The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier. Wednesday, May 3, 2000
The Elian Gonzalez saga has given Fidel Castro his biggest boost since the Bay of Pigs, the disastrous U.S.-backed invasion that consolidated the Cuban dictator's grip on power nearly 40 years ago. Castro has emerged strengthened in every way from the Clinton administration's mishandling of
the little boy's tragedy. And the saga is far from over.
Consider the magnitude of Castro's propaganda triumph. At a time when the Cuban people were tiring of tirades blaming the U.S. economic embargo for all Cuba's been through, Castro has changed the subject, telling Cubans, "Not even Dante could have described the inferno of psychological
torture and political manipulation that this little boy has been through."
That may seem exaggerated, even to Americans who have viewed the actions of Elian's Miami family and Little Havana with distaste. But Castro is taking advantage of Elian, who has already joined Che Guevara in the Pantheon of the Cuban Revolution.
Castro turned the May Day rally into Elian Gonzalez Day by theatrically calling Elian's father on a cellular phone before a massive crowd in Havana's Revolution Square. He described the exile community as the "Cuban-American terrorist mob."
Unless the 11th Court of Appeals does take action to protect him, Elian will be returned to Cuba. But Americans will never know whether Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, has been acting on his own initiative. A persuasive report that appeared in the leading Spanish left-wing newspaper,
El Pais, in December insisted that before Castro made the return of Elian a major issue, his father wanted him to remain in America.
The Clinton administration has gone to great lengths to protect Elian from his Miami family. But it has done nothing to protect the little boy from Fidel Castro. |