ELIAN, CASTRO’S GRANNIES, CLINTON, RENO AND CLUELESS AMERICANS

Perhaps nothing illustrates Castro’s manipulation of the inhale-less former object-of-Monica’s affection than the Elián González’s case. Castro is again calling the shots in this administration. Apparently, our brilliant president’s hopes of ultimately smoking a cigar in Havana, made with the blood of the enslaved little Cubans, remains alive.

Referring to the politicians in Miami and to all who want Elián to stay in the U.S., his father, Juan Miguel González told ABC’s "Nightline" on January 13, "Perhaps I might be a little bit crazy because I feel like breaking the necks of all those SOBs." And in his statement of January 27, he said he was more upset than ever. However, according to his relatives in Miami, he knew in advance that Elián was coming to the U.S. with his mother. He called and told them that his son "was in his way" and asked them to "take care of him."

Juan Miguel said on "Nightline", "Sometimes what I would like to do is go down there [Miami] with a rifle to get rid of I don’t know how many people." Asked whether he would support U.S. marshals to forcibly take his son away from his relatives in Miami he replied, "To take him out of there immediately, yeah, I would be more than willing because those people are not his parents and I don’t think that they even have any feelings." The shocking-to-Americans violent threats on "Nightline" are no surprise to Cuban Americans acquainted with Castro’s blackmail techniques. Obviously, Juan Miguel’s change of heart was triggered by Castro’s gun pointed at his head.

But his comments were troublesome in America. Therefore, the grandmothers became Castro’s next weapon to conquer the hearts of this nation. They were groomed and given a new wardrobe for the attack. Flanked by the supposedly religious National Council of Churches (NCC) and their seemingly always dressed-in-red (Freudian slip?) Rev. Joan Brown Campbell. The Church Lady, "How convenient. Could it be . . , Satan . . ?"

According to public records, the NCC and Rev. Campbell have a long history of supporting Castro and other communist tyrannies. Mike Benge, a former Vietnam POW says, "while I and hundreds of other American Prisoners of War were being subjugated to torture and depravation in Hanoi, a NCC delegation held a pro-Communist and anti-American demonstration there. It makes a mockery of Christianity for the NCC to advocate sending six-year-old refugee Elián González back to Cuba – a country run by men with so much blood on their hands."

It is beyond comprehension why the NCC and Rev. Campbell are acceptable mediators to the Clinton Administration and why the U.S. media has "overlooked" their record. They have been presented unchallenged and unexplained to the American people. That is one of the reasons why Americans are clueless about behind the scene shenanigans and rotten Clinton-Castro deals which make the innocent little boy a political pawn.

The conduct of the relatives of Elián as well as the Cuban exile community in Miami in relation to the difficult visit of the grandmothers has been commendable. The family opened their modest home and welcomed the grandmothers to a private family reunion, with special Cuban food, flowers and welcoming signs. They bought gifts for them and a camera for Elián to take photos of them. Keeping that reunion private among family members only, was the right thing to do. The NCC, Rev. Campbell and their crew as well as the representatives of the NCC in Havana (Castro’s security agents) sent to watch the grandmothers did not have any business intruding and controlling this private family affair.

If Elián’s grandmothers had been on their own - free - and really wanted to see their grandson after the "65 days of separation" as they kept saying on the American television talk-show circle, they would have visited him there. But while being handled by the NCC (obviously acting as Castro’s agents) the grandmothers snubbed the family reunion with the bogus excuse of being afraid for their safety saying the reunion could take place only at a "neutral" location.

According to sources, during the 5 hours that Castro’s grandmothers were sequestered at the Kendall-Tamiami Executive Airport terminal – while poor Elián was waiting for them and the food was getting cold – about 15 calls were made to Cuba for instructions. A source reported overhearing one of the grandmothers saying on the telephone to Cuba, "El plan fracasó" (The plan has failed).

No calls to their waiting grandson, who they claim "to love so much." Lázaro González, Elián’s great-uncle in Miami, called the grandmothers who demanded that he take the boy to the house of another great-uncle. According to sources he replied, "This is Elián’s new home now."

At the Tamiami terminal, the $40,000 per day Lear Jet paid for by the "neutral" NCC, was parked very close to the door of the terminal building with its engines running, just in case the grandmothers had to flee from the "Miami Mafia" (as Castro has baptized pro-democracy Cuban American exiles, a label that found echo in the U.S. media).

Miami-Dade police investigators at the airport told The Miami Herald "under the promise of anonymity" of their "concerns about an attempt to snatch Elián." They saw three suspicious men trying to enter the terminal. The investigators overheard a cell telephone conversation "apparently to Ricardo Alarcón" in Cuba, who is the president of Castro’s Popular Assembly. The caller was identified as José Imperatori, a "diplomat" from the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. The second man was identified as well, but the third drove away. The investigators grew more concerned after identifying "some of the guards at the terminal as members of INS’ so-called grab-and-bag squad, which handles forced repatriations of convicted felons." They reported their concerns to their supervisor that if Elián was brought there, the INS or Castro’s agents could attempt to snatch him. The plan was to disable the plane, if necessary, by throwing a nightstick into a jet engine.

