Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon News

A deafening silence
Why haven't Latino leaders spoken out about the LAPD scandal?
By Sandra Hernandez
[03/07/00]

A flood of relief
An international showcase of aid in Mozambique could mean a long-term boon for the impoverished country.
By Vivienne Walt
[03/07/00]

Why are black leaders silent on black hate crimes?
Their failure to denounce violence against whites, like the suburban Pittsburgh killings, cedes the moral high ground to white supremacists.
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
[03/06/00]

Shame on liberal hypocrites!
By exploiting a 6-year-old's tragic murder, liberals reveal the moral idiocy of their ideology.
By David Horowitz
[03/06/00]

A Black Panther's last hurrah
David Hilliard wants to win an Oakland City Council seat by flogging the legacy of the group that still haunts the city. His failure to gain support shows how little the Panthers matter to its future.
By Kate Coleman
[03/06/00]

Complete archives for News

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

"Fidel Castro is right in this case," says Orrio, a member of the Cooperative of Independent Journalists in Havana. "According to international accords on children, the boy should be brought back to Cuba to be with his father," Orrio argues when reached by phone in Cuba. "Castro is right about that and has used the case to rally tremendous support here in Cuba and in the international community. The people pushing this have played into Castro's hands."

Of course, in the eyes of the right-wing Cuban exile community, Fidel Castro has never been right about anything, and Orrio would be lucky to escape a Little Havana restaurant in one piece, despite his credentials as an anti-communist.

Dissident leader Hector Palacios, who runs Havana's Center for Social Studies and has been jailed numerous times for his political positions, says, "What we are seeing is the extreme left here in Cuba and the extreme right in Miami fighting over this child. We think the boy should be here with his father and both sides are using him."

The emotional battle over Elián underscores the discord in approaches and, sometimes, ideologies between the two anti-Castro camps. In Miami, the swaggering right-wing opposition is led by the politically and economically powerful Cuban American National Foundation, which, like most Cuban-Americans, supports keeping Elián in the United States. On the other side of the Gulfstream are the frequently more moderate and relatively threadbare anti-communists of Cuba, splintered groups under constant threat of arrest. Many Cuban dissidents believe that their interests are being ignored, and even betrayed, by exile leaders in Miami, who have received far more publicity.

"On the radio here you have people who call the dissidents spies and agents of Cuban state security," says Gladys Perez, a former right-wing Miami Cuban who came back an ally of the dissidents after a visit to Cuba in the mid-'90s. "It's absolutely awful. Even if you are fighting for Cuba, but don't think exactly as they do, they won't support you. These are people who are risking their freedom and possibly their lives."

Dario Moreno, a professor of political science at Florida International University and a prominent commentator, agrees. "I think the exile movement here has been very insensitive to the dissidents," he says. "To speak out in Cuba takes great courage, but in Miami you hear people saying that the dissidents don't do enough. This leads to a backlash in Cuba. The dissidents say, 'Hey, listen, you in Miami are not risking your lives.' It was an unstable relationship to begin and has been extremely strained by the Elián thing."

Ninoska Perez Castellon, spokeswoman for the Cuban American National Foundation, by far the most powerful of the right-wing exile groups, says her organization supports some dissidents and has provided them with radio exposure in Miami and broadcasts to the island. But Perez Castellon does not hide her irritation with others, like Elizardo Sanchez, who spent eight years in a Cuban prison for political crimes, but has also been allowed to travel outside of Cuba. She believes Sanchez is being used as a propaganda tool by Castro to project an image of tolerance. And some dissidents may be siding with Castro on the Elián issue out of fear of reprisals, though she concedes that others may be expressing their honest opinions.

"I don't know what to make of people who admit there are large human rights problems in Cuba, but they still want us to send a six-year-old boy to live there," she says.

As president of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation in Havana, Sanchez offers a different perspective: "The laws in Cuba are not applied evenly. That is a major issue for us," Sanchez says. "The great majority of dissidents here in Cuba believe this case should be decided according to the law and that law says the child should go to his closest relative, in this case the father. The case shouldn't be decided in a way that is just to gain a momentary political advantage and hurt us in the long run. And while it drags on, the whole world has lost sight of the lack of a society of laws on this island."

Next page | Biblical drama or political pedophilia?