The Militant (logo) 
Vol.63/No.45      December 20, 1999 
 
 
Thousands rally in Cuba to demand Washington stop its provocations 
 
 
BY ERIC SIMPSON 
MIAMI—The refusal of the U.S. government to repatriate six-year-old Elián González to Cuba has drawn protests from hundreds of thousands of Cubans. Some 200,000 people rallied in front of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana December 8. It was the fourth such action in as many days, and the largest so far.

Cuban President Fidel Castro has called on the Cuban people to wage a "battle for world public opinion" and win support for the child's return.

González was rescued by fishermen after a shipwreck left him clinging to an inner tube in the Florida Straits for two days. He was one of 13 Cubans who left Cuba outside legal channels aboard an overloaded 20-foot boat. Ten drowned, including the boy's mother.

González was turned over to the Coast Guard, brought to shore, and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) released him to relatives. His father, Juan Miguel González, who Elián lived with, and all four of his grandparents have made it clear that they want him back home in Cárdenas, Cuba.

The U.S. government, backed by the big-business press and right-wing organizations such as the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), project the framework of a custody battle fought out in the Florida Family Court. They have demanded that Juan Miguel González travel to the United States to argue for his son's return against the boy's Miami relatives.

"This is not a topic for negotiation or legal wrangling in the hands of banal and corrupt judges such as those in Florida," said Alejandro González Galliano of Cuba's ministry of foreign relations.

Ricardo Alarcón, president of the Cuban parliament, told Cárdenas residents at a rally December 5, "We are demanding that they send him back immediately, because we have what is most important, moral force."  
 

U.S. officials lead anti-Cuba campaign

Taking the lead in slandering the Cuban revolution, U.S. State Department spokesperson James Rubin asserted December 6, "When [people] are prepared to take the extraordinary risks and go around the safe, orderly, and legal process, it is a function of the terrible deprivations they live under in Cuba. The blame clearly lies squarely on Cuba's shoulders for creating the conditions and refusing to reform the country, and denying the human rights and economic conditions to these people."

A Miami rightist political funeral procession for seven of the drowned immigrants, called by the counterrevolutionary Radio Mambí, had a similar political point. "We want to show the world what some people go through to escape a brutal dictatorship," one rightist told the Miami Herald. The bodies were interred in the "Cuban Mausoleum" of Radio Mambí.

It's the U.S. government's policies, however, that encourage dangerous attempts to cross the Florida Straits by boat. Cubans who reach the United States by extralegal means are granted residency under the terms of the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. At the same time, Washington tightly restricts visas for those who wish to move to the United States. In 1994 and 1995 immigration accords with Havana, the U.S. government agreed to issue 20,000 visas a year, but has failed to live up to this pledge according to Cuban government officials.

A minority layer of Cubans have sought to get out from under the pressures of the economic crisis that is affecting not only Cuba but all of Latin America. Some decide to try to migrate to the United States without a visa in hopes of finding better economic conditions. A handful of these are opponents of the Cuban revolution.

The discussion in the working class, both in Cuba and in the US, including in Miami, is not adequately reflected in public opinion polls on González's situation. At one garment plant in Opa Locka, this is the number one discussion. Many people agree that the father has the right to care for his young child, and some call for his repatriation, but others say that socialist Cuba offers the child "no future."

U.S. State Department officials said December 8 they would send representatives to meet with Juan Miguel González in Cuba, instead of insisting he travel to Miami, to discuss "an appropriate resolution."

But they still say he must prove his parentage, file U.S. immigration paperwork, and then wait for the INS to decide on his child's status.

That same day U.S. officials announced they are sending back to Cuba six individuals who allegedly hijacked a Cuban tourist boat to Florida at knifepoint December 6. Two crew members who were taken hostage were repatriated and the boat are also returned. Often in such cases the hijackers are granted U.S. residency, and hostages pressured to stay in the United States.

Eric Simpson is a member of the United Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, Local 415.  
 
 
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