Letters

I usually try to stay out of disputes among and between organizations and people of the left, as long as we have some basis of agreement over the issues.

So it is with regret that I have come to the conclusion that this topic really must be addressed publicly. The Militant and some of its writers have really gone off the deep end in attacking the mission to rescue Elián González above and beyond the point that we all agree on: that if the INS and Clinton administration would have done what they should have in the first place (if there weren't an anti-Cuba policy in effect for the last 40 years) none of this would have become necessary. But it DID become necessary. And we ourselves could not have rescued that boy.

I take exception to the notion that what the Militant prints is automatically "the communist viewpoint." There is nothing "communist" about the confused stance taken by the Militant and Steve Clark in siding with the occupants of the "private home" where Elián was kept hostage for five months.

Clark objects to the comparison many have made to sending in troops to enforce integration in the South over the opposition of segregationist mayors and governors. Well, you don't need seven paragraphs of the history of the Civil Rights movement to understand where the similarities lie — just read your own words:

"How many more lynchings, beatings, floggings, and kidnappings must we have before the federal government acts to protect the Negro people of Mississippi?" Steve Clark recalls the grassroots movement of the '50s and '60s asking. Now, let's ask the same question after five months of the political kidnapping of Elián González: "How many more...kidnappings must we have before the federal government acts...[to take that little boy out of the hands of a group of crazed kidnappers and return him to his father, his family, his country]?"

Criticize all the many things that need to be criticized — but acknowledge that when they sent in troops to undo the horrendous mess they had gotten themselves into (which included bringing into total disrepute the one sector that gave them "cover" for their anti-Cuban policies), they were also saving the life of a little boy and reuniting a family.

The raid was neither "unconstitutional" nor "anti-working class"; it was simply the only way to rescue a small child being illegally held by a presumably armed group with a known terrorist record who had already stated publicly and privately that the only way they would give him up would be through the use of force.

There is no way that that should be equated with the brutal, inhuman actions that the Migra is prone to in its daily abuses of immigrants seeking work and a better standard of living that they hope to attain in the U.S. Just as you would not condemn the police force in a capitalist city for any number of proper actions they take on behalf of the citizenry — against murders and rapists, for instance — simply on the basis that at other times the police force acts in unacceptable ways. Criticize what they do wrong, and commend what they do right.

I hope you will act like real communists, in analyzing what you have written until now, finding the errors in it, and printing a retraction.
Karen Lee Wald
Havana, Cuba

Reno's record in Florida

When the raid on the house first occurred, I remembered who Janet Reno is. She was the prosecuting attorney in Dade County for more than 15 years. During that time bombings, shootings, mob attacks on peaceful meetings and demonstrations, and other terrorism by the Cuban right wing were more common than today. Reno never carried a successful prosecution of any of them, not one.

I myself was beaten up by a right-wing Cuban youth at a meeting at Florida International University in 1992. The incident was recorded on several different video tapes and there were many witnesses. Reno's office intentionally sabotaged the case.

At the same time she was notorious for her equal inability to convict any of the county and city police who murdered innocent working people and was a big law and order supporter of the corrupt and violent local police.

This is why Clinton picked her as someone he could trust to lead the assault on civil liberties and the lives of working people by appointing her attorney general.
Tony Thomas
Miami, Florida

Defend democratic rights

The Militant's coverage of the INS spearheaded assault in Miami is exactly correct.

I think it should be pointed out that the democratic rights for which workers and farmers have struggled, in the United States and worldwide, are not just for the "innocent," as suggested by Laurence Tribe and other apologists for the naked rule of capital. Tribe wrote that the U.S. Constitution prevents the executive branch from "entering people's homes forcibly to remove innocent individuals...." This is simply false. The U.S. Constitution makes no such differentiation for seizing innocent as opposed to "noninnocent" individuals.

To the ruling class, no worker, no debt slave, no oppressed person anywhere in the world is "innocent" when she or he puts up a fight against the boss, the landlord, or their thugs (both the "legal" ones in police uniforms and the "extra-legal" ones). When workers organize and strike, the bosses call out the cops to protect the property rights of the "innocent" against the pickets.

