bond between parent and child." Such touching concern for parental rights would be far more persuasive had this same Administration not sat on its hands in cases involving American mothers who have American custody papers over their American-born children, but
whose American children have been illegally kept from them by relatives living overseas.
Ask Pat Roush. Miss Roush's two daughters, Alia and Aisha, were taken out of the country in 1986 by her Saudi ex-husband when they were, respectively, seven and three years old. They have been in Saudi Arabia ever since. Though equipped with U.S. and Interpol warrants for her ex-husband's
arrest, and despite a California court grant of custody, Ms. Roush says she has had no real help from the State Department, which appears to take the line that none of this violates Saudi law.
Miriam Hernandez was luckier. Her 13-year-old daughter, Yasmeen, escaped. Also held in Saudi Arabia against her will, from June 1997 to April 1999, Yasmeen says her father abused her, calling her "a bitch just like your mother" and beating her when she said she was a Christian. Though
Miss Hernandez even taped a desperate call from Yasmeen imploring her mother "to get me out of here they are going to kill me," both she and her daughter were told by the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh not to have Yasmeen come there for help.
And what of the National Council of Churches, sponsor of the grandmothers' much-hyped visit? At a largely ignored press conference in Miami on Friday, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R., Fla.) mentioned the case of Jose Cohen, an escapee from Cuba whose wife and three children remain behind even
though they have been granted U.S. visas; they remain only because Fidel will not let them leave. In December Mr. Cohen faxed the NCC for help. Surely we can expect as big a campaign from the NCC for Mr. Cohen's family as it has mustered for Mr. Gonzalez's family. And on the phone Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen
reminded us about the once-famous case of Rafael del Pinto, a well-known Cuban general who defected in 1987 with his son from a previous marriage. Though his ex also denounced him and called for the return of her son, ultimately she escaped to the U.S. as well, where she promptly declared that all
her previous talk about "kidnapping" was the kind of thing she had to say.
No one doubts that Elian's father and grandmothers love him dearly. And we're all for seeing the law enforced. But we'd feel much better if, in determining where these rights begin and end, we could be sure the family members whose opinions are cited can really speak freely -- and that the laws
that we enforce are American, not Saudi or Cuban. |