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The brazen exploitation and politicization of the boy's tragedy was obvious to the overwhelming majority of the public and was consistently reflected in opinion polls that sided with the official position of the INS and the interests of Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. It has to be emphasized that even within the Cuban community in Miami, but yet more clearly here in the Northeast of the United States, significant segments did not support the positions taken by the boy's Miami relatives and the highly visible demonstrations in their support. Indeed, from a strictly legal point of view there was virtually no point that would have supported a transfer of Juan Miguel's right to the Miami relatives. In this context the public has to remember the revelation that the Dade County Circuit judge, who stayed the January 14 scheduled date for the return of Elian to Cuba, was herself linked to the spokesman of the Miami relatives. The fact that the Florida judges are elected may also have tipped the balance in favor of the relatives since returning the child might have cost a Miami judge's reelection.
Over the years there has also been substantial intimidation. Emanating from the anti-Castro Cuban American national Foundation and smaller militant groups. Indeed a number of years ago a congressional subcommittee found that moderates in the Miami Cuban American community had been systematically subjected to harassment, economic boycotts, and in several cases have been murdered by local ideological fanatics. This can hardly speak of the good and democratic intentions of this faction, and the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) in Washington concluded that it is appropriate to speak of an "ultraconservative political mafia". It is highly questionable if the $1,826,000 spent by the Justice Department on the Elian Gonzalez case could not have been spent more wisely on the upliftment of socially deprived communities either in the United States or in Cuba. Instead, a minority of the public tried to make a political point strongly reminiscent of Cold War tactics of the period between the 1950's and the 1980's. Apparently the Miami relatives of the Cuban boy must also have received substantial financial support from the lawyers they were hiring to challenge existing immigration laws that clearly enshrine a functional father's right to speak for his underage son.
While the legal process may have demonstrated the ultimately proper functioning of the US legal process, it appears equally clear that the affair has damaged the credibility of US foreign policy in such matters. ON January 25, Ambassador Mary A. Ryan, assistant secretary for consular affairs, publicly warned that a decision to prevent the speedy return of Elian to his father would be totally out of keeping with the principles the United States would defend in the case of the US child. There are about 10,000 children throughout the world who were taken from their country by one of their parents without the permission of the other.
Throughout the affair little attention was given to the Cuban family's side of the story. Some of this was revealed in a report by Nobel-prized author Gabriel Garcia Marquez that has been published in various Spanish and Latin American newspapers. While, for example, the point was often made that Elian had expressed in a video-taped statement that he didn't want to go back to Cuba, few people know that prior to his dangerous trip across the Miami Straits he had been fearful and sobbed that he wanted to stay behind. As Elian's father recounted, the boy's Miami relatives obstructed telephone conversations with him from the very beginning. "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 candy in his mouth so I can't understand what he's saying." The display of the boy by the Miami relatives, at the occasion of his sixth birthday, with combat helmet, surrounded with lethal weapons and draped in the US flag, shortly before a child his age shot dead a schoolmate in the state of Michigan, could hardly have been an expression of a relative's love.
Given the half-truths and exploitation of the case by outsiders, the ostensible relaxation of US trade policy towards Cuba is a welcome turn of events. Nevertheless there are a number of concerns that surround even this new, positive attitude. In particular, the fact that the amendment prohibits the financing of loans to Cuba (even for the private sector!), and that it maintains prohibitions on products and services (including travel regulations), renders this initiative largely symbolic. Thus, it will be near to impossible for the impoverished Cuba to take advantage of the critical US exports made accessible in principle through the Nethercutt initiative. The question arises what really qualifies other countries (for example Iran, Libya, Sudan or North Korea) also mentioned in this amendment to access such loans, while Cuba doesn't. As the COHA recently asked? "Why does Sudan, whose military regime boasts one of the world's largest IMF debts and an abysmal human rights record, deserve this right any more than Cuba. In order to achieve greater consistency in its trade policy and to engage the political regime in Cuba, the island ought to be allowed to access trade loans. In this regard it is also worthwhile to recognize as professor Peter Roman (Hostos Community College, CUNY) in his recently published book People's Power: Cuba's Experience With Representatives Government (Boulder (Colo): Westview Press 1999) did that at the local and regional level Cuba has achieved quite substantial levels of direct political participation and democratic procedure. A consistent trade policy, which allows a more substantial "carrot of constructive engagement", while wielding less of the Cold War style "containment stick".
(Dr. Holger Henke is Research Fellow, Caribbean Research Center Medgar Evers College, New York)