POLITICS-CUBA: Castro’s New Crusade Against United States

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Jul 1 2000 (IPS) - A demonstration of 300,000 people in the eastern Cuban city of Manzanillo Saturday celebrated the return of shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez, and launched a new stage of President Fidel Castro’s “patriotic crusade” against United States policy towards this Caribbean island nation of 11 million.

“Our struggle without respite has vigorously renewed itself, to set out on a new, prolonged phase,” President Fidel Castro announced Saturday in a message sent to the demonstrators, who flocked to Manzanillo from several eastern provinces.

The demonstration culminated a stretch of marches and “public tribunes” that began to be held in December to demand the return of six-year- old Elian to his father in Cuba.

Elian, one of three survivors when the boat in which he and his mother and 12 other undocumented Cubans were attempting to make it to US shores capsized last November, has been the object of a seven-month legal tug-of-war between his father (and the government) in Cuba and his great-uncle (and hard-line Cuban exile organisations) in Miami.

The protracted custody battle was finally brought to an end Wednesday by the US Supreme Court, and the little boy and his father Juan Miguel Gonzalez — “moral giants” in Castro’s words — returned that day to Cuba.

The president likened the US public’s support for “the just cause of the kidnapped boy” to the massive protests that “put an end to the bloody and unjust” Vietnam war (1960-75), in which four million Vietnamese were killed.

“We don’t at all care who will be the next head of government of the superpower that has imposed on the world its system of hegemonic and dominant power,” added the 73-year-old leader, who has remained in power for four decades, despite Washington’s unceasing hostility.

Castro stressed that none of President Bill Clinton’s possible successors “inspires our confidence and trust in the least,” and that “any aggression” or attempt to suffocate Cuba and bring it “to its knees” would be defeated, no matter who takes office in the White House next January.

Local analysts said Castro’s remarks seemed to cut short the rapprochement that appeared possible between Washington and Havana when they coincided on the Elian case.

The president did not travel to Manzanillo, 900 kms from Havana, on Saturday, but remained in the capital to preside over a graduation ceremony of new military officers.

The young officers were awarded their diplomas at the ‘Jose Marti Anti-Imperialist Tribune’, built on an esplanade in front of the US Interests Section in Cuba, the scene of the biggest protests demanding Elian’s return over the past few months.

In Manzanillo, Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque described Elian’s homecoming as a “victory by the people” and announced that “public tribunes” would continue to be held in a different town every Saturday to protest the nearly 40-year-old US economic and trade embargo as well as US immigration measures.

Perez Roque accused the United States of incompliance with the 1994 and 1995 bilateral migration accords in which that country pledged to repatriate illegal Cuban emigrants.

He also warned that if the Cuban Adjustment Act was not repealed, tragic episodes like the one in which Elian’s mother drowned and the small boy’s life was changed forever would continue to occur.

According to Cuban authorities, that US law, which grants permanent residency to any Cuban who sets foot on US soil, induces thousands of people every year to risk their lives in flimsy watercraft in the Florida Straits.

The question is one of the points not resolved by the two countries in the area of migration — which is the only issue, however, that has brought both countries to the negotiating table.

Cuba suspended its participation in the latest six-monthly round of bilateral talks to assess compliance with the 1994 and 1995 accords, and refused to reschedule the meeting until the conditions are “right,” according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Aymee Hernandez.

The Cuban government reported that from January to May, 612 undocumented Cuban immigrants reached the United States, 399 of whom were intercepted at sea by the US Coast Guard, and only 290 of whom were repatriated.

An estimated 85 percent of those who dare the risky sea crossing pay organised bands of traffickers to take them to the United States.

The Castro government’s new crusade is also aimed at pulling down the US blockade in effect against Cuba since the early 1960s.

“The embargo is not being eased, but meticulously applied,” said Perez Roque, who maintained that a bill in the US Congress that would allow sales of food and medicine to Cuba would not amount to a loosening of the embargo.