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| GOODBYE, ELIAN | |
 June 28, 2000  |
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Elian Gonzalez returns to Cuba after the Supreme Court turns down a last-minute appeal to keep him in the U.S. Three experts discuss the boy's future and the case's legal precedents.
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| Taking flight | ||||||||||||||||||||
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RAY SUAREZ: As the family made its final preparations to leave the country from Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia, 4:00 Eastern Time passed-Juan Miguel Gonzalez was free to leave with his son.
RAY SUAREZ: And after that brief and conciliatory statement, Gonzalez boarded the aircraft, waved good-bye, and after seven months since he was fished from the waters off Florida, Elian Gonzalez was gone. A short time later, a spokesman for the Lazaro Gonzalez family spoke from Miami. ARMANDO GUTIERREZ, Family Spokesman: Elian's arrival and the subsequent fight for his life was like a wake-up call for the Cubans in Miami. Many had become complacent with our lives in the United States of America. Young and old, rich and poor, so many have forgotten the crisis in our country that brought us to this country. Elian's mother brought him to this great country seeking the promise of our Statute of Liberty. She and her son were among the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. How tragic that unlike the immigration of so many Americans, myself included, Elian Gonzalez cannot yet be free. Lazaro Gonzalez wants everyone to know that the family will still fight for Elian to be free regardless of where he's at. |
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| A panel discussion | ||||||||||||||||||||
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RAY SUAREZ: For perspective on the Elian Gonzalez story, we turn now
to Maria de Los Angeles Torres, an associate professor of political
science at DePaul University. She is the author of "In the Land
of Mirrors: Cuban Exile Politics in the United States." Juan Gonzalez,
a columnist for The New York Daily News. He is also the author of the
book "Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America."
And Charles Lane, an editorial writer for The Washington Post.
RAY SUAREZ: Maria Torres, one, you heard suggest that there was some media obsession here, but weren't there also compelling issues at the core that kept this in the spotlight?
RAY SUAREZ: Charles Lane, were there points during the seven-month trajectory of this story that you found yourself scratching your head or did it make perfect sense? CHARLES LANE, Washington Post: Well, I think the issues, as the others have said, were very real and very stark. What seemed to happen as the media fed on this was that all sorts of ancillary narratives started to emerge. The story of the fisherman, the story of Maryslesis going to the hospital, all sorts of side shows spun off from this just as they did in some of the other stories that were mentioned, O.J., and Monica. But if we can now in retrospect strip all of those kind of - as you say -- head-scratching kind of side shows away, I do think that there were very powerful and legitimate issues that were at the core of this thing. |
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| Raising undercovered issues? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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RAY SUAREZ: Well, at various points during this panel, you could have heard nuanced, thoughtful conversations about the right of parents to children, about international custody cases, a lot of issues that often don't get covered in the national press. Professor Torres? MARIA DE LOS ANGELES TORRES: Right. I mean, I think one of the interesting things about Elian Gonzalez has been that we are starting to think about children's emotional rights, not so much parental or for that matter INS or federal. That's how it's played out in the courts. But for Elian I think many people felt that it was important for us to keep in mind what he needed as a child. This is something that we don't have in American law or, for that matter, in law in almost any country in the world. We have a charter at the United Nations that indeed is not signed by the United States, and it's clearly violated by the Cuban state. And I think these are the issues that would be important for us to take a look at as we continue to really think about what happened in the last seven months.
JUAN GONZALEZ: It's clear that two things have happened. One, I don't
quite agree on this issue that this has unmasked a need to deal with
the rights of children because for instance there are thousands of Mexican
children who have been deported by themselves back to Mexico without
any of the furor raised around Elian. Similar things have happened with
Haitian children in the past and other communities have experienced
similar tragedies. RAY SUAREZ: Charles Lane, do you agree? CHARLES LANE: Well, I agree but I would put it slightly differently. I think the Cuban exile community in Miami, its leadership and indeed the family itself, overplayed their hand or misplayed their hand in terms of public perception. They appeared strident. They appeared to be in defiance of the law - and, indeed, common-sense notions about who should have custody over a child if one parent dies. They seemed to be talking past the American public, as this thing went along. So as a result at the end, they have become politically more isolated than they have ever been before. I agree with what Mr. Gonzalez just said, that in Congress we're already seeing that their clout has been somewhat reduced although far from eliminated. I think it's worth noting that the president at his press conference also kind of went out of his way to pound his fist on the podium there and add some condemnation of Fidel Castro to dispel some of the rumors that are there in the Cuban community during this election year that the Clinton-Gore administration is about to soften up the U.S. hard line on Cuba. RAY SUAREZ: Professor Torres, you've been writing about this community for many years. Did they, as Charles Lane suggests, overplay their hand?
RAY SUAREZ: Does it take away a certain aura of invincibility that this community may have had, that they win a lot of these political confrontations?
RAY SUAREZ: Juan Gonzalez, does it become harder to view the Latino community in the United States, 30-plus million strong, in monolithic terms now because of the splits that showed up during this controversy?
