To my surprise the grandmothers had not requested visas, as I had anticipated. Yet I was certain that if they traveled to the United States, they would stop the campaign to make Elián a citizen. I called Joan to encourage her to arrange the visit. I told her that it was the only way to stop the US Congress from passing a bill that would make Elián a citizen. If the grandmothers visited Elián, it would demonstrate to the American people that the child had a loving family in Cuba with whom he belonged. It would be even better if Juan Míguel would go, but Castro didn’t seem ready to take that chance. She promised to talk with the Cubans—probably Alarcón—to determine if Castro would allow the grandmothers to travel. A few days later we received the request and the State Department told us to issue the visas.
On January 21 Mariela Quintana and Raquel Rodríguez landed in cold and gray New York. Shouting reporters immediately besieged them, demanding to know when they would see Elián, and if they would take him back to Cuba. Mariela, Elián’s paternal grandmother, bravely announced, “No one has a right to make him an American citizen. He was born in Cuba. He lives in Cuba. He’s a Cuban.” In Washington, DC, they met with Janet Reno and congressmen who supported Elián’s return to Cuba. Then they flew to Miami for a meeting with Elián, which had been arranged by Reno. Elián arrived in a black limousine, sitting between CANF’s leader Jorge Mas Santos and Marisleysis González, the daughter of Elián’s great-uncle, who was his young caretaker. Outside the home of Sister Jeanne O’Laughlin, president of Barry University in Miami, where the meeting was to take place, protestors chanted “Libertad! Libertad! Libertad!” Some signs even gave Elián’s rescue a religious aura by declaring, “Three kings, three children, Jesus, Moses, and Elián.” Older exile women seemed to give Elián’s ordeal at sea a religious significance; in their eyes, he was a miraculous child who would bring about Castro’s downfall and give them back their country.
The grandmothers meeting with Elián did not go well. The encounter was full of tension for all sides—perhaps most of all for Elián. Raquel and Mariela later said they found their grandson “changed”—undoubtedly because he was dressed like a Cuban American boy with a baseball cap on backward and a gold chain around his neck. Sister O’Laughlin, who hosted the meeting at the behest of Attorney General Reno, came to the conclusion that Elián should stay in Miami. She explained that the atmosphere during the meeting was oppressive. She told the media that the Cuban government was somehow behind the meeting, and that one of the grandmothers bit Elián’s tongue, apparently, to get him to talk to them. She also revealed that the grandmothers looked at Elián’s penis to see if he’d grown.
If Castro was Elián’s ersatz Cuban father, CANF’s Mas Santos was his substitute Cuban American father. Mas Santos was orchestrating a show in Miami that was almost equal to Castro’s in Havana. After the meeting with Elián’s grandmothers, the media caught a small voice saying, “Tomorrow I become an American citizen.” Elián was referring to the bill that Cuban American and Republicans legislators were hoping to pass. But Elián was wrong. The grandmothers’ visit had reinforced the American public’s view that the child should be returned to his father. Democrats, led by Charles Rangel (D-NY), blocked the initiative in the House. In the Senate, Republican Chuck Hagel (R-NE) persuaded Trent Lott to back away from pushing the legislation.
The seesaw of emotions didn’t end when Congress dropped the idea of making the boy an American citizen. To Reno’s evident dismay, the Federal Circuit Court for the Southern District of Florida did not, as she anticipated, confirm that Elián must be turned over to the INS as ordered. Rather, William Hoeveler, an experienced and respected judge, gave CANF’s lawyers until February 24 to disprove the Department of Justice’s contention that Juan Míguel had the sole right to determine where and with whom Elián would live. It suddenly seemed less certain that the courts would return Elián to Cuba.
