By Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton©
2001 ABIP
A desperate mother escaping Castros tyranny takes her only child to
the U.S. so he can live in freedom. She dies in the attempt, but her 5-year-old
son survives. He is rescued and legally placed under the care of his relatives
in the U.S. Castro then calls the relatives kidnappers. The U.S. media, echoing
his voice, advances his claims, maligning the Cuban American community and
misleading the public opinion. That child was Elian and he was sent back to
Castro on June 28, 2000.
And on June 27, 2001, we have Andrea Mitchell - rewarded with a visa to
report from Cuba for cooperating with Castros goals - on the NBC Nightly
News giving a glowing portrait of Elians life in Cardenas, the city where
I was born. What does she know about what life in Cuba is? Mitchell (in a
totalitarian country where people live in constant fear) was pretending that
Elians father and the others featured were able to speak their minds
without state reprisals. For that favorable report she was awarded a three-hour
interview with Castro, part of which was shown on June 28 NBCs Today Show
and later on the NBC Nightly News.
Secretly guarded by the U.S. media is the fact that the real kidnapper of
the Cuban people is Castro. They never talk about the children kept hostage and
separated from their parents in the U.S. and in other countries around the
world. The media, by being silent and refusing to expose what has been happening
for decades, is contributing to the destruction of the family. With their
silence they are giving the green light to a despot: it is all right to kidnap
children from their parents, it is all right to divide and destroy Cuban
families.
In Cuba you cannot buy a ticket, get into an airplane and go whatever you
wish, as Americans do. Among the many rights Cubans lost to Castro was the right
to come and go. Since then, Cubans need an exit permit to leave, which is
extremely difficult to obtain.
Recently, the case of 11-year-old Sandra Becerra Jova, kept hostage for more
than 4 years in Cuba, separated from her parents, Vicente Becerra and Zaida
Jova, living in Brazil, was resolved thanks to the media in that country and
elsewhere but not in the U.S. The family reunion took place on June 23,
2001, at the international airport of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The Brazilian news
agency CubDest says, "The national and international press covered the
arrival of Sandra and the emotional reunification with her parents and with
Daniel, her 3-year-old brother who was born in Brazil."
The information about this case was sent to all the U.S. media outlets, but
NBC, ABC, CBS and even The Washington Times to which I personally sent
the information on June 15 - did not publish anything about this case.
An ongoing case is the one of Dr. Leonel Cordova, 31. On April 23, 2000, he
defected along with Dr. Noris Peña, 25, while serving on what Castro
called a "medical mission" in Harare, Zimbabwe. According to Dr.
Cordova the real goal was to help Castros friend, Robert Mugabe, get
elected. After the U.S. and Canadian embassies rejected their requests for
asylum, Zimbabwean soldiers apprehended them at machine-gun point and forced
them into an Air France flight to Havana.
But the doctors managed to slip a three-page account of their plight to the
pilot saying that they had been "kidnapped." That caused a commotion
inside the plane and the Air France staff refused to keep them on board. Due to
international pressure, after more than a month in jail in Harare, Sweden gave
them temporary visas and on July 2000, the U.S. finally gave them asylum.
In the U.S., Dr. Cordova obtained visas for his wife, Rosalba Gonzalez and
their two children, Giselle, 4 and Yusniel, his stepson, 11, all still in Cuba.
Dr. Cordova had raised Yusniel since he was 2 years old and his natural father
had agreed to let his son live with his sister in the U.S. Almost a year later,
Castros regime still refuses to issue exit permits for his wife and
children as retribution that the vindictive Castro has been practicing for 42
years with people who defect. It is done to make an example of those who choose
freedom and to discourage others.
On Sunday morning, June 17, Rosalba died in a motorcycle "accident"
three blocks from her home in Havana, leaving the children with no parent in
Cuba. Dr. Cordova cannot go to the funeral of his wife and be with his children
since he is considered a traitor in Cuba and would be apprehended.
On June 26, Dr. Cordova released a public statement appealing for the
release of his children, held in Cuba.
My children are but two among many Cuban children who are unjustly and
arbitrarily detained in Cuba against the will of their parents, used as
political pawns to punish those of us who one day, for political reasons, and
for inherently instinctive reasons in search of freedom, had the audacity to
defy Fidel Castro and his repressive machinery.
The irony of this is that the man that forbids my children from reuniting
with me, is the same man that a year ago was fighting for the rights of another
Cuban father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, to be with his child: Fidel Castro. My
children, like Elian, have also lost their mother.
Now my children are alone in Cuba without the care of a mother, and I, their
father, am helplessly standing by, unable to run to my children to comfort them
and bring them home with me. Unlike Juan Miguel, I cannot return to Cuba. Unlike
Juan Miguel, I will not be offered all the safeties and guarantees in Cuba that
he was offered when he was here. Unlike, Juan Miguel, there is no Janet Reno in
Cuba who will send armed men to the house where my children reside to secure
their freedom and reunite them with their father. There's only one person
keeping my children from me, and that person is Fidel Castro.
I, like Juan Miguel Gonzalez, have as much right to be with Giselle and
Yusniel as he does to be with Elian. I too, am a grieving father, who is not
only grieving the death of his loving wife, but the long separation from my
family to which I have been subjected.