However, Lázaro González walked the extra mile and decided to go to the airport himself (followed live on Miami television) to convince the grandmothers of his family’s good faith. But, following orders from their handlers in Havana, the NCC and the grandmothers fled in a hurry. González arrived to the airport 42 seconds after they left. A source commented, "Seems to me that their credibility is hurt by the turnaround, that it shows their ‘handlers’ were afraid seeing a happy boy in a nice home might change their minds. Strains credibility to believe they were afraid for their safety."

Back in Washington, the NCC ushered their grandmothers to see a who’s who among the liberals and far-left pro-Castro supporters on Capitol Hill. Their well orchestrated and financed public relations campaign went on in spite of a major snowstorm. Where does the NCC get the money for these numerous Lear Jet flights from Havana and repeatedly up and down the East Coast? The U.S. media should investigate. They should expose the hidden pro-Castro history of the NCC and Rev. Campbell acting here as loyal surrogates of Castro’s State Security (SS) conducting the actions and statements of the grandmothers.

The American public cannot render an educated opinion about the complex case of 6-year-old Elián González, simply because they are unenlightened of most of the facts. Polls show most Americans are in favor of returning this child to his father. They are thinking that fathers in Cuba have the same rights as parents in the U.S. to raise their children. If the U.S. media would report about the laws in the 1976 Cuban Constitution governing the raising of children, they would understand that Castro’s communist regime has the last word about Cuban children, not parents. Cuban Americans, with first hand experience, know that very well. Elián, in the hands of Castro, will become the poster child of the revolution.

According to the heart breaking account given by the only other survivors of the tragedy, Nivaldo Hernández, 33 and Arianne Horta, 21 (apparently found "not newsworthy" by the U.S. media), Elián was very happy before the accident shouting, "I’m going to the United States!" Nivaldo says that Elisabet, Elián’s mother, spoke of "her dream of freedom for Elián and herself."

After the boat capsized, the 13 Cubans spent the night clinging to the hull. The next day the boat sank and their food was lost. They clung to inner tubes. Arianne gave Elisabet a bottle of water for Elián. One by one they were dying. Elisabet, dehydrated and exhausted, told Arianne, "I want to die, all I want is for my son to live. If there is one who has to die, it’s me, not him." Then she asked Elián, "Are you cold?" He said, "Yes, I’m cold mama." She covered him with her sweater to keep him warm. And Elisabet died. According to the survivors, Elián was very quiet and he never cried.

Clinton’s Attorney General Janet Reno on January 12 said of Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Rosa Rodriguez, who gave Lázaro González temporary custody of Elián, that her decision "has no force or effect." Soon after, the press disclosed that Judge Rodriguez, during her 1998 campaign for the bench, employed Armando Gutierrez as a paid consultant. He is now a voluntary spokesman for Elián’s relatives in Miami. U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King in Miami was assigned to the case. But he was not acceptable to Clinton/Reno and the INS. Judge King’s son, a state court judge in Miami, had hired Gutierrez as a consultant for his reelection campaign. However, in the past Reno had twice hired Gutierrez’s services!

The González’s family was ordered by the INS to take Elián to meet his grandmothers at the house of Janet Reno’s old friend, Dominican Sister Jeanne O’Laughlin, on the grounds of Barry University in Miami on January 26 at 4 p.m. Sister O’Laughlin, president of the university and with prior experience with immigration cases, was apparently calculated to be sympathetic to the needs of Clinton/Reno. In a comment to CBS Evening News’ reporter, Byron Pitts, Sister O’Laughlin revealed her pre-conceived opinion when she said, "His grandmothers will have some natural instincts and I am betting on the grandmothers."

However, the morning after the meeting, Sister O’Laughlin said that she now favors allowing Elian to stay in the U.S., saying she now has an understanding of the fear emanating from Cuba. She sensed what was going on and indicated that Elián’s grandmothers - because of fear – are not free to express their real feelings and blamed Cuba for manipulating the situation. Clinton/Reno did not count on the honesty of Sister O’Laughlin. And on January 28, they coldly dismissed the nun by using INS officials to declare that she "misconstrued" the fear of the grandmothers.

Rev. Campbell was interviewed by ABC News’ religion correspondent Peggy Wehmeyer on Good Morning America on January 27. This interview presented her as a harmless religious official trying to help in this difficult situation. Public records, however, show a far-left militant political agenda for Rev. Campbell and the NCC. Since its creation in the early 1900s as the National Federation of Churches, it was a Marxist organization. The founders were inspired by beliefs such as that held by Walter Ranschenbusch who declared: "If ever Socialism is to succeed, it cannot succeed in an irreligious country. It must start in the churches." Why does the U.S. media continue misleading the American people?

The Clinton Administration and his goons are apparently acting on bad faith in relation to this defenseless 6-year-old boy whose mother wanted him to live in freedom. If Clinton gets away with returning this innocent boy to Castro because of his apparent secret agreement, it will be as dishonorable and criminal as the 1939 U.S. refusal to give asylum to the hundreds of Jews – including children - aboard the St Louis escaping from Hitler sending them to their deaths.

Elisabet Broton knew a lot about Castro - enough to escape from him, but she certainly knew little about Clinton.


END


Agustín Blázquez with the collaboration of Jaums Sutton

Mr Blázquez is the Producer/Director of the documentaries COVERING CUBA and CUBA: THE PEARL OF THE ANTILLES

ABIP 2000

Éste y otros excelentes artículos del mismo AUTOR aparecen en la REVISTA GUARACABUYA con dirección electrónica de:

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