It also was clear that Clinton’s ploy of deflecting blame by turning the decision over to the courts had misfired. The judicial process had served only to highlight the courts’ reluctance to enforce Clinton’s and Reno’s decision to return Elián to his father. In hindsight, it would have been better had Reno forced Elián’s relatives and the diaspora to comply with the January 14 deadline to turn the boy over to the INS rather than extending it. At that point it still could have been done peacefully. There would have been a considerable outcry, but it would have been hardly a ripple in comparison to the drama three months later when US marshals forced entry into Lázaro’s home and took the child at gunpoint.
CHAPTER 7
FIDEL’S LAST HURRAH
FIDEL CASTRO PERSONALLY STAGE-MANAGED THE “ELIÁN SAGA,” IN which he was the director and his compatriots were the audience. It played for seven months, ending when Castro escorted Elián González and his family on a victory lap of marches and speeches across the island. But the victory was not Castro’s alone. Had President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno not been committed to returning the child to his father in Cuba, Castro’s theatrical production could have ended in disaster.
Castro’s decision to await the outcome of American justice turned out to be brilliant. It gave him months during which to mobilize and revitalize his revolution, providing it with a much-needed, much younger hero. The other heroes were either old (like Fidel and his brother Raúl) or dead (like the father of the country, José Martí, and Castro’s comrades in arms Camilo Cienfuegos and Che Guevara. Huge billboards once reserved for revolutionary heroes now displayed Elián, a captive of the “evil empire.”
Castro declared that he was leading a “battle of ideas” in which the kidnapping of a Cuban child was only the latest in the series of evils perpetrated by the United States. Even better, this battle allowed him to once again walk the world stage as a David defending his people from the monstrous misdeeds of the Goliath to the north. Still, Castro had a lot at stake, and he couldn’t afford to lose. Cuba’s babalus—priests of the Afro-Cuban Santeria religion, which has African and voodoo roots—predicted that he might fall from power if he didn’t bring back Elián.
On December 22, 1999, Castro dressed in his customary fatigues and white athletic shoes, led the first in a series of protest marches. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans paraded from Havana Bay down the Malecón, past the USS Maine Monument and the Hotel Nacional. When they arrived at the Interests Section waving little blue, white, and red Cuban flags, they chanted and held up homemade signs declaring, “Salvemos a Elián” (We will save Elián). Hundreds of schoolchildren in their red and white uniforms surrounded the Interests Section. Holding hands, they completely encircled the long seafront block on which the building is located. Some looked scared, and others were stern, but all were determined to fight for the return of their schoolmate. I was embarrassed. My powerful country seemed to be a Lilliputian giant emasculated by a small child that we feared to return, despite knowing it was the right thing to do. Castro said he had sent the children to protect us. But he was merely exploiting the public declaration of a State Department press spokesman who had foolishly claimed that we would hold the Cuban government responsible for “the safety of our diplomats.” Castro always named his marches; this one was Salvemos a Elián, but I thought of it as the March of the Protecting Schoolchildren.
Castro organized a second massive march on January 14, 2000, the day Elián should have returned to Cuba. Although Judge Rosa Rodriguez’s decision had “no force or effect,” Reno still hoped to persuade the Cuban American diaspora to accept the fact that the child belonged with his father. Had she not been a Florida native who wished to preserve her good standing with the Cuban American community, Reno might not have been so determined to find an amicable solution. But it was not possible. As she and Clinton belatedly realized, compromise was unbearable for a diaspora that fervently believed that this was their chance to defeat Castro.
Fidel labeled this second event the March of the Combatant Mothers. Much to my relief, he did not send schoolchildr
en to protect my staff and me from Cuba’s mothers. Nor did Castro himself attend. This parade of Cuban women was led by Vilma Espín, Rául Castro’s wife and the head of the Federation of Cuban Women; Mariela and Raquel, Elián’s grandmothers; and Nelsy, Elián’s stepmother, pushing the stroller of his half-brother. An estimated 100,000 women, some pregnant and many accompanied by young children, slowly marched along the long sun-filled Malecón. They rested on the seawall and then, revived, continued to the US Interests Section where they chanted “Bring back our son.”
