Will Congress ratify child stealing?
Protest set for Miami: 'Free Elián!'
By Deirdre
Griswold
As the struggle to free little Elián González
from the clutches of the Cuban right-wing in Miami painfully
drags on, pressure is growing on the Clinton administration and
the Immigration and Naturalization Service to enforce their own
ruling that the boy belongs with his father, grandparents and
neighbors back in his homeland.
The Cuban people have shown their outrage for two months in
gigantic demonstrations. And all over the U.S., local
committees have sprung up to send Elián home.
Now supporters of sending the six-year-old Cuban home are
mobilizing for a national demonstration in Miami on Jan.
29.
It will be the first time that the substantial number of
Cubans in that city who are not under the control of the
ultra-right will have an opportunity to make their views known
before the world media. They will have to brave the threats of
counter-revolutionary groups with a reputation for violence
that comes from their use as commandos by the Central
Intelligence Agency.
But the progressive Cubans will not be alone. They will be
joined by other Latin Americans, Haitians and whites who want
Miami and the world to see that the days when right-wing thugs
could control the streets of that city are over.
International Peace for Cuba Appeal national co-coordinators
Teresa Gutierrez and Gloria La Riva are in Miami helping to
organize the protest, along with Rev. Lucius Walker of Pastors
for Peace and other progressive activists.
La Riva said the demonstration is "going to give the people
in Miami, especially the Cuban community who are for
normalization of relations and who have held on for 40 years,
some breathing space. A Pastors bus is coming from Chicago,
Haitians have translated the leaflets and posters into Creole,
and we are constantly getting calls from around the country
from people who have read our web page or seen publicity about
the event and are coming to Miami."
Gutierrez added that "this historic event will have lasting
significance for the people of Miami, long after the
demonstration is over." The demonstration will start at 10 a.m.
at the INS building, 79th & Biscayne.
From jaws of death to
jaws of right-wing
The Cuban ultra-right are trying to bolster their political
position and whip up a hysteria against Cuba by turning this
traumatized child, who floated for two days on a rubber raft in
the Caribbean after seeing his mother drown, into a political
pawn. Every day, they organize demonstrations at the house of
his great uncle, who was given temporary custody of the child
by the INS.
The message is always the same: The kid will have more stuff
here than in Cuba--more toys, more clothes, trips to Disney
World, and all the other consumer goods that are scarce in that
blockaded country. What they don't admit is that Elián
not only has a loving family back in Cuba and a safe, dignified
and warm environment, but he also is guaranteed work, shelter,
education and health care there, unlike in the United
States.
Even as immigrants from other countries are being
incarcerated or unceremoniously shipped back home, this boy's
case has become a cause célèbre of those who
still vainly hope to overthrow the Cuban Revolution. Two
Florida Republicans are preparing bills in the House and Senate
to make him an honorary citizen, thereby removing him from the
jurisdiction of the INS. If enacted, it would be the first time
in U.S. history that an individual has been naturalized by
Congress.
President Clinton has not said definitively that he will
veto the bill. Not wanting to openly antagonize the
ultra-right, he is hoping to be spared having to take a clear
stand by a filibuster in Congress.
However, many of the lies about socialist Cuba told by the
counter-revolutionaries are suddenly being exposed. When
Elián's two grandmothers, Mariela Quintana and Raquel
Rodriguez, both flew to the U.S. on Jan. 21 to try and bring
the boy home, their very presence punctured the lie that Cuba
is a police state from which everyone is trying to flee. They
argued forcefully and convincingly about the advantages
awaiting him at home.
They are true ambassadors for the Cuban working class, the
backbone of the revolution, even though tragedy has thrust them
into this position.
The strength of any revolution resides in the people--their
unity, political consciousness and will to fight for the new
society against those who would drag the country back to the
past. The U.S. ruling class had hoped that Cuba's hardships
after the USSRcollapse would break down that solidarity and
will.
They must be gnawing their knuckles at the impassioned human
flood that marches almost every other day past the U.S.
Interests Section in Havana.
Around the world, the shadow-boxing between U.S. federal
authorities and the "Miami Mafia" has evoked disbelief and
disgust. Even the Economist, a conservative British financial
magazine that usually has great praise for its imperialist
ally, called the incident a "kidnapping" that reflects "the
idiocy of American attitudes to Cuba."
