RE: Political kidnapping of 6-year-old Cuban Elian Gonzalez

As I expected, my comment about the fate of Elian Gonzalez elicited some forceful replies from WSN members.  Let me briefly respond to some of them.

Let me say at the outset that personally I favor returning Elian to Cuba. I agree with Judi Kessler's sentiment (shared by David Smith) that 

>[t]his falls under Family Law and, if judged in that
>regard, would never make it out of the judge's chamber to trial. In  the
>US, when one parent dies guardianship automatically is conferred on  the
>surviving parent - as long as the parent is competent to care for the
>child and is not in jail or indicted for a crime. No one has  questioned
>the father's competency to care for his boy.
>As a matter of fact, US public opinion, whatever it may be, has no
>business in this matter.
>

That's exactly the point.  According to one interpretation of the law being widely circulated, 
U.S. law _does_ transfer guardianship to the surviving parent.  Considering that she overruled a Florida
state court's decision that Elian is "threatened" if returned to Cuba, Attorney General Janet Reno subscribes to this interpretation of the law. So also does the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which has ruled that the boy should be returned to Cuba.  

Attorney General Reno and the INS can hardly be accused of being politically sympathetic to Castro.  Mrs. Reno is a former Florida State Attorney for Dade County, which includes Greater Miami with its virulently anticommunist community of Cuban exiles.  The INS has been accused of being, if anything, biased in favor of admitting Cubans, because they are fleeing from a Communist country (cf. _St. Petersburg Times_, Jan 15, 2000, p. 1A).  

The point is simply that these federal officials have decided, contrary to what one suspects their visceral preferences might be, to return the boy.  Should their position prevail over that of Elian's relatives in Miami and the Florida state court, as seems quite possible at this writing, that result could only be seen as a triumph of the rule of law over politically motivated preferences.  I simply feel it ironic that Castro should get what he says he wants precisely because the U.S. legal system, at least compared to its counterpart in Cuba and contrary to rhetoric about "imperialism," does things according to rules and not politics.  My post was meant to convey this irony.

Cameron Brooks writes:

>Are you attributing the problems that Cuba has faced to Castro and
>lessenning the responsibility of the US government?  That would be a
>serious mistake indeed.  Castro isn't the issue-  imperialism and  third
>world self determination is.
>

Considering that the dispute is between the U.S. federal government and Elian's relatives in Miami, supported by the Cuban immigrant community and some conservative politicians, I find it hard to see "imperialism"--unless the Cubans in Miami and the politicians siding with them are supposed to be the imperialists.

Second, I didn't say a word about any problems Cuba has faced, or about their causes.  Besides implying that Cuba, compared to the United States, is not properly considered a government of laws and not of individuals, I simply said I couldn't fathom the blind adulation of some for a regime that, to quote the 1999 _Annual Report_ of Amnesty International, has imprisoned "at least. . . 350 [political prisoners], including some 100 prisoners of conscience" (Amnesty International, available online at http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aireport/ar99/amr25.htm).  Later, the report remarks, "The exact figure was not known because of the absence of official data and continuing severe restrictions on human rights monitoring."

It is true that 1998 saw the release of at least 150 political prisoners, most of them immediately following the papal visit in January.  Nevertheless, the report continues,

>Many political dissidents were detained for short periods or harassed.
>There were frequent reports of ill-treatment.  Prison
>conditions sometimes constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading  treat-
>ment.  At least ten unarmed civilians were shot dead by law enforce-
>ment officials who used lethal force unjustifiably. 

Much of the forgoing can be and is said of the United States.  Some of the rest of the report, however, points to Cuban human rights violations of types relatively unknown in the U.S.

>Trials in political cases again fell far short of international
>standards of fairness.  Defendents in cases heard by municipal 
>courts often only hours or days after arrest, sometimes had no
>legal representation.  Detainees held under investigation
>on state security charges often had very limited access to lawyers
>while in pre-trial detention at police stations of at State Security
>headquarters and were sometimes subjected to psychological pressure,
>pressure, such as solitary confinement, long intense interrogations,
>threats and insults.

>Several prisoners were beaten by police at the time of arrest or by 
>prison guards in detention centers.

Many of those detained were human rights activists, members of unofficial groups working in the area of civil and political rights, or journalists. There has been at least one accusation of torture.  Charges are often vague--frequently detainees are arrested for "disrespect" or "dangerousness."

More details can be found in the report and elsewhere on the AI site at http://www.amnesty.org.  Compare this report with AI's report on the United States.  The primary American human rights violations reported were executions (AI opposes the death penalty on principle), shootings by police in "suspicious circumstances", and mistreatment of prisoners by police and prison officials.  In many of the latter two categories of cases, AI reported official investigations in progress or critical official findings of the officials involved.  No such official investigations are mentioned in the report on Cuba.  I cannot conclude from the report that U.S. officials are completely unresponsive to human rights issues raised by AI.  Nor does AI accuse the United States of repression of political dissidents on a large scale, as it does Cuba.

