Socialist Action /July 2000
Elian Returns to a Victorius Cuba
By JEFF MACKLER
In a letter read to a July 1 rally of 300,000 in
the Cuban eastern seaside town of Manzanillo, Fidel Castro defiantly warned
the next U.S. president not to try to defeat Cuba's socialist revolution.
The occasion was a celebration of the triumphant return of Elian Gonzalez
and his family to Cuba on June 21.
The mass assemblage of enthusiastic Cubans was
the hundredth such event since Washington negated its own laws and refused
to immediately return Elian to Cuba seven months ago. The rally was led
by Fidel's younger brother, Gen. Raul Castro, head of the Revolutionary
Armed Forces.
"Those who think we are ending should know
that we are beginning!'' Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told the crowd.
The 35-year-old Perez Roque, a close associate of President Castro, first
presented Cuba's position on the meaning of the Elian Gonzalez case to a
rally of opponents of the embargo seven months ago during the WTO protests
in Seattle.
Elian and his family were not present at the rally.
Following their low-key arrival in Cuba, they were temporarily lodged at
seaside boarding school in Havana, where they will live for two or three
weeks along with Elian's classmates and teachers. Later, they will return
to their hometown, a small port city east of Havana.
Plans to challenge U.S. blockade laws
Inspired by the mass support both in Cuba and the
United States for the return of the six-year-old Gonzalez, the Cuban government
has announced that it will redouble its efforts to mobilize worldwide support
in a challenge to the U.S. embargo and reactionary U.S. immigration policies,
including the Cuban Adjustment Act.
Cuban leaders have also announced plans to take
on all U.S. legislation that infringes on Cuba's sovereignty, from the Helms-Burton
Law to the Torrecelli Act.
"Whoever may be the new president of the United
States should know that Cuba is and will be here with its ideas, its example,
and the unbendable rebellion of its people,'' said President Castro in his
letter to the rally. "All aggression and attempts to asphyxiate us
and reduce us to our knees will be conquered.''
But it was clear that Castro made a clear distinction
between the American people and those who govern the United States in the
name of profit. He noted: "We have not taken away any rights from any
country, and we do not intend to deny anyone the fruits of peaceful labor
and independence.
"We do not threaten any nation, we have not
proclaimed bellicose hostility against any people, much less the people
of the United States, who-despite the sea of prejudice and lies employed
to try to deceive them, when pretexts are sought for committing grave crimes-supported
the just cause of the kidnapped boy and his father, just as one day it was
able to put an end to the bloody and unjust war that killed 4 million Vietnamese
and devastated a small and poor Third World country."
The Cuban Adjustment Act, used to delay Elian's
return, defies both U.S. immigration treaties with Cuba and international
law by allowing Cubans who reach U.S. shores illegally to apply for U.S.
citizenship. The law is obviously designed to encourage illegal immigration
by Cubans.
But Cuba has explained time and again that any
citizen is free to leave Cuba at any time. Treaties between the United States
and Cuba currently allow for 20,000 people to leave each year. The only
limitation on this number, President Castro has stated repeatedly, is U.S.
policy.
The Clinton administration, however, has refused
to rediscuss its quota on legal Cuban immigration, preferring to use the
issue as a lever to maintain its present policies.
Castro on U.S. "two-party" system
President Castro's letter to the Manzanillo rally
also stated that the Cuban government has no interest in the outcome of
the coming presidential elections in the United States.
This was perhaps a reference to the present debate
in Congress between one wing of the U.S. ruling class-which aims to remove
the Castro leadership and return capitalism to Cuba by means of the embargo
and associated warlike measures-and another that has the same aims but recognizes
that those tactics have repeatedly failed.
This latter wing of American imperialism argues
for the opening of Cuba to the U.S. and world market as the the best prospect
for destroying the revolution.
This current is today associated with the Democratic
Party. It hopes to foster a breach within the Communist Party of Cuba and
to seek out potential anti-Castro elements whom they consider amenable to
ending revolutionary Cuba's hard fought 41-year battle to maintain its sovereignty
and socialist course.
It is clear that Cuba has few illusions in either
of the twin parties of U.S. capitalism. In a June 23 speech to a meeting
of UNESCO, President Castro observed:
"The United States, such a vocal advocate
of multi-party systems, has two parties that are so perfectly similar in
their methods, objectives, and goals that they have practically created
the most perfect one-party system in the world.
"Over 50 percent of the people in that 'democratic
country' do not even cast a vote, and the team that manages to raise the
most funds often wins with the votes of only 25 percent of the electorate.
The political system is undermined by disputes,
vanity, and personal ambition or by interest groups operating within the
established economic and social model-and there is no alternative for a
change in the system."
Castro made a similar point in his letter to the
July 1 rally: "It does not matter to us who is the next head of government
of that superpower that has imposed its system of hegemonic and dominant
power on the world."
However, perhaps for diplomatic reasons, President
Castro on other occasions has appeared to at least partially absolve President
Clinton from responsibility for the Elian affair. Instead, he has focused
his fire on the right-wing Cuban groups in Miami, who for decades have been
vicious opponents of the Cuban Revolution.
Yet it is clear in this matter that the Clinton
administration, not the Cuban Mafia-like elements in Miami, are the central
players in U.S. policymaking.
Mumia's son addresses rally
Raul Castro, according to an Associated Press report,
told reporters that media coverage of the battle over Elian Gonzalez had
helped Americans better understand Cuba and its people. Because of that
increased understanding, "the second chapter will also be a triumph,''
he said.
Indeed, Cuba's stance on the Elian case has been
widely featured in the U.S. press. Authorative surveys report that it was
the most covered news story in U.S. history.
A significant amount of this coverage included,
for the first time, reports on Cuba that had normally been banned from the
U.S. media. These included favorable descriptions of Cuba's achievements
in education, health care, and child psychology and concern for its youth
in general-as well as coverage of the undeniable continuing popularity of
the Castro government.
The mass mobilizations in support of Elian's return
have often featured individuals who have been highly critical of U.S. policies.
At the July 1 rally in Havana, the son of innocent death-row political prisoner
Mumia Abu-Jamal, Mazi Jamal, praised Cuba for supporting his father's attempts
to obtain a new trial.
Said Mazi Jamal, "With the support of the
Cuban people, I know my father will one day be free-as your child Elian
is free."
Cuba has expressed a particular interest in Mumia's
case. The popular two-hour Cuban television show, "Roundtable,"
aired on June 18, featured Mumia's chief legal counsel, Leonard Weinglass,
as well as Pam Africa and other central leaders of Mumia's national defense.
The show, moderated by Georgina Chabua, representing
the Central Committee of the Cuban CP, focused on the U.S. criminal "justice"
system, police brutality in the United States, and the impending execution,
now completed, of Shaka Sankofa (Gary Graham).
Launched at the time of the U.S. government refusal
to immediately release Elian, the "Roundtable" program has served
as a new and extremely popular way of informing Cuba's population about
the class nature of U.S. politics.
President Castro often attends its sessions and
meets with American participants from diverse backgrounds.
Socialist Action /July 2000 |