Published Wednesday, March 22, 2000, in the Miami Herald
The world must be clear in recognizing the villain of this piece: Fidel Castro.
The law as it is written was served yesterday in the case of Elian Gonzalez. If upheld on appeal, it must also be respected. But was this justice?
If this were justice, why might a boy be delivered by the United States government back to a father who, as loving as he may be, can promise only a future infused with such hopelessness and suffocating repression that Elian's mother jumped into the sea to escape?
That is the dilemma at the heart of the case of Elian Gonzalez. The child, his family on both sides of the Florida Straits and those who care so deeply about him in this community deserve more than this process has delivered.
DOESN'T SATISFY
Attorney General Janet Reno has determined that Juan Miguel Gonzalez, the boy's father in Cuba, is the appropriate person to represent Elian's interests. And the father has made clear, Ms. Reno said, that he wants his son back home.
Only one sentence in Judge Moore's 50-page ruling mattered: ``A judicial review of the exercise of [the attorney general's] discretion by the undersigned has found no abuse that could warrant a contrary conclusion,'' he wrote.
We may never know whether the judge agrees with the outcome. We know only that he could find no reason to interfere with Ms. Reno's action. That may satisfy the law; it doesn't satisfy this community's hunger for justice.
ELIAN'S INTERESTS
From the first, this newspaper has urged that in rendering a final decision, authorities must act in a way that puts the child's needs first. Partisan politics and national interests have no place here. But determining what is best for Elian has been fraught with difficulty. Good people have
come out on opposite sides of this issue.
It is especially poignant in South Florida, where tens of thousands of Cuban Americans have personally faced similar situations wherein family unity in a communist state has been weighed against family separation in a country blessed with liberty and opportunity. The fact that they are here is
witness to the belief of most that the latter must be paramount.
Unfortunately, the laws applied in this case don't allow for such considerations. The authority that Ms. Reno exercises derives from immigration codes that allow few legal protections to noncitizens. It is inconceivable that Elian's future can be determined under immigration law when his case is
clearly a custody battle between relatives who love him. Such cases belong in domestic courts where parents can freely assert their claims.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service, which interviewed the father in a Cuba whipped into an anti-U.S. frenzy by Fidel Castro, is not equipped by law or culture to resolve custody cases. We cannot accept as sufficient that an INS agent in Cuba decided that Mr. Gonzalez was able to speak
freely during an interview last December. The entire weight of Castro's government leaned upon him that day and leans upon him still.
If any good is to flow from this case it must be that Congress and the administration address this hole in the law and require that custody cases be pursued in courts where all parties are free to speak and where judges are unfettered in deciding what is best for the child.
And whether one agrees or disagrees with the ultimate decision, the world must be clear in recognizing the villain of this piece. It is not the judge, not the attorney general, not the INS, not Juan Miguel Gonzalez, not the Miami relatives and not the Cuban-exile community. It is Fidel Castro.
The heartbreak that will occur here, as well as all the pain accumulating thus far, is his doing. His oppressive regime so crushed the hopes of Elian's mother that she was willing to risk her life and his to flee. Castro's oppression prevents Mr. Gonzalez from doing what any other father would
do -- travel wherever necessary, given assurances of his personal safety, to petition in a court for custody. And it is Castro's fault alone that Elian, should he return, faces a future that, with the exception of being with a loving father, we would wish on no child.
In Cuba, the parent is the state. Therein lies the tragedy.
Copyright 2000 Miami Herald |