Despite the fact that Clinton had agreed to return Elián, the US government—in the form of the Interests Section—was the focal point of the protests. In addition to the usual cameras and listening devices pointed at my office in the Interests Section, the adjacent three-story building displayed a translucent flag featuring Che Guevara. Since the first days of the crisis, in addition to the marches, several hundred Cubans gathered outside the Interests Section every day. But one morning in March they were replaced by heavy machinery and construction workers. Castro was building what he called a Tribuna Abierta (Open Court) that consisted of a large amphitheater with an open stage and a vast concrete courtyard spanned by large metal beams that formed a dome. When it was completed the amphitheater would be used by schools and community organizations to stage protests in song and dance that demanded Elián’s return. At the far end of the Tribuna Abierta there was a statue of Cuban hero José Martí holding a very small child and pointing toward the Interests Section. It was rather incongruous, because the child in his arms was considerably smaller than Elián. Nevertheless, Cuban wags opined that Martí was telling a small Elián, “That is where you get your visa.”
One morning when I arrived at the Interests Section, a Cuban guards whom we employed presented me with a large bronze tablet he had found among the rubble where construction had begun. On the tablet, which must have lain in the dirt for years, was inscribed the words “Fourth of July Park.” This prime property that had stood vacant and neglected since the revolution had likely been named in honor of the US Army Corps of Engineers, which had designed and built the Malecón seafront promenade during the early 1900s, when the United States occupied Cuba. I placed the bronze plaque on the decorative wall bordering the steps leading into the Interests Section; it wasn’t an American flag, but it was a reminder that friendship between the United States and Cuba might someday be resurrected.
It seemed as if Cuba breathed Elián. Every evening, television and radio broadcast the Tabla Ronda (Roundtable), in which experts discussed Elián’s psychological health and the various evils inflicted on him by the Cuban diaspora and the United States. The Cuban media dissected the dysfunctional family with whom Elián now lived, pointing out that his guardian Lázaro was unfit, an alleged alcoholic with three citations for driving while intoxicated under his belt. His daughter, Elián’s principal caretaker, was in their opinion an emotionally immature twenty-year-old whose name, Marisleysis, sometimes came out as “Mary-sleeze” by those who wished her ill. Castro denigrated Cubans in the diaspora by claiming that they thought they could buy anything, including Elián. He claimed that although they showered him with toys, they could never buy his affection because he did not belong to them. According to Castro, these deserters from the island could never replace a loving family, complete with father, stepmother, half-brother, and grandmothers. Cubans didn’t share all of Castro’s views, but most of them did believe that Elián should be with his father and grandmothers.
Castro’s theater reached its peak with the Million Man March, the largest, longest, and most colorful demonstration, featuring Cuban flags, Elián T-shirts, and lots of foreign media coverage. Articles in Granma, Juventud Rebelde, and Trabajadores, Cuba’s major newspapers, pressed every citizen to attend. Even the disillusioned young, who formed bands and rap groups and tested the patience of the police, had something fun to do. It didn’t seem to matter that after the march these same young people, who had been zealously waiving their Cuban flags, would hang out on the Malecón and plot how they might reach La Yuma, Cuban slang for the United States that comes from the 1957 film 3:10 to Yuma, a Western about Yuma, Arizona.
To cheer my staff and myself, I had my own form of defiance. I placed large papier mâché Haitian carnival masks of a lion and a giraffe on the Interests Section balcony. It was a silly gesture, but it made me feel good. I could at least respond, even if a bit foolishly—and, I assumed, harmlessly. Still, Fidel noticed. Raúl looked up as he marched passed, surprised to see a lion looking down at him, he stumbled. Fidel caught his arm and on they went. The next day Granma published a two-page photo spread featuring a few of my staff and me gazing at the marchers from the balcony. Granma scolded us for our perfidy and instructed its readers to just ignore the diplomats watching from their “glass palace,” a most appropriate label for our beautiful glass building.
