December 23, 1999

Zoe Valdes. Published Thursday, December 23, 1999, in the Miami Herald

Elian would have to swear every morning that he will be like Che, a suicidal guerrilla.

As is customary with Fidel Castro, every time that talks begin between Cuba and the United States he finds a pretext to interfere and pull the rug from under those meetings. Ever since President Jimmy Carter's administration, Castro's terrorist reaction is a constant, be it called foreign war-making or the gunning down of civilian aircraft, where the lives of four young Cubans were truncated.

Remember, too, the tugboat 13 de Marzo, where 43 of 73 people were murdered, among them 23 children, on July 13, 1994. Yet no Judge Garzon dares to challenge Castro.

This time, the dictator has a pretext that suits him like a ring fits a finger, the finger he wields like a dagger when he fires a speech, the finger he usually digs into his interlocutor's chest.

Most of you know the story. Young Elian Gonzalez is removed from the country by his mother, Elizabet Brotons. She dies, but the boy survives because she, before sinking, manages to place him atop an inner tube. The boy is immediately claimed by his paternal family in Miami. They insist that his father authorized the mother to take the boy and that, on several occasions, he has told his Miami family of his desire to leave Cuba.

For six straight days Castro stopped his country on its tracks, and it seems he will continue to do so. It's not the first time. And he stokes the fire, appealing to the worst in the conscience of people, pressing for an overflow of anger, of rage. Castro is an expert at provoking hatred, using repression, disinformation and absurdity. Add that those ``masses'' he summons could well be soldiers in mufti, Rapid-Response Brigades, Territorial Militias, and militant members of the Party and Communist Youth and, well, there we have the ``well-attended and spontaneous'' demonstration.

Reportedly the father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, said that ``the mother kidnapped her son.'' But I say: Didn't she give birth to him? Is he not her son? What kidnapping are we talking about? Making decisions for him was her right. Besides, Elian has not been the only case of a child separated from his parents because of the violence and malevolence of that regime. Remember the Peter Pan children who left Cuba in the 1960s without their parents. Look at the case of the Jose Cohen family. The father has been waiting in Miami for his children and his wife for years. Castro won't grant them exit permits.

THE EXPERT ON HATE

Why doesn't anyone mention the poor woman's tragedy? You have to be very desperate to leap into the sea with a 6-year-old boy. People leave Cuba essentially because of political problems. Because if that country's economy is in shambles, it's because of the dictatorship's total inefficiency, not because of an embargo that continues to loosen while Castro entrenches in a criminal megalomania, inflicting perpetual abuse on the people of Cuba.

So the victims are a boy and a woman who died in an attempt to live in freedom, yet nobody worries about the most important factor: We have people who lost their lives -- 13 others -- and we have a boy whose head is about to burst from the disgusting fondling by political hacks. I also blame Miami politicians for taking advantage of the opportunity and draping a Cuban American National Foundation T-shirt over the boy, for the videos that show them giving him toys, and the photographs that obviously were made not for the good of the child but for their own benefit.

I propose we activate and extend the struggle to free the children being held hostage in Cuba. Let us indict Castro for the murder of the 23 children aboard the 13 de Marzo, for the crime against Elian's mother. No one who goes through such a tragedy consoles himself with material things. Best would have been discretion and withdrawal, for Elian's benefit. The only thing the politicos did -- once again -- was to hand over their weapon to the opposite side, just when its chief bandit needed it most. It's the Cuban misfortune: political foolishness. The greed that bursts the bag.

What's remarkable is that the maternal grandparents have been pushed into the background. Their opinions appear nowhere, they are barely mentioned, even though they live in Cuba. I'd better not mention them, lest the authorities force them to accuse their daughter of being a prostitute or a drug dealer or of practicing any of those criminal activities usually invented -- with apologies to the dear departed -- to distort the facts.

