Posted on 04/22/2010 4:31:29 PM PDT by CounterCounterCulture
When federal agents stormed a home in the Little Havana community, snatched Elian Gonzalez from his father's relatives and put him on a path back to his father in Cuba, thousands of Cuban Americans took to Miami's streets. Their anger helped give George W. Bush the White House months later and simmered long after that.
Ten years later, the Little Havana home - for weeks the epicenter of a standoff that divided the United States - is a museum dedicated to Elian's brief time in this country, but visitors are rare. Almost no one involved in the international custody case wants to talk about Elian, who is now a teenager back in Cuba...
(SNIP)
As for Elian, the only people who seem to want to commemorate his saga serve in Cuba's government. This month, officials there released photos of now-16-year-old Elian wearing an olive-green military school uniform and attending a Young Communist Union congress.
Cuba usually organizes ceremonies marking Elian's birthday each Dec. 7 at his school and elsewhere in his hometown of Cardenas, on Cuba's north coast. Before he became ill, Fidel Castro would usually attend. The foreign press is never invited, however, and learns about what occurs from state media coverage.
The Cuban government, which tightly controls media access to Elian and his father, said neither is willing to give an interview.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Never forget the action of Janet Reno, Eric Holder, et al.
A child custody case should and would never be resolved at gunpoint, except that William Jefferson Clinton wanted to improve relations with Castro (which never happened). So this boy and his family were sacrificed to Bill Clinton’s temper tantrum.
Just sick...
Check the archives (if they're still there . . .)
As a divorced father, I was torn by this case and remain so to this day. The simple fact was that the father had a right to his child, and the courts sided with him consistently. It was the extended family here in the US that made the child a pawn and refused to do what the courts ordered.
Castro is engaged in state-sponsored child abuse.
Yes, and let me know when the President orders armed federal agents to launch a raid to seize your child for you. Won’t happen.
Actually,a federal appeals court had issued a ruling supportive of the family here. Clinton launched his raid instead.
This case involved more than just a dad seeking custody, because Cuba is a police state and the boy’s mom died escaping with him to the United States. There also was the issue of whether the dad was being threatened.
As for the weapons - Marisleysis was responsible for that, because she was on TV making threats about what might happen to anyone who came to get Elian. She's very lucky that she or one of the other residents or guests in her house didn't get shot, including Elian. I didn't like the guns - I think that was a bad move, but I also think that the Miami family took their protest too far and forced Clinton and Reno's hands. It reaches a point when the Attorney General of the United States is telling you that, absent a court ruling to the contrary, the boy will be returned to his father on a certain date, that you must come to grips with reality and give the boy back.
I found this interesting bit from a Time magazine piece on this topic. I don't care for Bill Clinton one bit, but he is smart, and he is right about the potential ramifications that could have occurred:
While in Miami last weekend, former President Bill Clinton, who occupied the White House in 2000, defended his decision to enforce the law and forcibly give Elián back to his dad. "If I had said, 'I don't like Cuba and I don't care what the international law is,'" Clinton said, "then not only me but no other American President would have been able to say with a straight face, 'You can't kidnap [American children] and keep [them]'" in other countries. The U.S., to cite just one example, would have had greatly diminished standing last year when it demanded that Brazil return nine-year-old Sean Goldman to his father in New Jersey (which it did, in time for Christmas).
Yep...I think this was about one of the most divisive issues ever on FR, right up there with Terri Schiavo and Rudy Giuliani.
I don't think anyone disagrees with that. The problem is, in Cuba, the father gets no more rights to his kid than he would if Elian had stayed in Florida. Children in Cuba are property of the state.
Elian's "father" was his biological father and had not had custody of him for some time as Elians parents were divorced.
2.It was Elian's father who called Lazaro Gonzalez to say that Elian, his mother and the others were "on their way"
3. and lastly, sticking a high powered machine gun in a little kids face at dawn on Easter Saturday is off limits. The kid was not going anywhere and the Feds knew it.
Bill Clinton did all of this for political expediency. He will burn in HELL forever.
I’m sorry you believe such bullshit, because that is what it is.
First, while the court of appeals didn’t prevent the armed raid, the raid was totally disrespectful and opposite the intent of the court’s decision.
Second, no one “caused” an armed raid except Bill Clinton.
Third, this wasn’t a simple “dad wants his kid back” case.
Wake up. The father was brought here by Cuban government agents, while his baby and family in cuba were hostage to a dictatorship.
After being seized at gunpoint, Elian was kept on and not allowed to leave a Cuban government compound, in the “care” of government agents.
The boy’s mother DIED escaping a dictatorship for his freedom. Note that no one can talk to Elian or his father, that he is a propoganda tool.
What Bill Clinton did never had to happen, the boy was with his own family. This easily could have been mediated in some way.
Why don’t you stop down and visit Elian and his dad in Cuba and talk to them about this? because they are in a nation prison.
And if you believe the defensive pure bullshit that flows regtularly from the mouth of William Jefferson Clinton, I feel sorry for you.
Yeah it had nothing to do with Cuba relations, Clinton just happened to decide he should scream and yell at Janet Reno that this kid was going back to Cuba and to launch an armed raid. Presidents do it all the time.
Go talk to Elian about it, maybe someday that will be possible and you’ll wake up to what happens in communist gulags.
No father would have wanted that armed raid when the kid was with his own family. But you can’t figure that out. It was all just a “dad” the communist government agents are invisible to you.
maybe the dad will visit you oh that’s right he can’t except when they bring him here.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.