The return of Elian Gonzalez to Cuba at the end of June was a victory for Cuba, in its own way as significant as the Revolution’s triumph over the mercenary forces of US imperialism at the Bay of Pigs 39 years ago. The political battle carried out by the Cuban nation, led by the Communist Party, in the face of a well-funded and perniciously counter-revolutionary campaign orchestrated by Miami-based Cuban exiles has resulted in more than simply Elian’s return. Before the eyes of the world, Cuban socialism confronted US imperialism – and won hands down.
In the first place, the campaign has left the Cuban people united, politicised and more combative than perhaps at any time since the 1960s. During the seven months of Elian’s sequestration by his counter-revolutionary Miami relatives, demonstrations have been held almost every day in Cuba, with schoolchildren, mothers, students, workers all galvanised onto the streets of Cuba. Televised daily round-table discussions have allowed the entire population to engage in an in-depth analysis of the history of US policy and injustice towards Cuba and the gains of the Cuban Revolution and to begin to organise a real campaign against anti-Cuban US legislation. A central part of this has been the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, the insidious piece of legislation which, by guaranteeing residency to those entering the United States illegally from Cuba (and only Cuba – don’t try this one if you’re Haitian, Mexican, Dominican etc) – has been the siren call to unlawful and often fatal Cuban emigration. On 1 July, Cuba initiated ‘the second phase of the battle against all anti-Cuban legislation’, when 300,000 Cubans marched in Granma province to demand the return of the territory occupied by the US Guantanamo Naval Base. At the end of the demonstration – which was addressed, to a prolonged ovation, by the young son of Mumia Abu-Jamal who faces the death sentence in the United States – Cuban Vice President Raul Castro reiterated that the struggle would continue until there was an end to all the injustices committed against Cuba.
Within the United States itself, the increasingly rabid and obviously politically-motivated campaign by the Miami relatives, orchestrated and funded by overtly terrorist organisations such as the Cuban-American National Foundation, CANF, rapidly lost support even among the local, non-Cuban Miami population – despite shameful equivocation by both US presidential candidates. Within the US, ordinary north Americans who might never have heard of Cuba other than through the vicious misrepresentation of the press, suddenly found in Elian’s father and stepmother, instead of the horned demons of ‘Castro’s communists’, a normal, decent working class family with whom they could identify. Public opinion swung behind reuniting Elian with his family – and towards normalising relations with Cuba.
Despite all their efforts, bribes and promises of a luxurious future in the United States, US politicians and their cronies were unable to corrupt Elian’s family or friends – the political coup they dreamed of. Attorney General Janet Reno herself admitted that consistent attempts were made to encourage the defection of Elian’s father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who by his very ‘ordinariness’ embodied all that is best about the Cuban people, a fact he himself recognised being commended by Fidel Castro for his exemplary conduct in the battle to free Elian: ‘I haven’t done anything extraordinary; I did what any parent who loves his child, any Cuban proud of our Revolution and our socialism would have done.’
Cat Alison