Contrary to the view expressed by Colin S. Cavell, therefore, it appears that the American government, while by no means perfect, more closely approximates a "government of laws" than its Cuban counterpart.  As some posters have pointed out, the people of Cuba, as citizens of a sovereign state, have a right to choose their "own system".  This, of course, raises the question of whether or not the Cuban people themselves have recently been
_allowed_ to do so in free, fair, and competitive elections.  And whatever the preferences of the people of Cuba might be, as a thinking human being, I certainly have a right to disagree with their choice.

Colin remarks:

>By writing:  "If indeed the boy is sent back to Cuba....", you acknowledge
>that this action would indeed surprise you

Notice that my next words were "as now seems quite possible".  This should have suggested that I would not have been surprised by such an action.

and, further, by your
>additional statement:  "Here's Elian Gonzalez, courtesy of the  American
>government of laws," you acknowledge that current U.S. actions in
>restraining Elian Gonzalez from returning home are a violation of law.  On
>these two points, we can agree.
>

It's not the U.S. federal government doing the restraining--it's the boy's relatives in Miami, with the support of the Cuban exile community there and some conservative politicians.


Finally, Jozsef Borocz writes:

>
>Listed by the Human Development Index (a combination of life expectancy at
>birth, the adult literacy rate and the combined first-, second- and
>third-level gross enrolment rate), Cuba is 85th among the world's 174 states
>according to the Human Development Report 1998, the latest in the annual
>compentia of global inequality published by the United Nations Development
>Program. With that, Cuba ranks 18 places higher (!!!) than what one would
>expect on the basis of its per capita GDP (estimated on a PPP basis).
>
>


Whatever the merits of Cuba's economic model as reflected in HDI data, it appears that one of the last strongholds of "really existing socialism" is having trouble sustaining itself.  Check out a most interesting paper by Pedro Monreal, a research economist at the Center for International Economic Research at the University of Havana (Monreal 1999).  Note that these are the Cubans themselves talking to you, not critics of socialism from abroad.  

Monreal describes the course of Cuban economic policy since the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the late 1980s.   After an apparently unsuccessful attempt in the early 1990s to promote high value-added exports in industries perceived to be more dynamic and to offer greater growth potential than traditional exports, the government shifted to a strategy involving more emphasis on "absorption of traditional exports, the development of new sources of hard-currency income from
traditional products, and the reduction of imports."  This strategy has included a substantial number of market-oriented reforms implemented during the mid-1990s. In this strategy, tourism and remittances from abroad--both activities linked to the world economy--have played a central role (cf. Monreal 1999, 25-27).  

Unfortunately, one of the roadblocks to Cuba's reinsertion into the world economy is its low levels of
economic growth.  Monreal cites UN data that indicates that during the period 1991-97, Cuba's GDP contracted 4.3 percent (interestingly enough, Monreal cites data indicating the economic effects of the US embargo, but does not appear to consider the embargo the primary culprit behind falling growth).  Low growth hinders savings and external funding necessary to upgrade the traditional sector of the economy.  Thus, he argues that there is a need for "the development of a sizeable domestic private sector. . . .  Since it is evident that the Cuban state has no resources of its own to successfully implement the required transformations, private funds will be required to achieve these high rates of growth.  This is simply to say that a mixed economy is needed in Cuba"(Monreal 1999, 28).  This could require substantial international trade and foreign direct investment.  Indeed, Monreal goes so far as to say that "decentralization and market-oriented notions are now part of the mainstream equation of economic management in Cuba, no matter what the ideological justification may be" (Monreal 1999, 29).

One of Monreal's most striking statements is his comment that after the collapse of "really existing socialism. . . the challenge for Cuba has been to reestablish its links to the world economy. . . .  [A]utarky was never seriously considered as a long-term strategy for development in the new context" (Monreal 1999, 21). Sad to say for those who are still carrying the torch for Cuba's pursuit of its "own path", the Cubans themselves 
seem to have concluded that their best hope for improving the well-being of Cuba's people lies in participation, one way or another, in the "capitalist world-system".

REFERENCES

Amnesty International.  _Annual Report 1999_.  Available online at http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aireport/ar99/amr25.htm

"Haitians Ask, What About Us?" _St. Petersburg Times_, Jan. 15, 2000, p. 1A.

Monreal, Pedro.  "Sea Changes:  The New Cuban Economy."  _NACLA Report on the Americas_ (March-April 1999):  21-29.
--
Jeffrey L. Beatty
Doctoral Student
Department of Political Science
The Ohio State University
2140 Derby Hall
154 North Oval Mall
Columbus, Ohio 43210

(o) 614/292-2880
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Email:  Beatty.4@osu.edu
_______________________________________________________________________________
This is my quest/to follow that star/no matter how hopeless /no matter how far,
to fight for the right/without question or pause,/to be willing to 
march into hell for a heavenly cause--"The Impossible Dream," Man of La Mancha