These attitudes have been crystallized in the 40-year
blockade by which the U.S. has tried to impoverish and starve
the socialist island. But for more than a decade now, the
United Nations General Assembly has voted almost unanimously
against the blockade. The only vote of support Washington can
count on is from Israel, the largest recipient of U.S. military
aid in the world.
Cuba refuses to collapse
The right wing has been predicting the imminent collapse of
the Cuban Revolution for 40 years now. Gov. Jeb Bush of
Florida, George W.'s brother, even organized a $10 billion
investment fund a decade ago for the day when U.S. capital
would rush back to exploit the Cuban people once again after
the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But it hasn't happened. Now this crisis has shown how strong
and deep is the Cuban people's anger and rejection of U.S.
imperialism's high-handed and arrogant treatment. And it comes
just when Washington was beginning to think it could cultivate
a "dissident" movement inside Cuba to pave the way for
counter-revolution.
In pursuit of profits as well as a more nuanced approach to
Cuba, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been lobbying to ease
the blockade. This confirms the Cuban right-wing's worst
nightmare--that their privileged position in the U.S., where
they not only have been given access to money and power but
have also been incorporated into the political establishment in
certain areas and into the state apparatus itself, may be
flagging.
Their extreme behavior in this case is an attempt to
reassert their position. But, in the end, the tail does not wag
the dog.
The U.S. imperialist ruling class wants a free hand to
conduct foreign policy in its own interests. It has a long and
sordid record of building up counter-revolutionary groups and
individuals when it has needed them, only to cut them down when
its tactics change.
The right-wing Cubans in Miami know that the CIA has used
Kurds, Afghanis, Vietnamese and others when it suited them. But
when a new situation arose, it has sacrificed them. It has even
assassinated heads of state it had supported, like Ngo Dinh
Diem in Vietnam and Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic,
because they weren't useful any more.
Because the Cubans are a large and entrenched political
force within the U.S., they cannot be discarded as others have
been. They are a bastion of anti-communism and right-wing
politics in general, and Washington always has need of that.
But the really big ruling class, which maps Washington's global
strategy, never wants its puppets to mistakenly think they are
the masters. It has many ways to drive that point home.
Until now, these counter-revolutionaries have been free to
say anything, no matter how outlandish, to defame Cuba. It was
all treated as good coin by the big business media here. But
now, all of a sudden, some of the truth is beginning to come
out.
The Jan. 31 Newsweek has an interview with Elián's
grandmothers. Larry King and other powerful talk show hosts are
giving equal time to those who say Elián should be
allowed to go home. It is a very small rebuttal of the tons of
lies that have been told about socialist Cuba, but given how
the right-wing has completely dominated the public dialogue
until now, it undoubtedly has them very worried.
No going back to bad old days
Miami's Cubans are by no means a homogenous group, but those
who have captured Elián and are parading him as a symbol
represent the past--a time of privilege for the few and misery
for the vast majority. In Cuba, the people call them the "Miami
Mafia" because so many trace their history back to the corrupt
and bloody regime that ruled Cuba hand in glove with U.S.
mobsters who owned the expensive hotels and gambling
casinos.
The Cuban elite were allowed to get moderately rich in those
days--while the really huge fortunes were being taken out by
U.S. capitalists.
In 1956--the same year that Fidel Castro and his comrades in
the 26th of July Movement launched their guerrilla war against
the Batista dictatorship--the U.S. Department of Commerce
reported that U.S. companies controlled 90 percent of Cuba's
telephone and electric services. They also held about 50
percent of the railways, 40 percent of raw sugar production,
the most important cattle ranches, the one copper mine, and the
major tourist facilities and hotels.
That was a time of abject poverty for the agricultural
workers and small peasants who made up the majority of the
population. Despite many heroic strikes by the sugar workers
and other laborers, the conditions in the countryside were
appalling. The poor were illiterate, had no access to health
care, and lived in dirt-floored shacks with no running water or
sewage systems. Intestinal parasites and other diseases were
widespread. And the bosses employed thugs to keep things that
way.
This is why today, even in what Cuba calls a "special
period" of economic hardship, a Cuban musician featured in the
U.S. film "Buena Vista Social Club" tells how life is much
better now than in those bad old days.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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