Most of the time my staff and I enjoyed the show from my fifth-floor balcony and retreated inside when the blaring music from the Tribuna Abierta was too much. The marchers were organized into groups of those from local barrios, youth and women, and government ministries. As they passed by the Interests Section each group was announced. It was discouraging to see the officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs march by, despite the fact that we were in fact on the same side, as we both were working to bring Elián home to Cuba.
Several of my staff wanted a firsthand look. They joined the marchers, sometimes persuading young men to exchange their Elián T-shirts or small Cuban flags for a few dollars. At times they would spot among the crowd an American movie star or even the infamous Joanne Chesimard, who had fled to Cuba after escaping from prison in the United States after being convicted of the murder of a policeman in New Jersey. There was a circus-like atmosphere, and everyone had the day off. Missing work hardly mattered given that the country hadn’t completely recovered from the devastation of the Special Period in Time of Peace, a term that described Cuba’s economic free fall after the Soviets withdrew their annual five-billion-dollar subsidy and the United States tightened its embargo. To lessen the misery, Castro had permitted small family-run businesses to open small restaurants and rent out rooms, and farmers were allowed to sell a portion of their produce at local markets. The government owned and managed all other businesses. Another result of the Special Period was that the military took over the management of the economy—most notably the agricultural and tourism sectors. Essentially there was no private sector in Cuba until Raúl Castro’s reforms ten years later. But to this day, no Cuban owns a business that employs more than a few hundred people.
Castro orchestrated so many marches—there were six between January and June, when Elián finally came home—that parents worried that their children were missing too many school days. But even Cuba’s impressive universal education system was becoming less valued. It wasn’t doctors and lawyers who lived well; they had the same government-mandated peso salary, equivalent to ten to fifteen dollars per month. Better-off Cubans were those who had access to dollars, either because they worked in the tourist industry or received remittances from friends and family abroad. It seemed foolish to spend years becoming a physician when taxi drivers, waiters, maids, and prostitutes earned more. Moreover, medical professionals were expected to leave their families and serve abroad in Haiti, Venezuela, and many African countries.
Cuban youth were beginning to look down on professionals. They were not rewarded for their education, dedication, and long hours. An attractive Cuban doctor in her thirties who lost her job because she ran afoul of a political commissar told me a story that illustrated the power of the dollar, even in this communist country. To support herself the doctor sold her television and other items of value. She often spent her long days in a friend’s apartment watching television. Overhearing the doctor lamenting her bad luck, the friend’s daughter admonished her: “You shouldn’t sit around. You should do as I do and pick up foreigners. They pay me in dollars.” Her friend laughed
, unconcerned that her daughter had become a prostitute. The sad fact was that the doctor’s choices were limited: she could become a dissident and live on the margins of society, attempt to leave Cuba with smugglers or in an unsafe vessel, or—as her friend’s daughter suggested—become a prostitute.
Castro took his Elián crusade on the road. It was an ideal cause around which to mobilize the countryside, which was poorer and more isolated than Havana. In every town and city and along the principal highways, Elián—like the other heroes, Fidel, Raúl, Cienfuegos, Guevara, and Martí—was featured on large billboards similar to those in the States that advertise presidential candidates, tires, and restaurants. All admonished Cubans to be vigilant, to sacrifice, and most of all to dedicate themselves to the revolution. Among my favorites was a large cutout of Castro, standing about two stories high, that was located on one of the few traffic circles leading out of Havana. From most angles the cutout was impressive, but approaching from behind, it seemed as if a shadowy Castro was being propped up. Often Americans would point out that Castro must be modest because he wasn’t featured on many of the billboards. I explained that if they visited the poorer barrios or drove around the island, they would find that Castro was displayed on more billboards than any other hero—even Martí.
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