Marta Molina. Published Friday, March 31, 2000, in the Miami Herald
The following are edited excerpts from an affidavit by Dr. Marta Molina, a psychologist who worked in Palmira, Cuba, for 20 years. It was filed in Elian Gonzalez's federal case.
I arrived to the United States in 1999 after soliciting political asylum at the Cuban Interests Section in Cuba.
During my tenure as a psychologist at the Policlinico Docente de Palmira, I counseled and treated hundreds of patients with psychological problems that were directly related to, or affected by, the mandates of the Cuban government. Many of my patients had emotionally traumatic experiences as a
result of their resistance to the communist-ideology indoctrination.
My superiors routinely advised me that any problems involving resistance to the communist ideology should be treated in such a manner as to support the regime, regardless of the effect on the patient. I did not adhere to this policy and whenever possible counseled clients based upon recognized
psychological methods. Thus my superiors severely criticized me and kept me under constant scrutiny.
I saw more than 500 children under the age of 16 who had serious psychological problems as a result of their own disagreement with, or their parents' refusal to indoctrinate the children in, the communist ideology. These children's thinking was repressed, and statements contrary to such ideology
led to serious discipline.
The form of discipline used by teachers and other authority figures was that the children were silenced and reprimanded for im- proper comments or behavior. This, in most cases, led the children to regress and become inhibited, doubting their own freedom of thought. As a direct result of
disciplining and the lack of proper counseling outside the mandates of the government, the children often became depressed and underachievers. Children who did not follow the communist ideology or had acted in- appropriately toward the Cuban regime routinely were denied permission to attend college
or any other education institution past the 12th grade.
Based upon my knowledge of the indoctrination policies and the psychological counseling practices in Cuba, my professional opinion is that if 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez is forced to return to Cuba:
He immediately will be taken into seclusion to reindoctrinate him in the ways of the communist ideology.
A blue bandanna will be placed around his neck, and he will be ordered to swear allegiance to los Pioneros, the youth group to which all children age 6 and above are required to attend and undergo formal indoctrination. He will be ordered to swear this allegiance: ``Pioneers for communism, we
will be like Che.''
He will be counseled as to the sights and occurrences that he witnessed in the United States, and he will be told that he cannot recount to any person, whether a minor or an adult, the things that he saw.
He will be indoctrinated to believe that in the United States he was very unhappy and that the things he saw and did were not real and were, in essence, a scheme to confuse him.
In school and other activities, he will be assigned a monitor (a teacher or other authority figure) who will be by his side at all times to control his statements and to correct him if he falls out of sync with the communist ideology. If he does not cooperate, he again will be secluded until
further indoctrination erases all memories of his stay in the United States.
He will be told that his mother was a traitor, commonly referred to as a gusano (a worm), because she left Cuba illegally, and he will be forced to repudiate her memory as a traitor to the regime.
As with all of the other children whom I treated in Cuba -- and because Elian has been exposed to the United States's way of life for such a long period of time -- the indoctrination and silencing of his thoughts and memories of the United States will lead to depression and psychological
confusion. This in turn will result in severe psychological trauma, which will never be properly dealt with, due to the instructions given to psychologists in Cuba.
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