NLG Cuba Subcommittee
FROM SEATTLE TO ELIAN:
CUBA'S BATTLES WIN BROAD SUPPORT
By Art Heitzer,
Chairperson, Cuba Sub-CommitteeThis article is published in the Spring 2000 edition of Guild Notes
"After the triumph of the Cuban revolution in 1959, the ILWU was the first union in the USA to defend the right of the Cuban people to self-determination. We condemned our government's engineering of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and have subsequently and consistently opposed in the strongest terms the US government's cruel embargo against Cuba which clearly violates international law not to mention every standard of human decency."
--Brian McWilliams, in Seattle 12/3/99, president of the Int'l. Longshoremen & Warehouse Union (ILWU), which co-hosted labor's anti-WTO protests there, and shut down the west coast ports during the WTO opening session [FN1, This and the other remarks quoted from that day are included in a videotape of the entire rally as well as other WTO protests and activities on Friday 12/3/99, which is available from JUSTICEVISION (213) 747-6345]
"The three richest persons have more money than the GDP of the 48 poorest countries where 600 million people live. It is impossible for the system to survive where the 200 richest people on the planet have more income than 41% of the world population; ... a tax of just 1% on the world's richest 200 persons could provide primary education for all the children of the world. "
"Are we are idealists? Yes, profoundly. What would happen if there were no dreamers today? Do we have to accept the way things are today? We think not. We have the right to fight to give all our children a fairer world. And we believe this is possible, if the technologies and resources available today are used for the benefit of everyone."
--Felipe Perez Roque, Cuba's 34 year old Foreign Minister & head of its delegation to the WTO, Seattle, 12/3/99
I
The battle for the return of Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba was starting to brew in the Gulf region just as youthful protestors trained in nonviolence and tens of thousands of labor activists in Seattle exposed and confronted representatives of the world's richest nations during the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Cuba's delegation, led by its new foreign minister, Felipe Perez Roque, also included the head of its student federation, a 20-something firebrand who emotionally relayed how the delegates from Cuba and many other third world countries were inspired by the struggle they saw in the streets. This was at a solidarity rally on their last night in Seattle, held at a restored African-American church after it had been burned by arsonists.
At the rally, Minister Perez Roque read two declarations from the trade ministers of Africa and of the Caribbean, respectively, both of which denounced their exclusion from crucial decisionmaking meetings inside the WTO. Then with a passage from Isaiah, he projected an alternative WTO agenda to address the interests of the world's poor, observing that "the struggles weren't just in the streets; there have been pitched battles inside the convention center."
In his final comments to a group of activists he emphasized that US policies towards Cuba deny particularly the rights of Cuban-Americans as well as other US citizens to travel freely to Cuba. He stressed the need to support legislation to allow for sale of food and medicine to Cuba, but also to remove all trade and finance restrictions so that Cuba can realistically enter the US market.
The same day Cuba's WTO delegation left, another came from Cuba for a dialogue with US activists. On their arrival a University of Havana law professor expressed their collective outrage about the situation of Elian Gonzalez. That weekend the US movement to support Elian's return began.
II
Young Elian is the most famous of countless Cubans whose families have been divided as a result of the US policy since President Kennedy pledged to "build a wall around Cuba." While the 40 year old US policy designed to create "hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government" in Cuba [FN2, April 6, 1960 State Dept. Memo by L.D. Mallory, quoted in the Sept. 13, 1999 Proclamation by Cuba's National Assembly asserting that the US economic blockade in an act of genocide. Copies available from the Cuba Subcommittee.] has fallen far short of its ultimate goal, Cuba has estimated that the economic blockade has cost it more than $60 billion, not to mention a huge toll in human suffering, inconvenience and lost opportunities.
The Cuban government openly acknowledges that a minority of its citizens seek to emigrate to the US for primarily economic reasons (while virtually none seek to "flee" Cuba to live in its Third world neighbors, such as Haiti & Jamaica). In contrast to the "Berlin wall" images, the Cuban government has for years favored increasing the numbers of Cubans who are allowed to migrate to the US in an orderly and peaceful fashion. The US policy, however, has been very contradictory, destabilizing and punitive. The result has been heartbreak and separation for countless Cuban and Cuban-American families. [FN3, This is movingly documented in the excellent video "Miami - Havana" by Estela Bravo, available for loan from Cuba Subcommittee, or purchase from the Cinema Guild, 212 246-5522.]
Here are the basic elements of current US immigration policy towards people from Cuba:
1) Through radio and other means the US entices Cubans to "flee" to the US.
2) It only reluctantly agreed to Cuban government's repeated requests to increase the number of Cubans the US allows to legally immigrate (which is now 20,000 per year, but with a reported backlog of several hundred thousand).
3) Under the Cuban Adjustment Act, the US allows unlimited numbers of Cubans to stay in the US and then achieve permanent residency if they are discovered on US soil, most of whom had to first risk their lives attempting to enter illegally by sea.
