Vol. 64/No.18 May 8, 2000
Letters
Where to aim our fire
I thought the "Toilers stand up in Latin America" editorial in the Militant was excellent. But I feel it could have been even stronger by adding a sentence on this being the way forward rather than aiming our fire at the World Bank, etc. What the editorial addresses is at the very heart of what is written in Capitalism's World Disorder. A sentence spelling this out would be a great contribution to the discussions and debates we continue to have on job sites and campuses.
D.F.
Charlotte, North Carolina
A working-class analysis
I am currently reading the Militant online, and have enjoyed your coverage this month. However, I wanted to find a working-class analysis of the unfolding events in the case of Elian. I have not found an article focusing on this topic. Why?
Carlos Hernandez
Los Angeles, California
Ruling-class divisions?
When I was in Cuba recently I was impressed by the massive mobilizations of people demanding the return of Elian to his father and Cuba. As Mary-Alice Waters reports in the April 17 issue of the Militant, the view in Cuba was generally to blame the "Miami mafia" rather than the U. S. government.
In fact, some young militants told me that the reason why there were no homemade banners or posters on the marches was because some people "wrongly wanted to place the blame on Clinton." My view was that the reason why Elian wasn't being returned immediately was because it suited the U.S. government for the boy to be used to create more space for their anti-Cuba propaganda campaign.
However, Patrick O'Neill, in his answer to Les Slater in the April 24 Militant, states that the INS ruling to return Elian González to Cuba has the majority support within the ruling class but nevertheless came under fire from right-wing politicians. He gives this as an example of the divisions that exist in U.S. foreign policy and it is these divisions that have affected the course of the Elián case. What are these divisions?
It was interesting to read in the Militant about the power of the INS and how Clinton is using the case to boost this power. I must admit that I have looked at it differently, seeing the fact that they had not actually done anything to enforce their ruling as proof that it suits them to let things drag on. However, the INS and Clinton obviously want to be seen as taking a "reasonable" position in this case. But do street mobilizations and demonstrations demanding the return of Elian to his father and his country have to be done on the basis of support for the INS?
Wendy Knight
Alicante, Spain
The campaign in Cuba
I want to thank the Militant for making available Mary-Alice Waters's comments on the Elian González question. They provided sensible answers to questions I've had.
I found confirmation of what she was saying at work, when a boss — who supports returning Elian to his father— declared to a group of workers who were discussing the case, "The INS decides who stays and who doesn't—and that's that." A number of workers nodded in agreement but the ones in the group who are most sympathetic to the Cuban revolution were simply pushed out of the discussion and into silence.
Unlike in Cuba, there has been no working-class fight and no opening to build one to return Elián to his father—and this fact has been catastrophic for Elian.
The federal government has been in basic command of the process, from the moment the INS in Miami turned the child over to his right-wing Miami relatives down to the latest delays and court hearings. The Cuban campaign was very necessary, in my opinion. It has kept the Clinton administration on the spot internationally, and has helped force the rulers to think about how far and how fast they can afford to go in acting against Cuba.
A child was lost at sea, his mother drowned, he was rescued by fishermen from the United States who brought him to shore in this country. It was the elementary duty of the authorities to immediately seek out his surviving parent in his homeland and arrange for his return.
Fred Feldman
Newark, New Jersey
INS assault result: a step foward
The long captivity of Elian Gonzalez in Miami, and denial of custody to Juan Miguel Gonzalez, with the accompanying media orgy, has been an international outrage. His April 22 removal from the clutches of the right-wingers and distant relatives in Miami was a step forward for the rights of working people.
I found the April 24 article on the case in the Militant to be unclear or even contradictory. The article begins by saying that the Militant "wholeheartedly supports" the return of Elian González to his father and to Cuba. But then seems to balk at or even argue against any action to bring this about, saying, "In the context of the rulers' drive to boost INS powers and to weaken the rights to legal appeal, it is dangerous to advocate the 'simple administrative return' of the child."
