News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.
James Morrison. The Washington Times, May 24, 2000
Czech Ambassador Alexandr Vondra says Elian Gonzalez should go back to Cuba with his father, even though Mr. Vondra knows what life is like under a dictatorship.
Mr. Vondra, writing in the Czech Embassy newsletter, also complains that Cuba took political advantage of the case and ignored the wishes of the mother, who drowned trying to escape Cuba with her son.
He is apparently the first foreign ambassador in Washington to address publicly the case of the 6-year-old Cuban boat boy. Other ambassadors contacted by Embassy Row declined to discuss the issue, calling it a domestic matter.
"Castro's regime propagandistically exploited this tragic situation, ignoring Elian's late mother's motivation for taking him to the U.S. in the first place," Mr. Vondra wrote.
"However, I believe that now, with Elian's father having arrived in the U.S., it is time to let the child return home, provided this is where his father truly wants his family to live."
Mr. Vondra endorses "contacts and dialogue" with Cuba.
"Isolation only shields dictatorships from necessary changes, while openness eventually erodes them," he writes.
Mr. Vondra discusses the Elian Gonzalez case in a column on his country's efforts to condemn Cuba before the U.N. Human Rights Commission. The Czech Republic and Poland sponsored the resolution, which passed last month on a vote of 21-20 with 12 abstentions.
"It is obvious why Czech diplomacy has been engaged in the active defense of human rights. We remember that the democratic revolutions [in Eastern Europe] in 1989 would not have been possible without the support and solidarity our activists received from the governments of the United States
and other countries," he wrote.
"We likewise remember that repressive regimes are prone to change only under sustained pressure from both within and without.
"It is for this reason that Czech diplomacy has maintained communication with Cuban human rights activists."
The Czech Republic, which has diplomatic relations with Cuba, was the target of street protests and "furious denunciations" on Cuban state television for sponsoring the U.N. resolution, Mr. Vondra said. |