Search Salon

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

Recently in Salon News

The drug war gravy train
How the White House rewarded U.S. News, Seventeen and other magazines for publishing anti-drug articles.
By Daniel Forbes
[03/31/00]

Agony in the garden
A California diocese recovers from a sex-abuse scandal, and finds that healing comes through facing the truth.
By John van der Zee
[03/30/00]

Lessons from "Erin Brockovich"
If tort reformers like George W. Bush had their way, greedy corporations like California public utility PG&E would still be poisoning their neighbors.
By Joe Conason
[03/28/00]

Better dead than red, white and blue
By electing Vladimir Putin president, Russians chose a product of the same repressive police state that has cost millions of lives -- because being a superpower is better than being a Western plaything.
By Jeffrey Tayler
[03/28/00]

Vouchers and the law: The rebuttals
In Round 2 of a Salon debate on school vouchers, our experts exchange barbs.
By Daryl Lindsey
[03/28/00]

Complete archives for News

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

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

"It's a community I was born and raised in," Reno said of Miami. "It's a community I love. And when it's hurting, it hurts me. This case has been heartbreaking for everybody involved, but we believe the law is clear. The father must speak for the little boy because there is sacred bond that must be honored and the boy must be reunited with his father." Asked if she was prepared to enforce the rule of law, she answered. "You bet."

Miami politics, stormy and insular at the best of times, have grown even more so during the Elián crisis. Miami Cubans have defied both national and international public opinion to insist that the child stay in the United States. Wednesday, 24 mayors from around Miami-Dade County blasted the federal government for charting a path of confrontation with the emotional exile community.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas, a Democrat, offered the bluntest criticism: "If their continued provocation, in the form of unjustified threats to revoke the boy's parole, leads to civil unrest and violence, we are holding the federal government responsible, and specifically Janet Reno and President Bill Clinton." Penelas and Miami Mayor Joe Carollo also said they would not allow their police forces to assist federal authorities in any attempt to take the 6-year-old boy from the house.

The comments brought a wave of complaints from some county citizens, especially non-Cubans. The Cuban community has often been accused in the past of disregarding U.S. laws in order to fight the Castro government, and especially of insisting on providing special treatment under immigration law for Cubans, a position that has angered other ethnic groups. Penelas' statement brought accusations that he was endangering the public order.

Seeking to calm a political firestorm Thursday, Miami Police Department spokesman Bill Schwartz clarified that plans are in place to deal with violence. "The mayor meant that we will not participate in any attempt to retrieve the boy from that house, but we are still in charge of keeping public order and we will do so," Schwartz said. "We aren't on high alert yet, but people know what they have to do if something erupts," he said.

The Democracia Movement's Sanchez said something will definitely erupt if the Justice Department attempts to revoke Elián's parole. Sanchez, 46, who says his group has 16,700 names on its membership rolls, stands to be the most visible and influential exile leader on the streets if things turn nasty.

A former member of two violent anti-Castro commando groups, Alpha 66 and Omega 7, Sanchez spent four and a half years in federal prison in the 1980s on contempt of court charges, after he refused to testify about an attempt to murder Castro during a visit to the United Nations. During that prison stay he studied the writings of both Gandhi and Martin Luther King and emerged as a believer of nonviolent political action.

Sanchez said his group would try to block any attempt to reunite the child with his father before all the legal options have been explored. He said the procedures already underway in federal courts would not be enough.

"We have civil disobedience actions planned," said Sanchez, whose organization has blocked highways in the past in support of exile causes and provoked great irritation in both public officials and many county residents. "First we will form a human chain around the house. Then we are considering blocking the airport; either sending hundreds of cars that will drive very slowly and block access there, or maybe even to stage sit-ins. We would stage sit-ins at key intersections downtown and also the Port of Miami, especially on Friday when the cruise ships are due to leave."
salon.com | March 31, 2000

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

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

  Get a printer-friendly version

  E-mail a friend about this article

  Backflip this article to find it again

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

Search Salon