Yahoo! May 30, 2000
Elian May Return Without Fanfare
By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA, 30 (AP) - If the most famous child in Cuba returns to his homeland, he is likely to slip in quietly without the crowds, the cheers and the media frenzy of his time in the United States.
Very few people are expected to get a glimpse of Elian Gonzalez, the first-grader lionized here as the ``boy hero,'' the ``symbolic child,'' the beloved ``elfin prince.'' A national campaign that plastered the 6-year-old's face across billboards, placards and T-shirts will probably fade
overnight.
Months ago, President Fidel Castro promised there would be no street celebrations, no parades. Foreign correspondents have been warned they will be lucky to see Elian's plane if his father wins permission from U.S. courts to bring his son home.
Plans had called for Elian to live discreetly during his first three months back in a specially prepared boarding school in Havana. Elian's Cuban family and first-grade classmates were to live there, too. But government sources now say privately that the boarding school plan, designed to help
Elian readapt to life in Cuba, is being rethought.
After his time in Maryland and Washington, D.C. with his father, stepmother, half brother, Cuban teachers and classmates, Elian probably now would go directly to his former life in his hometown of Cardenas, about 60 miles east of Havana.
Family friends say Elian is catching up in his studies after five months of interrupted classes while staying with relatives in Miami. He recently learned to ride a bike and went swimming without fear, despite the boating accident that killed his mother and 10 others and left him adrift on an
inner tube.
New photographs of father and son in the United States ``confirm the recovery of the boy in a very close, intimate environment,'' the Communist Party newspaper Granma said Thursday.
The Cuban government declared Monday that Elian will return to his communist homeland no matter how a U.S. appellate court in Atlanta rules on a request by the child's Miami relatives for a political asylum hearing for the boy.
Cuba is ``prepared to tirelessly fight the battle until its final, inevitable resolution: his return to the fatherland and his reunion with the rest of the family,'' the Communist Party daily Granma said Monday. ``He will come, sooner than later, whatever the resolution of the court in
Atlanta.''
The newspaper also quoted the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, former head of the National Council of Churches and a friend of the Gonzalez family, as saying that Elian wants to go home.
``Are we moving to Cuba? Because I want to go to Cuba,'' Campbell reportedly quoted the child as saying.
In the United States, opponents of letting Elian return to Cuba focused on a recent photograph of the boy wearing a blue neckerchief - a sign of membership in the Pioneers Communist youth group and an integral part of the Cuban school uniform. They predicted Elian would be sent to a work camp to
cut sugar cane and be forced to denounce his mother as a traitor for attempting to take him to the United States.
So far, Cuba has described Elian's mother as a good woman whose boyfriend bullied her into taking the child on the trip. And government guidelines bar children from cutting sugar cane, because it is viewed as backbreaking work suitable only for strong adults.
The U.S. State Department's most recent human rights report agrees Cuba prohibits forced and bonded child labor, but notes it requires children to perform unpaid agricultural work during summer vacation.
For 21 days a year, most Cuban youngsters in the 8th, 9th and 10th grades are required to do farm work. Generally they plant, pick or cut crops like tobacco, citrus, potatoes and tomatoes. In the 11th and 12th grades, teen-agers live at boarding schools in the countryside and their days are
split between studies and field work.
``The combination of study and work is one of the fundamentals on which revolutionary education is based,'' the Cuban Child Code states.
While some parents say the work program fosters independence in their youngsters - and many teens like being away from home - other mothers and fathers oppose being separated from their children.
Opponents of Elian's return also fear the boy will be indoctrinated in communist ideology. In a socialist society, with a father who is a Communist Party member, that will be inevitable - and not just because of Elian's special situation. ``The society and the state work for the efficient
protection of youth against all influence contrary to their communist formation,'' the Child Code says.
For his part, Gonzalez was unhappy about values taught during his son's brief time at a private Miami school. Run by a Cuban exile, the Lincoln-Marti School teaches students that Castro oppresses Cubans. Classes are taught in English and children salute the U.S. flag - a potent symbol of Cuba's
fiercest enemy.
Cuban students salute a flag with a single white star and are taught to respect revolutionary icon Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara.
``Pioneers for communism,'' Cuban boys and girls chant each morning. ``We will be like Che!''
Report: Jailed Cuban Dissident on Hunger Strike
HAVANA, 30 (Reuters) - A jailed Cuban opposition activist, said by his family to be sick after a decade in prison for spreading what Havana called ``enemy propaganda,'' has launched a hunger strike, a dissident journalist reported on Tuesday.
Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, 34, was moved earlier this month to the hospital wing of a prison in the central Cuban province of Sancti Spiritus, the report said, quoting sketchy information from his family and supporters.
``The causes of the hunger strike and the reason for his hospitalization are not known,'' Hector Trujillo Pis wrote in an Internet article on Cubanet, a Miami-based service that publishes the works of dissident Cuban journalists.
Trujillo said the prisoner's sister, Bertha Antunez, had begun a hunger strike from her home in solidarity with Garcia, who is better known by his father's last name, Antunez.
The information about the case could not be independently verified. Relatives and supporters have not been allowed to visit Garcia, and are basing their information on conversations with state security officials, Trujillo's report said.
Garcia, whose case was raised by a Miami-based rights group earlier this month, was jailed in March 1990 on a charge of spreading ``enemy propaganda,'' dissident sources said. He received an 18-year sentence.
The Miami-based Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Directorate, seeking to start an international campaign on his behalf, said earlier in May that he needs urgent medical care.
Family members say Garcia has long suffered from malnutrition, intestinal parasites and ulcers, but now is experiencing hypoglycemia and renal failure.
Cuba rejects the word ``dissident,'' saying all opponents to President Fidel Castro's communist government are U.S.-backed ''counter-revolutionary'' mercenaries and traitors. Havana also denies it holds political prisoners, saying all inmates are there for legitimate crimes under Cuba's penal
code.
Castro's government is, however, frequently criticized by Western nations and human rights groups for repressing political opponents seeking reforms to a one-party system in place in the four decades since the 1959 Cuban Revolution.
US Reps, Farmers Visit Cuba
HAVANA, 29 (AP) - Arkansas lawmakers and rice farmers met Monday with Cuban officials amid moves in Washington to ease the four-decade trade embargo against this communist island.
``We have been very supportive of opening up trade with Cuba,'' U.S. Sen. Blanche Lambert Lincoln said after meeting with trade and agriculture officials in Havana.
``If you look over the past four decades, you will see those who have been most affected are the people of Cuba, not the government,'' the Arkansas Democrat said. There was little specific information on the delegation's agenda.
The 16-member delegation from Arkansas traveled to Havana as the U.S. House of Representatives debated legislation that would allow food and medicine to be sold to Cuba. A vote by the full House was expected next week.
The Senate overwhelmingly approved a similar trade measure last year, and the House Appropriations Committee approved the measure 35-24 earlier this month.
Some 220 House members signed a letter supporting an easing of the embargo, though there was fierce opposition from some Republicans.
``We feel like the embargo ... has not worked,'' said Rep. Marion Berry, a Democrat. Berry said that lifting the restrictions on food and medicine sales would benefit both the Cuban people and hard-hit Arkansas farmers seeking new markets.
Arkansas is the United States' No. 1 rice producer, as well as an important supplier of poultry, pork, and soybean.
During the visit to Cuba, members of the Arkansas delegation were to tour an agricultural cooperative, a poultry farm and a farmers' market. The group arrived in the capital, Havana, on Sunday night, and was to return to the United States on Wednesday.
Copyright © 2000 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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