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| A different Cuba? | ||||||||||||||||||||
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RAY SUAREZ: Now, here in Washington, Charles Lane, do policy-makers have to reckon with a different Cuba in the American mind than they did seven months ago? CHARLES LANE: I think one of the things Fidel Castro achieved for himself in this affair was not to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba, as such. But to normalize Cuba in the public perception in the United States, that is to say, he managed this story very skillfully and turned it into a story about how down in Cuba, we have families just like you have in the United States. We have fathers and sons and loving fathers and decent families and the rest. And that story line, I think, managed to dominate the coverage. And, in that sense I think he made great inroads in-- fairly or not by the way because as one of the other guests has quite rightly pointed out, there are tremendous abuses of human rights in Cuba-- but for better or worse, he has I think made inroads in the public perception in the United States of what life in Cuba is like. And I think he has changed the story line, if you like, and therefore, I think, laid the basis as we've already seen in Congress for different policy approaches. He's made it... somehow this case I wouldn't want to say Mr. Castro but this case has made it politically a little bit less expensive for people to advocate changes in the embargo and the rest.
CHARLES LANE: Well, look, we've already seen what's happened in the House. The entire House Republican leadership was lined up against this bill to lift the ban on food and medicine sales to Cuba, and nevertheless couldn't impose its will, had to compromise on that. It's very difficult to forecast anything, much more happening before we know who the next President and the next Congress are going to be. Clearly George Bush has a different view. Al Gore, as we've already seen, he's maintained at least in the Elian case a more pro-Cuban exile position than President Clinton. Of course, that could be modified after the election. But, you know, for all that, it is clear that some kind of invulnerability as you put it of the Cuban exile community politically in Washington has been punctured. That could lead to other changes as well. RAY SUAREZ: Panel, thank you all for being with us. |
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RAY
SUAREZ: On Elian Gonzalez' last day in the United States, Americans
saw him once again, playing at a distance. But today his father and
legal advisors weren't waiting for something to happen, but for something
not to happen. The Supreme Court had been asked by the boy's family
members in Miami to extend the expiring court order keeping Juan Miguel
and Elian Gonzalez in the United States. The high court refused to act.
In Miami, there was disaffection and dismay as the final hours of the
restraining order, set to end at 4:00pm Eastern Time, ticked away. A
few protesters milled around the now-famous house in Miami where Elian
lived with his great uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez and family. Today in Washington
at his news conference, President Clinton said that if Juan Miguel Gonzalez
had decided to stay in America with his son, it would have been fine
with him. 
PRESIDENT
CLINTON: But I think that the most important thing is that his father
was adjudged by people who made an honest effort to determine that he
was a good father, a loving father, committed to the son's welfare.
And we upheld here what I think is a quite important principle, as well
as what is clearly the law of the United States. Do I wish it had unfolded
in a less dramatic, less traumatic way for all concerned? Of course,
I do. I have replayed this in my mind many times. I don't know that
we had many different options than we pursued, given how the thing developed.
But I think the fundamental principle is the right one, and I am glad
we did. 
JUAN
MIGUEL GONZALEZ: (Translated) I would like to thank the North American
people for the support they have given us and to the U.S. Government.
I think that this has allowed me to meet very beautiful and intelligent
people in this country, and I hope that in the future this same friendship
and this same impression that I have of the U.S. people, that the same
thing can become true between both our countries, Cuba and the U.S.
I am very grateful for the support I have received. I am extremely happy
of being able to go back to my homeland, and I don't have words really
to express what I feel.
JUAN
MIGUEL GONZALEZ: We are very happy to be going home. Thank you. 
JUAN
GONZALEZ, Daily News: Well, I think, Ray, the big problem we have in
America today and still among our self-s in the mass media is a problem
that we turn some of these human tragedies into soap opera news spectacles
more to sometimes entertain the American people than to really educate
them. I think that this was another example, whether you can go from
O.J., to Monica and now it's Elian. I think that the reality was that
in an election year, the arrival of Elian on Thanksgiving Day touched
off a debate not only about family values that the American people hold
dear versus the continuing fight of the Cold War against Castro, but
it also raised issues in terms of how our country continues to regard
Cuba very differently even from other socialist countries like China
or Vietnam or Korea and why that is. I think all of these things came
to the fore in this election year. 
MARIA
DE LOS ANGELES TORRES, DePaul University: Clearly, I mean, I think this
one child became the life raft only for a sinking state in Cuba, very
desperate politics here in Miami as we watch in a certain sense Cuba
become chic and for presidential hopefuls from Al Gore to George Bush,
who had to make statements about this child. I think for Cuban exiles,
wrongly placed but nonetheless very important issues, were placed through
this child that are still very important. There are human rights violations
in Cuba. There is one man who has been in power for over 40 years. I
think there's a frustration that found its place in this one child,
and these are issues that are not going to go away because Elian is
with his father.
RAY
SUAREZ: So, Juan Gonzalez, does this serious confrontation with the
various issues raised by this story continue or does it just dissolve,
unravel, now that the child is gone? 
MARIA
DE LOS ANGELES TORRES: Absolutely. I think that it was misplaced in
this one child because in a certain sense this is a community that was
founded by many parents who sent their children through the Operation
Peter Pan for instance and it was about being able to exercise your
political will. This was one case where there were... at least one parent
who was alive who was saying he wanted his child back. I think that
this has been a blow to, if you will, the integrity of political organizations.
On the other hand, I think that a lot of good questions are being raised
about not only the political leadership but the strategies that have
been used and indeed our place as a community in this-- and indeed our
place as a community in the United States. I would say there's a lot
of discussion about how INS has become the great equalizer, if you will,
for Cubans. I'd like to think that we should advocate not that everyone
else... that we should be treated like everyone else but indeed that
other immigrants should be treated with the respect that Cuban exiles
have had in the past.