The "legal appeals" to take Elian away from his father consist of the false claim that he is a political refugee, fleeing persecution by the Cuban government, filing for political asylum in the U.S. He is not. The petition for asylum is being filed by right-wing groups and distant relatives, who have no right whatsoever to speak on his behalf. U.S. appeals courts have no right to sit in judgment of whether people in Cuba should have the right to have children.
The article asserts that Clinton is trying to use the case to "polish up the image of the INS." I doubt that the spectacle of the government giving lip service to the idea that Elian's father should have custody, while doing nothing for four months to bring that about, has been a pretty picture in the eyes of the vast majority of people in the U.S. who reject the anti-Cuba campaign to keep Elian in captivity in Miami.
I would compare Elian's removal by federal police to the use of U.S. troops to enforce desegregation in the South in the 1950s and '60s, something that socialists staunchly supported.
Joe Callahan
Minneapolis, Minnesota
INS action: positive development
The removal of Elian Gonzalez from the Miami home is a positive development. We should not get caught up in the debate of whether too much force was used.
The next question is what should be our position toward the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta enjoining Elian Gonzalez "from departing or attempting to depart from the United States."
The INS is a cop agency. There are others. As the capitalist crisis deepens we will find that we will face even more brutal and hated police. Their role is becoming more naked.
However, until the working class has state power, we will find that we will call on the state to enforce some of its laws. We've done it in the past and we'll do it in the future. To think otherwise smacks of ultraleftism and anarchism.
At this point we should expose and denounce all attempts to prevent Elián and his family from returning to Cuba when they wish.
Les Slater
Brookline, Massachusetts
Congrats to Reno & Clinton
WE HAVE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Elian is presently winging his way to Washington. What can stop him returning to Cuba immediately?
Well, unfortunately the answer is that Reno's dawdling in doing what she should have done in the first place enabled the Miami lawyers to get a federal court injunction against his leaving.
It is not simply up to Janet Reno to say to Juan Miguel, "Good-bye. Good luck." What she can and should do is immediately file with the courts to rescind the federal order that Elián remain in the United States. And if that fails, and if Juan Miguel is still willing to wait it out there with Elián, insist that the State Department immediately grant the visas to the rest of the group of students, teachers, psychologists, and doctors needed to help Elián and his family begin the healing and readaptation process.
Write to Reno, Clinton, Meissner et al congratulating on the action and demanding that nothing more impedes Elián from returning to his home in Cardenas, Cuba. Juan Miguel always said that the agreement to remain in the U.S. for the Atlanta appeal was on condition that Elian was returned voluntarily from Miami. He said that if force was necessary, all deals were off.
LET THEM GO NOW!!!
Karen Wald
Havana, Cuba
Flowers for Reno?—an exchange of opinions in a coalition on Cuba
[The following exchange was received from the Hartford Coalition on Cuba. It was sent to all those on its e-mail list.]
What do we think of the INS raid in Little Havana last weekend which rescued Elian Gonzalez from the Lazaro Gonzalez family? Should Attorney General Janet Reno be given credit for "finally having done the right thing." Or should we oppose the action? I have had an exchange of messages with Les Slater, an activist in the Boston July 26 coalition. I share our correspondence with you and invite your comments.
Tim Craine
Hartford, Connecticut
Craine: While the long-delayed reunification of Elián and his family has been greeted with approval by the vast majority of the people in the United States and throughout the world, we condemn the police-state methods used by the Clinton administration when it ordered federal agents to seize the child at gunpoint from the Miami home of the Lazaro González family. We hold the government responsible for the fact that Elian was allowed to be used as a pawn by right-wing forces in the Cuban-American community who became increasingly intransigent in their refusal to let him go home.
(At its meeting on April 25, the Coalition voted against retaining the language "we condemn the police-state methods used..." The vote was 3 to 5.)
Slater: I do not think we should put ourselves in the position of making tactical prescriptions on how Elián should have been removed from the Florida house. The fact that he was removed is the important thing and it is a positive development.
Craine: Have you followed the latest developments regarding Vieques? It appears that the government may use the removal of Elián as a wedge to start an operation there. Let's think carefully about what sorts of actions we implicitly endorse.