4) Even after some relaxation, the US still restricts the right of Cuban-Americans to visit Cuba and their relatives there.
5) It also frequently denies visa applications by Cubans who wish to reside in Cuba, but want to visit their relatives in the US.
6) Ironically, US law declares that it is an "act of aggression" if Cuba were to allow a "mass migration" of Cubans like Elian to come to US shores (this was sponsored by Dan Burton and Jesse Helms who have also helped lead the congressional charge to keep Elian here, as a congressional "witness" and/or as a newly made citizen).
One result has been to tragically divide thousands of Cuban families. Another has been to encourage a growing industry in human traffic, smuggling immigrants into the US, often in very unsafe conditions, such as befell Elian's mother and must have traumatized him. While this is not unique to immigrants from Cuba, what is unique is that even if their illegal entry is discovered, Cuban immigrants are allowed to stay.
Overwhelming principles of family law [FN4, for these and other sources, please refer to the www.nlg.org website] not only support custody for a surviving parent, but also mandate that in a case of taking a child over a state or international boundary, any custody dispute should be handled in the court of original jurisdiction, where custody was granted (in this case there was joint custody in Cuba, with Elian spending 5 nights a week at his father's house) and where the child lived before the flight to another jurisdiction. The right of a parent to custody of his/her child, including the right to determine his basic upbringing and nationality is also well established and constitutionally protected. And the INS order, supported by Janet Reno in principle but so far not in action, followed established principles in determining that only Elian's surviving father could speak for him on immigration matters. INS investigators likewise found that Elian's father had a close and loving relationship with him, and sincerely and without coercion had requested his son's return to live with him in Cuba. [FN5, The INS decision and other primary documents are also on the nlg.org website.]
After his rescue at sea where his mother and some 10 others drowned, the INS swiftly turned Elian over to distant relatives allied with extreme opponents of the Cuban revolution, rather than other relatives in Miami who supported his return. And it has failed to promptly enforce its January 5, 2000 order that Elian belongs with his father in Cuba. Those who now hold Elian have stated they will not cooperate with the order to return him, and Miami police announced that they will not do anything to assist either. The Guild and others have criticized Atty. Genl. Reno's go slow attitude, when she invited a court challenge and delayed indefinitely any compliance with the INS order. The distant relatives holding Elian have paraded him on TV, involved him in regular meetings with politicians, and apparently subjected him to psychiatric treatment, all without the permission of his father or any one besides themselves.
They have been offered at least one contract for a CBS mini-series. Elian's father has emotionally complained that when he tried to talk to his son at their house by telephone, he has been offered large amounts of money to get him to defect and join Elian in the US, rather than requesting Elian's return.
As of this writing, it seems that the campaign to keep Elian here and make him a citizen has lost its momentum in Congress. In 1999, a large majority had favored partially lifting the economic blockade on food and medicine but were stymied by the GOP congressional leadership. Numerous opinion polls showed that large majorities favor Elian's return. Observers in Cuba report that a mass movement led by young people expresses a strong popular consensus there demanding Elian's return to his father.
Despite selective reporting by US mass media, the exploitative and uncompromising stance by the extremists in Miami toward Elian seems to have isolated and exposed them to a broad range of US public opinion which is uncomfortable with sacrificing the father-son relationship in order to pursue hatred of the Castro revolution. In contrast, the father's side has been represented not just by the Cuban government, but even more publicly by the 52 million member National Council of Churches of Christ of the USA, which answered the call of the Cuban Council of Churches for help.
NCC General Secretary Joan Brown Campbell, a Baptist minister who had been to Cuba repeatedly and met with Fidel Castro at length, also spoke at the Seattle rally as the WTO meeting was collapsing, noting that "US policy has imposed an endless night of human rights violations against Cuba." She has since been succeeded in her position by Rev. Robert Edgar, who also accompanied Elian's grandmothers in their January visit to the US. Rev. Edgar quoted from the same book of Isaiah as had For. Min. Perez Roque in Seattle, noting the prophecy that "a little child will lead them" (Isa. 11:6) and suggesting in a hopeful note that this controversy might yet lead us to a new relationship with Cuba.
Guild members are continuing to monitor legal developments and to provide legal analysis to activists as well as to members of congress. We have lobbied against citizenship, demanded compliance with the INS order, and have assisted demonstrations on a local and national level.
We also hope to increase our work with Cuban Americans including lawyers to end the violation of human rights our policy imposes not only on the family of Elian, but also on countless other families. And, we are working to build the biggest and broadest delegation to the IADL and AAJ ever at their joint congress in Havana, Oct. 16-20, 2000.
For many related documents please see the nlg.org website, and/or contact the Cuba Subcommittee at cubawifriends@mindspring.com or: through Art Heitzer, 606 W. Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 1706, Milwaukee, WI 53203 aheitzer@igc.org tel: 414 273-1040 & fax 414 273-4859