A likely ruling against Elián

["José G. Pérez" <jgperez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

    Based on newspaper reports and talking to journalists in Miami, people
had better brace themselves for a pro-gusano ruling from the judge hearing
Elian's case.

    The one slim hope is that the delay in the ruling (it has been put off
until Monday at the earliest) might mean the judge is having second
thoughts. But both reading between the lines of the newspaper accounts and
listening to accounts in journalistic circles, the judge all-but-rejected
the government's argument.

    As far as I can tell (and this can hardly be accidental, having sent a
hot-shot political appointee to argue the case), Reno and Meissner failed to
effectively communicate the main point, which is this:

    No one disputes Elian's "right" to stay in the U.S. so a political
asylum hearing is unnecessary; Elián is automatically entitled to parolee
status under the Cuban Adjustment Act. The ONLY issue is whether Juan Miguel
as the boy's sole surviving parent has the right to decide where the boy
will live and how he will be brought up. This phony "political asylum"
hearing can play no other role than to decide whether or not Juan Miguel
should have legal custody of his son. And that is not a matter for an
immigration hearing, but for a family court, and under U.S. and
international law, that court MUST be the one in Cárdenas, Cuba.

    Instead, the government lawyer hid behind the ultrareactionary
immigration reform Congress passed a couple of years ago saying that the INS
can do whatever it pleases and there's not a thing the courts are allowed to
do about it. At least judging by the reaction of the reporters, that was the
argument and it went over like a lead balloon with the judge.

    A friend in Miami points to the following: the INS has been FREE to send
Elián back the ENTIRE TIME; there's been no federal court order barring it.
It didn't want to pay the political price for doing this; and tried to stick
it to some federal judge to take the responsibility. But as the judge said
to the INS in a slightly different context, you can't have it both ways,
passing the buck to the judiciary and then essentially arguing before the
same judiciary that it has no jurisdiction.

    The judge that now has the case is a relatively young judge. It wouldn't
be unusual for him to have other ambitions -- a political career or higher
judicial appointment -- and a pro-Elián ruling in this case would be the end
to any such hopes. He would become a political leper. And if even the
lame-duck Clinton doesn't have the political will to confront the Miami
mafia on this, why should the judge stick his neck out?

    By ordering the INS to have an asylum hearing, the judge would
essentially be putting the ball back in the INS's court, and he might even
appoint a sort of lawyer-guardian to "protect Elian's interests" and make
sure the case stays tied up in court for the next decade. Or two.

    We can expect all the bourgeois politicians and the bourgeois press to
mount a tremendous propaganda campaign in support of such a ruling by the
judge. There's been a whole spate of scurrilous anti-Cuba propaganda over
the past several weeks as part of a softening up process for this outcome.

    We must brace ourselves and prepare for a new round in this battle. Cuba
has already set the date -- May Day -- for a monster pro-Elián mobilization
in that country. In the U.S. and internationally, we should also make the
first week of May a target date for protests and propaganda activities.

    But we should also be prepared to respond immediately. With the end of
the primary contests, there will be renewed opportunities to have the major
news media in the U.S. refocus on this issue, and especially the 24-hour
news channels, which tend to set the agenda for the rest of the media.

    These 24-hour news operations should be hit with a wave of protest phone
calls and faxes every time their reporters and anchors make one-sided or
tendentious presentations about Cuba or the Elián case.

    These news channels are sensitive to well-grounded complaints that they
are being used as an outlet for American or right-wing propaganda, and
especially the ones that operate internationally. How sensitive are they to
complaints about a lack of objectivity and impartiality? Sensitive enough so
that the President of CNN's international networks, Eason Jordan, went on a
South African talk show to answer the charges about U.S. army psy-ops
personnel being seconded to CNN.

    From Fox news, MSNBC, CNN, ABC and its brethren all we want is a fair
shake. For example one of them is airing tonight a report on Marina
Hemingway, "pointing out" that thousands of rich Americans who travel
illegally to Cuba cross paths with "thousands" of Cubans coming the other
way who are "fleeing" from "communism."

    That's a bunch of crap. They don't know it's "thousands": the INS says
it's been a few dozen so far this year. As for the motivation, this is
clearly a "pull" migration, economic in nature, with the added incentive of
100% guaranteed legal status in the U.S. the second you arrive -- if you
make it. If it were a "push" migration driven by, for example, religious
persecution, people would be scattering in all directions, going to Jamaica
and the Bahamas and Haiti as well as to the U.S.

    But at any rate what the reporter stated as fact is, in reality, just
ONE opinion about the migration, and Cuba, as well as many people in the
States, have a different opinion, and the TV network should be true to its
promise of not editorializing and should organize a report presenting how
the Cubans view the migration issue.

    In other words, the effective protest will be the one demanding not that
they adopt our standards, but that at least they live up to their OWN claims
of impartiality, even-handedness, fairness to varying points of view, and so
on.

    Most of all, if this judge does rule against Elián, we MUST NOT allow
this setback to demoralize or demobilize us. We are on the side of the
angels on this one, and the more obstinately the imperialists hang on to
Elián through their gusano agents, judges and gutless administration, the
more outraged people will be all over the world and the more they will
understand the need to mobilize to win Elian's freedom.

Jose

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