Slater: I think the removal of Elian from the Miami captors is a positive development we should not be afraid to say so. We cannot let these issues be reduced to what tactics the ruling class uses. We are in favor of Elian being removed from the clutches of the Miami gang.
We are, however, against the U.S. ruling class and their island lackies succeeding in their endeavor to maintain the colonial status of Puerto Rico, regardless of what methods they use. Intervention by U.S. forces in Puerto Rico has a qualitatively different character. We do not ever call on the U.S. state repressive forces to act in any other country.
Craine: Several days ago there was a call by some Cuba activists to send flowers to Janet Reno to thank her for rescuing Elian! This demonstrates to me how dangerous it is to fall into the trap of seeing the Clinton administration as an ally in this struggle. After all, if they had really cared for the welfare of the child they would have sent him home five months ago. I was pleased to read Stan Smith's reaction to the "flowers for Reno" campaign. At least not all Cuba solidarity activists have lost their heads. Please read the communication below.
What Should We Say about Saturday's "Rescue"?
by Stan Smith
Some of us have written articles that have included asking flowers be sent to Janet Reno and articles stating the raid to rescue Elian Gonzalez was not violent.
We should neither praise Reno nor characterize a raid by 8-10 or more INS troopers with machine guns as a nonviolent act. If 8-10 INS agents with machine guns busted into your house and started pointing these guns at you and your kids, but since no one was killed or wounded in your family, you would call that a nonviolent act?
Of course the Miami Gonzalez family were not victims. They set up the situation that created this type of Gestapo raid. However, this type of raid does not somehow become nonviolent because it was directed partly against a house of gusano kidnappers (and partly against Elian Gonzalez himself).
Reno and Clinton deserve no praise. They created this situation even more than the Miami Gonzalez family. They delayed and delayed and refused to do their jobs in order to allow anti-Cuba propaganda to flood the media. When they finally acted it was only because keeping Elian Gonzalez was no longer a political asset but a liability. The Elian Gonzalez Show backfired in their faces: to the American and world public, Cuba no longer looked evil, instead the U.S. government and its anti-Cuban allies did.
Because the government initially tried to use Elian Gonzalez for anti-Cuban propaganda, they exacerbated the situation by ignoring parental rights, U.S. law and international law. In the end they deliberately let the situation get so out of hand that they had to use Gestapo tactics to enforce the law.
Finally, when they did act, we see this cop with a machine gun in Elian Gonzalez's face. Obviously he was scared to death. I am sure Juan Miguel Gonzalez got incensed, as I hope any parent would, after seeing a cop with a machine gun in his child's face. Why should we speak out in support of rescuing Elián in that manner? We do not want to be publicizing ourselves as approving of this kind of operation. We do not want to be apologists for this kind of show of force. Now the two major American anti-Cuban groups are fighting among themselves, why should we be drawn into taking one of their sides, that of the Gestapo or the gusanos. That is not our business, not our problem.
We should stick to defending Elian Gonzalez, not that of a Gestapo operation by a government which obviously never did and still doesn't care less about Elian Gonzalez. And he, after all, is not rescued yet: he is not yet safe at home.
We should state to the public the truth behind the situation. First, that no violence at all would have been necessary if Clinton and Reno, the chief law enforcement officers had obeyed the law from the start, if they put the interests of Elian Gonzalez first. The U.S. government should have carried out the law and returned Elian Gonzalez to Cuba when he left the hospital in late November. Then this five-month ordeal for Elian and this military operation Saturday would never have been necessary.
Second, we should state that this only dragged on for five months because the government let Elian Gonzalez be used to create dishonest anti-Cuban propaganda stories.
Third, the government was forced to act only because using the Elian Gonzalez Story to bash Cuba didn't fly with the American public.
Fourth, we do not approve of the government's actions so far because we do not approve of Elian and his family still being held hostage indefinitely and against their will here in the U.S.
Fifth, the government deserves no thanks, for it is only because of their embargo of Cuba and their Cuban Adjustment Act that created the situation where Elian Gonzalez was stranded in the ocean in the first place.
The letters column is an open forum for all viewpoints on subjects of general interest to our readers.
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