Pawn in a power game

The Cuban youngster, Elian Gonzales, has become a political football in a three-way contest among the anti-Castro exiles, Washington and Havana. SRIDHAR KRISHNASWAMI takes a look at the ongoing controversy.

IF IT had been any other six-year-old tragically or otherwise separated from his parent, the United States Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) would have made sure that the child was sitting in the lap of either the father or the mother at the earliest. In fact, left to the INS, Elian Gonzales would have been doing the same after he was miraculously saved in the seas trying to enter the U.S.

But Elian Gonzales is not just ``any other'' child. He has the ``distinction'' of being born in Cuba and that makes all the difference to a group of people in the U.S., whose obsession in the last 40 years has been two things - Cuba and Mr. Fidel Castro. Take this obsession and add the elections of 2000: the result is not just an international tug-of-war taking place across the Florida Straits, but crass politics that can come down to any level.

Elian has been in the limelight since last November when his mother ``illegally'' left Cuba along with him to seek better times in the U.S.

Unfortunately for the six-year-old, his mother and ten others died in a shipwreck trying to reach American shores; and since then the Cuban youngster has become a political football, not between official Washington and Havana but in a three-way contest among the anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Florida, the administration in Washington and Havana.

The INS kicked off a storm of protests in the U.S. when it ruled that Elian must be reunited with his father in Cuba. Some of this was based on the assessment that Elian was neither an American citizen nor a permanent resident and was too young to seek political asylum.

The ruling - perceived to be the right one in several quarters - was endorsed by the Clinton administration, much to the dismay of the Cuban exiles and lawmakers who depend on their votes.

In fact, lawmakers, especially from Florida, keen on taking the matter out of the jurisdiction of courts and the INS rushed for the legislative option - the introduction of the Gonzales Citizenship Bill that would grant Elian American citizenship or permanent residency, at least.

At an age when Elian can hardly understand the third rate political circus being played out on either side of the Florida Straits, the Clinton administration is finding itself between a rock and a hard place. In terms of law and the legal aspect surrounding the Elian case the administration is being reminded - and is convinced - that the rightful place for the child is with his father in Cuba.

If there is one thing going for the administration it is that a majority of opinion polls have shown that most Americans think that the boy should be reunited with his father. And if the momentum for the Gonzales Citizenship Bill died down it was because several lawmakers soon came to realise that their constituents were a part of the mainstream thinking or simply could not care less.

The idea of ``thrusting'' American citizenship on Elian or perhaps paving the way for a ``green card'' enabling him to decide for himself his status later did not go down well with ordinary Americans some of whom were appalled that they had to sit out several years for the process to be completed or compared the situation to the plight of others who land in the U.S. after having gone through a similar nightmare in the seas and after having forked out thousands to unscrupulous agents.

But there was a different angle as well and one that was echoed not just in the U.S. but by countries such as France and Russia. ``If Elian were an American boy illegally taken by his divorced mother to another country and she had died in the process, we would have insisted that the boy be returned to his father in the U.S. To attempt to make Elian a citizen defies precedent and puts the U.S. in conflict with international law,'' wrote a reader in the Letters to The Editor of The Washington Post.

For the most part Americans - and to a large extent the authorities in Havana including Mr. Castro - understand that the bottomline is something different; and something very difficult to shake off.

And it has become even more difficult in an election year when there is a race to appease or mollify certain politically active groups. Florida is a State that cannot be wished away.

The political compulsions seem stronger in a ``national'' perspective, if one were to factor in what the leading Presidential candidates of the two parties have said. And in many ways the ``national'' candidates with an eye on the vote bank in Florida - at the time of primaries or actual voting on November 7, 2000 - have come out looking no better than the local politicians.

The leading Republican candidate, Mr. George W. Bush, whose brother, Mr. Jebb Bush, is the Governor of Florida, has said that if he were in the Senate he would vote ``yes'' to the Gonzales Citizenship Bill; and other Republican candidates have said that Elian should not be repatriated to Cuba.

The Democratic front-runner, the Vice-President, Mr. Albert Gore, differed with his boss and argued that the case must be appealed in higher courts; but Mr. Bill Bradley opined that he was ``reluctant'' to second guess the INS.

In all the noise, the Clinton administration is trying not to lose the larger perspective - managing relations with Havana in a changing environment.

For, there is a perception that anti-Castro exile groups are using the Elian case to hang on to their political influence which seems to be on the wane; and there is the growing objection to the continuing unilateral sanctions against Cuba which the American business community feels is hurting only the U.S.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Previous : Clouds over the summit
Next     : Back to square one