An odd observation: In Cuba, there's no paper to print books or newspapers, but when it comes to printing huge posters and T-shirts, the paper, electricity, printing presses, ink, cloth, and everything else needed for repression it appears swiftly, within minutes. It's a shame that so many people, although disgusted by the regime, make themselves available for such a spectacle, to vilify the innocent. Most of the protesters have dreamed of freedom, and most probably show up so as not to lose their jobs or their education.

Another interesting detail. The Spanish newspaper El Mundo in a Dec. 9 article about the case quotes a Miami lawyer of Cuban origin, Magda Montiel Davis, an expert in immigration: ``If the boy had not been Cuban, he would already be back with his father. Perhaps he would lead a more austere life. Surely he would not be saturated with Pokemon and Power Rangers cards, but his meals and his health would be guaranteed.''

I don't know this lady, but I must make clear to her that no mother endangers the life of her son and her own for the toys she mentions and seems to know so well. It's no secret that Cuban children are entitled to a liter of milk every two days until the age of seven. And that's it. Let's not even talk about meat. Who doesn't know what a ration card is? A daily insult. With the blackouts and the heat, milk spoils in less than an hour. Whoever is unaware of the state of daily nourishment and health in Cuba is unaware of the human condition.

At present, many doctors in Cuba are forbidden to diagnose diseases such as syphilis, now spreading through the island, because it's one of the diseases that allegedly were eradicated. So, if a Cuban is suffering from syphilis, he will leave the doctor's office believing that he has some unimportant otitis. At the hospital where I gave birth six years ago, three syphilitic women and their infected babies were admitted -- and none was told of the disease. Fearing that I might become infected, a nurse told me the news in secret, scared, urging me to leave the hospital as soon as possible to avoid the risk of contracting an unidentified virus. That's reality.

That lawyer of Cuban origin, such an expert in immigration, should be more informed about the misfortune of our people. As to the fact that if his nationality were different, he ``would already be with his father,'' she's quite an ingrate if she indeed comes from such origins. As far as I know, the only Latin American country that has endured a dictatorship for more than 40 years is Cuba. In 1957, Cuba's economy was in third place, behind Brazil and Argentina. After that, Cuba's descent was disastrous.

LET THE LAW DECIDE

What worries us today is little Elian. The decision to let the legal process be the only path seems to me very good. The boy is in the United States; his father and grandparents should travel to Miami. That's what proper authorities in the United States have proposed.

However, Castro said he won't allow the father or any other member of Elian's family to leave the country because he believes that all Miami lawyers are corrupt. Castro also announced that Elian's father does not accept the American judicial procedures.

But the decision must come from American law. It's best for the mental health of the protagonist of this tragedy, whose sole cause is the demented dictatorship of Castro.

As to Elian's return, whether it's carried out by force or in a swap for the deported prisoners (which would be shameful for the United States) remains to be seen. In fact, whether he knows it or not, Elian is a hero. To Castro followers, however, he is a hero who will have to renounce, even repudiate, the memory of his mother, who died for him in hopes he would enjoy a dreamed-of freedom.

If Elian returns -- President Clinton, Mrs. Clinton (you, a mother), and also you, Hollywood artists -- he will face the most embarrassing and harmful violations of his human rights and the worst humiliations directed at his late mother.

CHE AS A ROLE MODEL

To whom report those psychologists who appeared on Cuban television to opine on the boy's mental health? To a fascist madman: Fidel Castro. (Curiously enough, in Cuban slang, State Security agents are called ``psychologists.'')

Elian will have to swear every morning that he will be like Che, that is, a suicidal guerrilla, a doctor who never had a practice, a husband who abandoned family and children to make war in places where he didn't belong, a warmonger par excellence. Elian no longer will be able to decide for himself. He will be converted into a Castro puppet. He already is one and doesn't know it.

Let us Cubans, all of us, say in unison:

Free Elian from the bloody claws of Castroism!

Free the Cuban children kidnapped by Castroism!

Long live the memory of Elizabet Brotons, a heroine in a kidnapped motherland!

Zoe Valdes is a celebrated Cuban author based in Paris. This column was translated by Herald staff translator Renato Perez.

Copyright 1999 Miami Herald

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