Unlimited Chances
By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
February 4, 2000
Recently I've had a flurry of faxes from a couple of members of Congress who want to give Elian Gonzales American citizenship to keep him from going back to his father in Cuba. While most of the time I can agree with these two men, the information I am being sent by their offices make me wonder about how they make decisions on issues before them in Congress.
The genius of the founding fathers was creating a government in which the rule of law, not the rule of man (a king and his noblemen), would be applied equally to all, and would honor and defend the "unalienable rights" given each human being by our "Creator." Republicans and conservatives in general like to talk about the founding fathers and SAY they support the system the founding fathers created for us.
Nothing has shaken my confidence that they mean that more than the Elian Gonzales case. There is not a shred of law on the books in America that would support Elian Gonzales, a six year old who was born in Cuba, being kept from his father. Both his parents were born in Cuba. He was found in international waters 12 miles from shore in the ocean by a private fisherman who brought him to America's shore for treatment, after his mother and ten others in a small 17 foot boat drowned when it sank.
Yet, there is a political special interest group in Florida who wants to use Elian for their own purposes and who have launched a major propaganda war to keep him in America.
Some of the points made, which are being sent to me by members of Congress, and my responses to them include:
1. "Why didn't his father come immediately to get him?"
Ans. Well, for one, because of the sanctions people from Cuba can't just hop on an airplane and fly to Florida. Number two, he is convinced that he will be killed if he shows up in Florida, not necessarily a foolish thought. If he were dead, then it really would be a battle between various parts of the extended family.
2. "The President favors Elian's Return" -
Ans. So, does that mean all good Conservatives immediately take the bait and jump in to break up the Gonzales family? If the president favored Elian's return, why wasn't he returned immediately while Congress was home for Thanksgiving? Because he snookered the Conservatives, again, and led them blindly into a dead end where they have not one shred of legality on their side and where he this fall the Democrats can take the "family values" high ground away from the Conservatives.
There is a major undercutting of the "family values" high ground by this issue. Are we saying that ANY government in the world can decide it has the authority, not the parents, over the well-being of young children? Who, under the law of America, has the right to speak for Elian? His father, that's who. If the father is killed, it reverts to grandparents, if there is no will.
3. "The father approved of Elian's mother taking him to America." -
Ans. Who says? Why, of course, those who have made this a great propaganda stunt! Those paying the great-uncle as their front man for their anti-Castro propaganda war, that's who. The father has consistently denied it. The grandmothers have denied it.
4. "Parents have inalienable rights, but they are not indelible. A parents rights depend on a child's welfare."
Ans. So, who gets to decide when a parents' inalienable rights are not "indelible" - when they may be deleted? Why, the government, of course! And on what principle? IT'S decision on what is best for the child. Obviously, in a Muslim country like Iran, Iraq or Syria, that would be making certain no child of a Muslim parent is raised as a Christian. Apparently, from the statements made, in Florida that means any child raised in a place that does not have Disneyland. This notion really means children belong to the state, which those wanting to keep Elian against his family's wishes CLAIM is what Fidel Castro believes!
5. From "This Week With Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson" - "We do know, what Elian's mother wanted as she risked her life to gain freedom for Elian and herself and she should honor that."
- Ans. When my children were young, we owned a 28' Owens crusier. It was a tight fit on a long trip with our six young children. The boat Elian was on, with 13 other people, was a 17ft. boat, that LEAKED! It had made one trip back to shore to try to fix it at which point a mother and child got off and went home. The boat had started the trip with 16 people!
From that sixteen people, 13 of them had paid $1000 a head to the privilege. The trip was only 90 miles - taking very little gas to get there, probably less than $100. So, the mother's boyfriend had a $13,000 profit - and we are making him into a hero simply because his stupidity got him and 11 other people killed for breaking the law in trying to sneak illegally into the United States? And, out of curiosity, what about those other two who survived the trip? Are they in America, in jail for their effort, or have they been sent back to Cuba? Are we dealing with principle here or propaganda?
6. And, finally, there is the so-called "Human Rights" problem, quoting the United States Department of State's "Country Reports on Human Rights" concerning Cuba, which says: "Neither the (Cuban) Constitution nor the Lasbor Code prophibe forced labor. The Government maintains correctional centers where it sends people for crimes such as dangerousness. They are forced to work on farms or building sites, usually with no pay and inadequate food. (d) ...All students over the age 11 are expected to devote 30 to 45 days of their summer vacation to farm work, laboring up to 8 hours per day. The ministry of Agriculture uses 'voluntary labor' by student work brigades extensively in the farming sector."
Ans.
This is supposed to be a terrible thing? Why, do you suppose, American public schools have a long summer holiday? Because when I was a child every child over the age of about 8 was needed in the fields to help bring in the crops! If some of the juvenile gangs in American cities were sent out to harvest the crops, or work in the fields, they might learn that there is a connection between work and the food they eat.
There are still a whole lot of children, mostly from Mexico of course, who are working with their parents in the fields of California. If Cuba has limited that labor to a mere 8 hours a day, the Cuban children have it a whole lot better than I and other children growing up in the South in the 1930s, who were chopping or picking cotton a lot younger than age 11! Back then the summer vacation was not to play video games or watch TV - it was to work in the fields, not for 3 months of play.
Why has this even gotten into the hands of Congress and why is a law being considered to "give Elian Gonzales American Citizenship?" Because there simply IS no law which allows the distant relatives and perfect strangers to basically kidnap the boy and keep him in America to be used as a political poster boy. The statements being made about how bad off the people of Cuba are did not seem apparent watching the videos of Elian's Grandmothers' home coming. The thousands of people lining the streets to welcome them back were well dressed, and sure looked well fed to me. When they want to get rid of Fidel Castro, or when the Serbs want to get rid of Slobodan Milosevic, they will, as the people of the USSR got rid of Gorbachev.
The grandmothers were given a cell telephone by members of their family in Cuba so they could call Elian's father when they had Elian in a neutral location. A cell phone? This doesn't sound like abject poverty to me. However, when the grandmothers finally were able to see Elian, the Americans took the cell phone away so they could not make the telephone call and Elian could not talk to his Daddy? Why? Is this what America's "freedom" has come to? Conservatives talk about principle, but in the case of Elian they appear to have abandoned the principle of valuing families and the rule of law in favor of political expediency. Are we really ready to give to governments of ALL nations the right to keep American children if those nations conclude small children would be better off with distant relatives rather than their American parents? I don't think so.
However, nothing is more telling to this grandmother of 24 than watching the change that has taken place in Elian as he goes from puzzlement, to glee at Disneyland, to yanking away from his great-uncle in public to a sad-eyed little boy being used by powerful people to make political points. Elian has an inalienable right to live with his remaining parent. Only that parent, not the US government, certainly not Congress, the media or distant relatives who are estranged from the child's father and grandparents, has the authority to make decisions for Elian, whether they are right or wrong.
To comment: mmostert@originalsources.com
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