The Justice Department, led by then U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, was criticized after the Pulitzer Prize-winning image was published nationally.
Posted on 04/22/2010 10:43:51 AM PDT by a fool in paradise
Ten years have passed since federal agents seized a Little Havana home snatching a 6-year-old boy from his Miami relatives and reuniting him with his father who lives in Cuba. The Elian Gonzalez saga had major political implications and some credit that single episode to the reason George W. Bush won the presidency in 2000.
Elian Gonzalez survived a dangerous journey from Cuba after his mother and others died trying to reach South Florida. A fisherman found the 6-year-old boy holding onto an inner tube on Thanksgiving Day in 1999.
Now, the fisherman who found him and his Miami relatives – his great-uncle Lazaro Gonazlez and his daughter Marisleysis Gonzalez -- have been selective about giving interviews.
Earlier this month, Marisleysis Gonzalez, the boy's cousin spoke with CBS4's Gary Nelson. Marisleysis, now 32, with a daughter of her own, gave her first television interview in years. She expressed sadness by the new photos of Elian that cast him as a loyal member of the Cuban revolution.
"We were expecting this," she told Nelson. "He's not in a free country. He has to do whatever he's told."
The Little Havana home Elian Gonzalez briefly shared with his Miami relatives is now a museum featuring photographs of the boy playing the yard. But the most painful picture for the Miami relatives is that of a nameless federal agent pointing aiming his gun at a terrified looking child in the arms of Donato Dalrymple, the fisherman who found the boy.
The Justice Department, led by then U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, was criticized after the Pulitzer Prize-winning image was published nationally.
"It was a very sour taste left in their mouths," said Andy Gomez, a senior fellow at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies. "But, realistically, it was a battle to be lost."
Elian Gonzalez eventually returned to his father's home of Cardenas, Cuba, and images of the boy have occasionally been released by the state-run media. The latest one shows a 16-year-old Elian donning an olive-green military school uniform attending a Young Communist Union congress.
Former President Bill Clinton, who was in Miami last weekend, stood by his decision and said he had no regrets. That's in spite of the opposition from Miami relatives and other Cuban exiles who fought an order by U.S. immigration officials to return him to Cuba. Reno insisted the boy belonged with his father.
"I did everything I could to try to have this resolved in a peaceful way," Clinton said. "Believe me, I hated what happened because I thought we would be able to do it in a different way."
On the Little Havana street where Elian lived for five months, the tiny family home has been maintained as a museum and memorial to the struggle to keep the boy in the United States. Many who live in the neighborhood now weren't there when the Elian drama played out. Rene Morales, a Cuban-American who moved in across the street six years ago, said he is familiar with the controversy over Elian but has "gotten over it."
"Do I care about it?," Morales said. "No, not really."
The Justice Department, led by then U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, was criticized after the Pulitzer Prize-winning image was published nationally.
Now he’s a brownshirt for the Dear Leader of Cuba. Way to go there, Slick.
The hell you say. Elian was waiting at that house peacefully, completely at the beck and call of the courts.
And then YOUR ARMED GOONS showed up.
For this statement alone, I hope that Elian returns to the US as an adult someday, and relieves himself on Clinton's final resting place.
Democrats are the enemy of freedom.
Never forget, an agitator on the Left who wrote for the LA Times tried to start a riot that she could then "document".
Undercover Photographer - L.A. Times staffer Carolyn Cole crosses a line, again. (By Andrew Breitbart, National Review May 14, 2002)
Little critical attention has been given to the recent antics of Los Angeles Times staff photographer Carolyn Cole, who on May 2 joined a group of "peace activists" who had clandestinely entered Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, in solidarity with the Palestinian militants holding dozens of civilians and clergymen hostage.Upon her arrival inside the holy site, Cole took on the dual role of photographer and reporter for the Times, offering first-person accounts from within the church.
The Times, often accused of carrying an anti-Israeli grudge, confirmed many of its critics' suspicions by printing Cole's blatantly pro-Palestinian church dispatches. Cole even noted that she felt safer with the Palestinian militants than she did with the Israelis. (A collection of her like-minded photos from inside the church appear in this week's Time.)
...But this isn't the first time Cole has stepped over a professional line in her career. In April 2000 — at the height of the Elián Gonzalez affair — Cole was arrested on felony charges of "throwing deadly missiles" at police during protests in Little Havana, apparently in an effort to stir up her subjects and thereby generate "better" news.
Miami detective Delrish Moss said Cole "was seen throwing two or three rocks and then picked up her camera and proceeded to take photographs."
Michael Parks, her boss at the Times, said in a statement that her arrest was "an abridgment of the people's right to know."
"Carolyn Cole was covering the protests in Miami as a news photographer, not participating in them, and her photographs published in the Times make that clear," Parks insisted.
Of course, Ms. Cole would never overstep the law nor defy journalistic principles to get a story. And there's no way that she held the anti-Castro crowd in contempt and wanted to create shots that would portray them in the most frenzied and violent light.
That was on EASTER SUNDAY, lest people forget.
I wish someone would identify that storm trooper some day. I don’t care what training they had or what erroneous information they were given, you don’t point an automatic weapon at anyone, trigger or no trigger, and especially not an unarmed man holding a child.
B*st*rds. No matter how many times I see it, this image always gets my blood pressure up.
Odd isn’t it, that in 10 years there hasn’t been a name connected with that face in the MSM?
The media had classified info on Joe The Plumber’s child support payments within a matter of days because he told the President he didn’t like Marxist redistribution.
"Do I care about it?," Morales said. "No, not really."
That must be the most inconsequential piece of reporting this year. Who is Rene Morales? Answer - the guy who lives across the street. Does he otherwise have anything to do with the story? No.
A good artist could create a decent sketch of the guy. If I knew what kind of lens the photog was using I could estimate his height taking into account that high-riding helmet.
CNN actually had a segment on that infamous day. It was chilling and heartbreaking at the same time.
Bubba’s legacy.
Of course the pervert-in-chief has no regrets. He wasn't sent back to live in a repressive communist regime.
That was on EASTER SUNDAY, lest people forget.
That is incorrect. I believe it was Easter weekend, but it was not Easter Sunday (not that that would have made any difference to Clinton/Reno).
Wonder if they will also note the 10th anniversary of the USS Cole (October 12, 2000) bombing and the 15th anniversary of the Khobar Towers bombing (June 25, 1996).
Ronaldus Magnus would have told Castro to STUFF it. I don’t doubt either of the Presidents Bush would have also thumbed their nose at the Cuban government.
Barry Sotero would have delivered the boy back to his buddy Castro on Air Force One.
"In the pre-dawn hours of April 22"
I never knew it was Saturday morning. It took 24 hours to make the news cycle?
Clinton said, “Believe me, I hated what happened because I thought we would be able to do it in a different way.”
You could have done a lot of things different, Slick. George W. would have done a lot of things different. For one, he would’ve told the Cuban gov’t what Cheney told Pat Leahy. For another, he never would have made arrangements for Cuban school children to be brought to the United States and allowed them to be taught indoctrination lessons in Communism on American soil.
Remember the ridiculous female agent bouncing around the backyard, with a pistol in her hands?
If anyone ever writes a book titled “Clinton’s America,” I hope that photo is on the cover.
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