The right to be secure in one's person against unreasonable search and seizure is not just for the "innocent." Every time the cops break into a worker's home, stop and frisk a person for being "suspicious," or pull a driver over for DWB ("Driving While Black"), the victim is presumed guilty by the cops and therefore not to be protected by the rights in place for the "innocent."

Democratic rights are among the most important tools we have to defend ourselves against the constant assaults by imperialism. They are not "technicalities." The predawn cop assault was not for the protection of the innocent child and his right to go home. It was to make clear that the most violent ruling class in history is still in full command of its powers and to provide justification for further attacks on democratic rights.
Robin Maisel
Los Angeles, California

An immigration case

Just a note to thank you for the points in last week's Militant editorial about the phrase "Miami mafia." I had already become uncomfortable with that one, and the editorial finished it off. It also eliminated the wishful thinking that this was not an immigration case. Of course, in a better world, this would not be an immigration case because Elián was not an immigrant. But in the wicked world we live in, this was an immigration case.

The Cuban government set a 24-hour period of no criticism of the U.S. government — basically a period of silence — in response to Elián's return to his father. But the truce on the petty-bourgeois left has now lasted two weeks with no end in sight. No silence there.
Fred Feldman
Newark, New Jersey

Superb editorial

I had waiting for me on an e-group's site a letter Karen Wald sent from Cuba denouncing the Militant's article on the erroneous call for "federal troops to Miami." In case you hadn't also seen the forwarded message, in which Wald offers encouragement and advice to Attorney General Reno on how to conduct a raid, I'm attaching it for your information. [See next letter.]

The Militant's articles and editorial on the raid, in defense of the Cuban revolution, and all related issues are superb. They should be seen as a source of appreciative study by all those who seek political clarity and the most effective way to stand up to the imperialist regime, defend the Cuban revolution, and advance the interests of the working class. Thank you.
Jon Hillson
Los Angeles, California

Arrest everyone, including reporters

April 13, 2000

Attorney General:

Our Constitution prohibits "cruel and unusual punishment." What you are doing to Juan Miguel and his family, and to Elián, is both cruel and unusual.

Over and over again, when you had the complete authority to go get that boy and return him to his father, you vacillated. Each delay has made things worse for everyone involved. You are letting that small group of Cuban-Americans who can see nothing but their hatred of Fidel Castro make a complete mockery of our laws and turn a little boy into a monster who may never be able to return to normal. You are keeping his father dangling from a rope as surely as though you had hung him from a tree.

"Usual" would have been to return Elián — in November; in December; in January, and every day of this week. There was nothing to stop you, as you well know. "Cruel" is what you have done and are doing to his family.

The solution is really simple. As a journalist I've seen it done on dozens of occasions in various cities and states around the country: Send in officers to clear away the crowd, declaring it an illegal gathering and giving them five minutes to disperse; arresting those who fail to obey the law. Including all the reporters and cameras. Remove everyone from a five block radius. Go into that house and arrest Lázaro González and all of those who have been openly defying the law. Then quietly remove that child and take him back to where he belongs.

It is what almost everyone in the U.S. expects of you as Attorney General. All it takes is the courage to enforce the law. Please— now.
Sincerely, Karen Lee Wald

Show more understanding

I think the Militant needs to show more understanding as to why many workers, especially Blacks and other oppressed minorities, as well as Cuba solidarity groups, would be confused and thereby celebrate Reno's INS raid of Lázaro González's home.

For years the right wing in the Cuban-American community has shown contempt for the democratic rights of anybody to discuss any issue concerning Cuba. Many have been subject to illegal and violent intimidation by Cuban counterrevolutionaries.

In these fights, we have to force the cops to defend our democratic rights. To those who don't take a moment to contemplate the implications for workers, Blacks, the undocumented immigrant workers, and solidarity activists, the situation can appear to be one of "bad guy versus bad guy." These things are not really based on thought or reason but on gut-level emotions that stem from anger and frustration.

There is something about the tone of the Militant's editorials that sounds like a condemnation of those who are confused by the capitalist media's anti-Cuban chauvinism. Even as I mentally understood the raid, for it was an attack on workers' rights, I myself couldn't help but feel elated at the humiliation of the gusano right wing. I knew that the police assault did not bode well for any of us. But your editorials had a tone of a broadside against your enemies, rather than a sensitive and understanding attempt to try and convince a friend.
Jeffrey Des Verney
by e-mail

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