Elián
Gonzalez
When the Politics of Paranoia Win the Day
26 May 2000
It doesn't take deep digging into the fragile crust of American
life before the gremlin-like paranoid powers that often shape the
nation's politics jump right out in provocative and astonishing
combinations.
But, even for a country where the rate of divorce far exceeds that
of voter participation, the case of Elián Gonzalez has to
be up there along with the most ludicrous political incidents in
recent years. It involves a boy who found himself snatched from
his communist nursery school by his late mother and her boyfriend,
shipwrecked on a Florida coast, and detained by the United States
Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS). He was then abducted
by distant relatives, paraded through the streets of Little Havana
like a war trophy, gazed at by deranged madding crowds in the US
and Cuba alike, and was worshiped by embarrassingly superstitious
Cuban-American Catholics as a saint. And then, just as the God-forsaken
child had started to lead a life which put to shame the luxuries
of China's last Emperor, he was abducted again, this time at gunpoint,
by red-eyed INS commandos, and handed over to his father. Since
then he has been moved across a number of locations in and around
Washington DC, amidst security measures that would even scare His
Supreme Divinity Pope John Paul II.
The facts of the case have not been forgotten. They have simply
been ignored. Legal principle requires the child to be reunited
with his closest surviving relatives, in the location of their preference
—in Elián's case, Havana, Cuba. What is more, the child's
abduction by his deranged anti-Castro uncles constitutes a crime,
which should be severely punished under US law. Not only did the
latter individuals abduct and confine the child; they also did all
they could to sabotage even his most basic communication with his
father: "sometimes they talk to the boy in loud voices while
we're having a conversation. They turn up the volume of the cartoons
on the television as high as possible, or put a candy in his mouth
so that I can't understand what he's saying" (1), said earlier
this year Juan Miguel Gonzalez, Elián's father.
And there are other facts, deliberately ignored: the so-called
Cuban-American National Foundation, a Cold War organisation representing
a minuscule fraction of the Cuban-American community, has claimed
that Elián should be forced to stay in the US, in order that
his soul be saved from communism and its totalitarian expressions
on which the Cuban political system is based. Yet the Cuban-American
National Foundation should not really be in a position to speak
in support of democracy and citizens' rights: the organisation has
alleged links to numerous terrorist acts in Cuba, during the 1960s
and '70's, and it is staffed by individuals such as its bizarre
Miami-based spokesman, Jose Basulto. A Bay of Pigs participant,
Basulto has acknowledged his involvement in terrorist activity in
Cuba (2). He has also acknowledged working for the military dictatorship
in Argentina during the late 1970s and early '80s, a regime whose
human rights record makes Castro and his comrades look like the
Smurfs in comparison. And the truth of the matter is that, in terms
of the ability of human beings to lead decent lives, Cuba is far
from desperate cases, such as Sudan, Cambodia or Somalia. Even within
the most hardcore anticommunist lobbies in the United States, there
are individuals who are prepared to admit that "one remarkable
thing about Havana is that there is not widespread misery and abject
poverty. For all the restrictions, people are allowed to live decent
lives" (3).
Anticommunist Cuban-American fanatics have also claimed that, by
being allowed to go back to Cuba, Elián Gonzalez will become
"another child victim of Fidel Castro" (2). They claim
that the boy will be treated like a criminal and his human rights
will be systematically violated. Yet what, you might ask, is the
human rights record in the US, when it comes to the welfare of immigrant
children, such as Elián?
Well, funny you should ask that, because, a couple of years ago,
Human Rights Watch International published the results of a survey
conducted on this very issue. It began with the story of Xial Ling,
a 15 year old Asian girl, who for no less than 6 months, "lived
in a small concrete cell, completely bare except for bedding and
a Bible in a language she could not read. [She was not] allowed
to speak her own language, told not to laugh, and even forced to
ask permission to scratch her nose. Bewildered, miserable, and unable
to communicate with anyone around her, she cried every day"
(4).
Rotting in a Burmese jail? Being subjected to inhuman humiliation
in a shady Cambodian detention centre? Not at all. She is simply
one more immigrant child under the custody of the United States
Immigration and Naturalisation Service. According to the aforementioned
report, there have been numerous cases of violations of children's
rights "in breach of the U.S. Constitution, U.S. statutory
provisions, INS regulations, the terms of court orders binding on
the INS, and international law" (4). Additionally, the report
found that "with regard to unaccompanied children, the INS
has an inherent and troubling conflict of interest: children are
arrested, imprisoned, and frequently removed by the same agency
that is charged with caring for them and protecting their legal
rights [... T]oo many children [have been] detained in jail-like
conditions for long periods of time and [...] the INS [has] failed
to inform children of their legal rights, interfered with their
efforts to obtain legal representation, and failed to facilitate
contact with their family members". That would have been Elián's
fate had it not been for his abduction by his distant relatives
in Miami. Did I hear anyone say something about Cuba?
Ultimately, the case of Elián Gonzalez is not a Cuban-American
issue. It's an American-American issue. A nation is forced to deal
with the demented side of its personality. It is through such incidents
that Cold War paranoia is allowed to creep back in from the dustbin
of history. It is then that one realises how damaging anticommunist
hysteria has been for the individuals and institutions that lived
through it. And, sure, the Cubans have been equally hysterical about
the situation. But, hey, they are supposed to be the bad guys, right?
We are the ones priding ourselves about our great democratic tradition
and the rule of law that applies to all. Or does it?
© The News Insider 2000
(1) G.G. Marzuez (2000) Shipwreck on Dry Land, Joventud Robelde
Design, Havana, Cuba, 15 March.
(2) J. Meldon (2000) Behind the Elian Case, The Consortium, 30 March.
(3) J. Brown (2000) Elian case shines fresh spotlight on Cuba, The
Christian Science Monitor, 11 May.
(4) Human Rights Watch (1998) Detained and Deprived of Rights: Children
in the Custody of the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service,
December.
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