I trust that our representatives in Congress, as well as other American
institutions that were so instrumental in securing the reunion of Juan Miguel
and Elian, will also come to my aid, and soon, I too, will be together with my
children.
Is the U.S. media going to listen to the appeal of this man, one among many
suffering family separation imposed by Castro as punishment for leaving his
island? Or should he move to Brazil in order to get media support support
that has proven to work against Castros efforts to damage the family
institution?
The New Australia News in their Saturday June 23-24 commentary on Dr.
Cordovas case said "The extreme left-wing National Council of
Churches [NCC] has so far refused to offer any assistance to Dr. Cordova despite
the fact that it was heavily involved in having Elian Gonzalez returned to
Castro. However, a spokeswoman said it might discuss the matter with the Cuban
Council of Churches, a Castro controlled organization."
Bob Edgar, NCCs General Secretary, answering to petitions for help in
this case by the Cuban American community stated in writing, "Attempts to
negotiate cases such as this in the public media will only endanger a quick and
satisfactory solution for the persons involved. For that reason, the National
Council of Churches is unable to comment on the case of Dr. Cordova and his
family at this time. The NCC understands that the handling of refugee cases is
primarily the responsibility of the Department of State and recommends that
those who are concerned about the case speak with the Public Information Officer
for the Department of State, Sandy Dean."
This response reveals the hypocritical nature of the NCC when you look at
the public record of everything Bob Edgar, Rev. Joan Brown Campbell and other
staff of this "religious" organization did openly in the press, radio
and television advocating for the return of Elian Gonzalez to Castro.
Replying to Bob Edgar, Alba Herrera Rohdes, a human rights advocate in New
Jersey said, "Thank you Mr. Edgar, for clarifying all my doubts about your
organization. Now, I am firmly convinced that you are neither Christian, nor
unbiased, and that family values mean nothing to you or your organization. You
were never fighting for the rights of Elian's father. You were fighting for
Fidel's right to oppress the Cuban people."
Fortunately for Dr. Cordova, because of the overwhelming support received by
the Cuban American community in the U.S., and Castros fear that his case
could transcend to the international media, as with the case in Brazil, this
case is in the process of being resolved. All of a sudden, Cuba is processing
his childrens exit permits. Very soon, Dr. Cordova will be able to hug his
children in a free land. Now we can clearly see the power of the press. But if
the U.S. press continues its silence about these abuses, the agony of thousands
of human beings will be their responsibility, because they are behaving as
partners in a crime.
Meanwhile, Dr. Noris Peña who defected with Dr Cordova and who now
lives in Atlanta is suffering punishment from Castro. Her parents, who received
visas from the U.S. to reunite with her are being denied their exit permits by
Castro.
Among those families whose children, wives, husbands and parents are still
hostages of Castros regime, are the case of defector Jose Cohen, a former
intelligence officer in Cuba. Cohen, exiled in the U.S. for seven years,
explains that his wife Lazara, parents Isaac and Daisy, brother David, and his
three children, Yanelis, 16, Yamila, 12 and Isaac, 9 are being forced to live in
Cuba against their will and are subjected to psychological pressures in an
attempt to emotionally destabilize them.
The Cohen familys situation is desperate because they are not being
allowed to work, surviving on the dollars he can send. Cohens mother was
fired from her job; his wife was detained and "taken to the headquarters of
the State Security in view of our children, where she was questioned like a
common criminal. My home was brutally searched by seven goons from the tyranny
in full view of my children. My family is hostage to Castro's tyranny. They have
visas to travel to the United States, but the Cuban government, in open
violation of the most basic of human rights, keeps them against their will,
abusing the innocence of three children and the impotence of two elderly persons
and a woman."
Cohen repeats what all Cubans know but apparently goes over the heads of
most Americans, "My children are forced to study a false history, backward
and unjust doctrines. At school, they teach them to hate and resent. They live
without freedom. My children want to live with both their parents, have a happy
childhood but are branded by the suffering which is imposed on them by Castro's
criminal dictatorship." Now Cohens children have been expelled from
school for wanting to leave Cuba.
Another example is Luis Grave de Peralta Morell in Texas. His 7 and
13-year-old sons received their exit permits six years ago but Castro refuses
the exit permit for their mother. Six other children in his family have received
exit permits, but not their parents. Manuel Amigó Trejo lives in Sweden.
His wife Isabel and his 5 and 6 year-old sons have been denied their exit
permits preventing their reunion. And in Miami, Milagros Cruz, who is blind, was
a pro-democracy activist in Cuba who was deported in October 1999 to the U.S. by
Castro. However, Castro refuses to issue the exit permit to her only child,
Nohemi, 9. And there are more cases in the U.S. and abroad in similar
situations.
If the U.S. media was to report on these ongoing cases as well as many
others, Castro, faced with world condemnation, will have to cease and desist in
these cruel practices and the suffering of uncounted numbers of children and
their parents will stop. Out of public embarrassment, will the U.S. media
finally report these facts? Will The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC,
ABC, CBS, CNN recognize that Castro is not the myth that they helped to create
and maintain in order to stop the suffering of these children? Or is the
three-hour interview by Andrea Mitchell too important to sacrifice?
© 2001 ABIP
Agustin Blazquez, Producer/Director of the
documentaries:
COVERING CUBA, COVERING CUBA 2: The New Generation and
the upcoming COVERING CUBA 3
ABIP@olg.com |