The Militant (logo) 
Vol.64/No.6      February 14, 2000 
 
 
Miami pickets say return child to Cuba  
 
 
BY MIKE ITALIE  
MIAMI—Nearly 200 protesters joined a picket line and rally across from the Immigration and Naturalization Service building here January 29 to call for the return of six-year-old Elián González to his father in Cuba.

Most signs and chants demanded, "Send Elián home." A dozen pickets carried signs that also condemned the U.S. embargo of Cuba, demanded normalization of relations with Cuba, and called for lifting U.S. travel restrictions to the island. One sign read, "The blame is on Washington."

Andrés Gómez of the Antonio Maceo Brigade chaired the rally. He denounced U.S. government authorities for failing to enforce the January 4 INS ruling that the boy should be repatriated, saying, "We are here to defend one of the most fundamental of human rights: the right of a kid to live with his family."

The rally was called by the National Committee to Return Elián to His Father in Cuba. Pastors for Peace and the International Action Center were among the main national organizations that called the action. The big majority of those at the rally had participated in previous activities opposing Washington's economic war against Cuba.

The protest was also organized by the Miami-based Antonio Maceo Brigade, the Alliance of Workers of the Cuban Community, and the Coalition to End the Economic Embargo on Cuba. Nearly 100 people from Dade County, including a few dozen Cubans, took part. Another 50 came from several Florida cities, including Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa, West Palm Beach, Gainesville, and Jacksonville.

The rest of the participants traveled from as far as Maine, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. Richard Campbell of Fort Lauderdale, who is originally from Jamaica and spent four years studying in Santiago, Cuba, explained why he came to the rally. "The U.S. is taking away the right of a family to stay together. [Cuban president] Fidel Castro is not separating families; it's the U.S. that's doing that," he said. "Why didn't they give Elián's mother a visa so she wouldn't die in that boat?"

Elián González's mother and 10 others drowned last November when the boat in which they were traveling from Cuba sank. They were trying to come to the United States in a trip organized by a smuggler. The boy's father, Juan González, immediately asked for his son's return to Cuba, as did all of his grandparents.

Alicia Rodríguez, an elementary school principal who came from Cuba at the age of 13, heard about the rally from a fax a friend sent her. She noted that a number of people feel intimidated by Cuban rightists in Miami, but that she felt confident in expressing her view in this case because "a lot of Cubans in both Cuba and the United States want him sent back." Disagreeing with the idea that right-wing Cubans in Miami drive U.S. policy toward Cuba, Rodríguez stated, "When the U.S. government wants to it can enforce its own laws. He should have been sent back right away."

Lucius Walker, director of Pastors for Peace, said at the rally that the central demand of such protests should be the return of Elián González to his father. Walker said the case "is fundamentally a child welfare issue. It's not about politics. Some say he'll have no freedom in Cuba—that is not the issue. It is an issue of family values."

Walker invited the "beautiful police," dozens of whom were stationed in front of the INS building, to support the main demand. He concluded that protests to demand the boy be returned to his father "has brought together a wide range of people—Democrats, Republicans, Blacks, Cubans, and police."

Walker also stated that holding the rally in Miami with participation from many other cities would tear down a "curtain of fear" built by right-wing Cubans in Miami. Teresa Gutierrez, speaking for the National Committee to Return Elián to His Father in Cuba, and Morisseau Lazarre of the Haiti Support Network, both from New York, said that more Haitians and others would have attended the rally if not for the intimidation of right-wing Cubans.

Luis Miranda, a leader of the New York–based Casa de las Americas, expressed a different point of view. It's not the right-wing in Miami that is the problem in the unceasing U.S. aggression against Cuba and in keeping the six-year-old away from his country and his immediate family, said Miranda. "These people are satellites. Washington is responsible. It is the Clinton administration." Miranda praised defenders of the Cuban revolution in Miami for their long record of openly carrying out political work here.

Other speakers included Luis Galaurza of the Puerto Rico Cultural Center in Chicago, Gloria de Riva of the International Action Center in San Francisco, and Maura Barrios of Cuba Va in Tampa. Speaking for the Miami Coalition to End the Economic Embargo of Cuba, Rollande Girard stated that the group has carried out many activities in Miami to broaden opposition to the U.S. government's "cold war" against Cuba.

"We demand the immediate repatriation of Elián," she said. "And we know that the fight over this case has everything to do with the U.S. government's hostility toward the Cuban people and their revolutionary government."

At the same time as the picket outside the INS building, about 200 women, mostly Cuban-Americans dressed in black and white, stopped traffic in downtown Miami. They said they marched in memory of Elizabeth Grotons, Elián's deceased mother, and pressed for keeping the Cuban boy with his distant relatives in Miami. Later in the day about 50 boats cruised around Biscayne Bay with Cuban and U.S. flags and signs reading, "Elián, we'll fight for your rights." It was sponsored by the Democracy Movement, a group of rightist Cubans here.  
 
 
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