By Elaine De Valle. edevalle@herald.com. Published
Wednesday, July 4, 2001 in The Miami Herald
For Leonel Córdova, today is more than the first Independence Day in
a free country.
For the Cuban doctor who dramatically defected in Zimbabwe last year, today
is the first day he gets to wake up with his children in more than a year. It is
the first day he gets to make them breakfast.
"All the things parents take for granted is what I miss,'' he said
before Giselle, 4, and Yusniel, 11, arrived. "I'm dying to see my
daughter's eyes.''
He saw her at Miami International Airport before she spotted him. At first,
Giselle looked a bit scared as she scanned a wall of journalists. When she
finally caught sight of her papi, she ran and took a flying leap into his arms
-- knocking him to the ground.
He laughed and cried at the same time. He stroked her face, framed by
pigtails, and covered her in kisses.
Yusniel, his stepson, cried through a permanent smile.
"You're going to love this country,'' Córdova told them as he
hugged and kissed them over and over. "You'll see.''
The reunion, however, is not the picture-perfect moment he planned when he
sought U.S. visas for his family. His wife, Rosalba González, died in a
traffic accident last month in Havana.
After the mother's death, Cuba seemed to step up its process for granting
the children exit permits. Several calls to the Cuban Interests Section in
Washington, D.C., for comment were not returned.
Córdova said it was not soon enough: "I have nothing to thank
them for,'' he said, referring to the government. "Their mother died 15
days ago. They should have been put on a plane the next day. Like they did with
Elián.''
Elián González's Miami relatives lost a custody battle in U.S.
courts with the boy's father and, eight hours after the U.S. Supreme Court
decided not to hear an appeal, the child was back in Cuba.
Córdova has another daughter by his first marriage, 12-year-old
Laura, who lives in Elián's hometown, Cárdenas. He wants to bring
her to the United States, too.
For now, he is going to be busy catching up with his two youngest. They had
not seen their father since March 2000, when he left Havana with a group of
about 150 doctors and dentists for a medical mission in Zimbabwe, part of Fidel
Castro's "doctor diplomacy.''
Córdova and a Cuban dentist, Noris Peña Martínez,
defected that May. The Zimbabwean government put the two on a flight to Havana,
but the pilot refused to take them after the pair slipped a note to a crew
member claiming they were kidnapped. They spent 32 days in jail before being
flown to Sweden, where they stayed another month before coming to Miami.
Peña flew in this weekend from Atlanta, where she works as a dental
assistant while she studies to become a dentist here, to help Córdova the
first few days. She said the Cuban government only let the children leave after
international pressure mounted in light of the mother's death.
"If she hadn't died, they would all be stuck in Cuba,'' she said while
Córdova nodded in agreement. "The government didn't let them come
because they are good. They did it because they are afraid of the press.
"This opens a door for all parents who have kids there,'' said Peña,
whose parents and 21-year-old brother have had U.S. visas since September but
have not been given exit permits by Cuba.
Córdova was afraid his family would also be denied exit permits.
"There are other parents who have kids there and the government is not
letting them come. I'm happy to have my children here, but I am concerned for
the others,'' he said.
He cited the case of José Cohen, a former Cuban official whose wife
and three children have held U.S. visas since 1996. They can't get exit permits.
"I am glad for him,'' Cohen said about Córdova. "I am glad
in the middle of my pain because I know what a separation from your children
is.''
Córdova has taken time off from his job at Mercy Hospital, where he
writes patients' clinical histories, to spend time with his children.
He set up an area for them in his Little Gables studio apartment: bunk beds
he bought at City Furniture and covered with colorful comforters of the Rugrats
cartoon characters.
"I didn't buy clothes and other things because I wanted to do that with
them. I want to have that experience.''
Later, as he held them at the airport before leaving to a friend's home
where they would spend the day, he said they looked skinnier than he imagined.
Giselle, especially, seemed like a different girl.
"She's at that age where children change a lot,'' he said.
"I have a sensation that this is not real. Before I saw them, I gave
thanks to God for making this possible. To know that it's going to be forever,
not something temporary, that they can't be taken away, that they're mine --
it's a dream.''
Copyright 2001 Miami Herald | 
