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The Kidnapping of Elian Gonzalez by Tom Painter 4-25-2000 Two days ago, on Saturday, April 22, 2000, U.S. Federal agents stormed the house of Lazaro Gonzalez in Miami and removed his six year-old grand nephew, Elian - spiriting him away to Washington D.C. and a reunion with his father. In the eyes of Lazaro Gonzalez, in the eyes of Lazaro’s daughter Marisleysis and in the eyes of much of the Cuban-American community Elian’s removal from the home in Miami was no different than a kidnapping. The reality is that Elian was kidnapped months ago, shortly after he arrived on our shores, and he has been held hostage to the political agenda of the Cuban-American community, until now. Elian’s father, Juan Gonzalez, did ask his uncle Lazaro in Miami to look after the boy temporarily - after Elian was found as one of three survivors of a failed boat trip from Cuba. Elian’s mother, who was divorced from his father, had died on that doomed trip. She, her companions and Elian were fleeing Cuba for a new life, a better life, in the United States. And yes, Cuba is ruled by a dictatorial regime under which life is harsh and freedom is a luxury parceled out by its leaders at their whim. However, Juan Gonzalez did not want to defect to the United States and did not ask his uncle Lazaro to keep Elian in Miami permanently. As Elian’s sole surviving parent, he asked his uncle Lazaro and the United States government to return his son to him. After the death of his mother, the best course for little Elian to heal from the trauma would have been a speedy resumption of the close relationship with his father, relatives and friends in Cuba whom he had grown up with. But the possibility of quiet shelter, protection and nurture from a loving father was denied to him. Lazaro’s daughter, Marisleysis, loudly complains about the three minutes of trauma during which Elian was retrieved from their Miami home. And certainly the one image of the agent with a gun in front of Elian is disturbing, even though the unknown camera angle and lack of sound deny us the full picture of that moment. However, the constant, emotional media fishbowl-life, in and around the house in Miami, stands as the greatest example of trauma inflicted on little Elian to date. There, in Miami, Elian was hoisted up before the media as an object, an icon, a pawn, and a possession in the arms of an emotionally charged young woman. With the permission of an uncle who had carried a family feud too far to back away, Elian’s personal fate had been captured by a political agenda. While Lazaro wavered on returning Elian (under pressure from other Gonzalez’ matriarchs and patriarchs in Miami), the Cuban-American political community stepped in and adopted him as their own. All of a sudden, we, the American people, acquiesced in denying a father and son their right to be re-united, and little Elian was kidnapped into the arena of the political battle between the Cuban-American community and Castro. The U.S. agent that achieved this kidnapping was the domestic political position of the Cuban-American community, strengthened by the pandering of conservative politicians and media talking heads. Everything that the family in Miami has proclaimed as a right, in Elian’s name, only obscured the real issue of rights. That issue is their assumption, their presumption, to the right to speak on Elian’s behalf, in defiance of his sole surviving parent and with no legal basis to do so. The Florida courts told them that and the primary issue before the courts now is not their right to custody, they have none, but Elian’s right to ask for asylum — which is a position that clearly did not come to Elian on his own. The roles of Lazaro and his daughter were self-appointed roles that neither the law or Elian’s surviving parent granted to them. The roles of everyone they enlisted in their crusade, while boosting their position politically, did not change the underlying foundation for those roles, which was baseless under the circumstances. With Castro as an excuse to deny the sincerity of Elian’s father’s wishes, the life in the emotional media circus around Lazaro’s Miami home did nothing less than challenge little Elian into questioning the love he had always known from his father. Yesterday, on Sam Donaldson’s Sunday morning talk show, George Will and Kokie Roberts let their emotions defeat reason and did nothing more than publicly rant over the images of Elian’s rescue by federal agents. They were joined by a chorus of politicians, who ignored the facts, ignored the trampling of the real rights of a parent and his child, while protesting the tactics of a three-minute event that achieved its legal objective with no injuries to anyone. Meanwhile poor Marisleysis continues to wail over the "trauma" those three minutes inflicted. We must ask what is truly the greater trauma going on in her? Is it what Elian actually experienced, or is it the loss of her self-appointed role as surrogate mother to a community icon? We witnessed what the armed agents had to deal with at 5:15 AM Saturday morning outside Lazaro’s house. Let’s try to imagine the scenario, the trauma, and what Janet Reno would have been blamed for, if the raid had been conducted differently. If, instead of a speedy three minute rescue, we had all witnessed live on television: Noon, Saturday, a small team of unarmed federal agents arrive at Lazaro Gonzalez’ home. They are expected and already a crowd of hundreds of people is outside the house. The crowd tries to prevent the agents from walking up to the house. After much jostling, the agents make it to the front door, knock on it, identify themselves and ask Lazaro to bring Elian out. No answer from inside. Minutes go by and the crowd has formed a human chain preventing the agents' departure. Meanwhile, one can hear Marisleysis wailing "you’ll never take him". The agents call for assistance. A small team arrives in riot gear, armed only with nightsticks. They manage to make a corridor up to the door of the house and tell Lazaro to open the door or have it broken open. Lazaro does not answer and now the crowd has again blocked the agents’ exit to their vehicles. It will require more force to get back there with Elian. Twenty more minutes have gone by and Marisleysis continues to wail from inside as the door is broken open. A single shot is heard. In all the commotion no one can tell if it comes from the crowd or from inside the house. The agents stop at the broken entrance and call for more back up. The crowd has now overturned the agents’ van and numbers in the hundreds just between the entrance to the house and the street. Twenty long minutes of pandemonium pass as unarmed agents try to hold their position at the entrance and Marisleysis’ wailing continues. Armed reinforcements arrive but it takes an hour before a path is secured from the front door to a new rescue vehicle. Already, Miami police are fighting small skirmishes in the neighborhood as they try to prevent people from entering the area. Finally the agents enter the house. Lazaro is defiant, Elian is not with him and Marisleysis continues to wail from a bedroom. Agents enter the bedroom and have to pull Elian from her arms. The armed agents exit the house first, to help secure the path back to the van. The unarmed agents make their way out of the house as Lazaro and supporters reach out to Elian with pleading arms and voices. It takes another ten minutes to keep a secure path open all the way to the van, as bricks and bottles and other debris are hurled at the agents carrying Elian. It takes another twenty minutes for federal agents and Miami police to help the van out of the neighborhood through the crowds of protesters. Meanwhile, little Elian has gone numb and just stares blankly as he tries to absorb the dearth of emotions that have been vented, supposedly on his behalf. Federal agents, Miami police and the protesters count their wounded. That is the type of scenario that the Miami relatives’ intransigence was leading up to. It is the type of scenario that Janet Reno avoided. Elian’s relatives in Miami created the trauma that was inflicted on him. They appointed themselves rights and roles that were not supported by law or by Elian’s sole surviving parent. A family drama that should have been resolved when Juan Gonzalez told his uncle to return Elian to him was captured by the Cuban-American community and conservative politicians and turned into a political tool against Castro. But Castro won. He showed the hypocrisy of many conservatives’ use of "family values" and he helped average Americans to see how the domestic political pandering to the Cuban-American community has grown out of bounds. American domestic politics, relations between Cuba and The U.S., the Cuban-American community, the Gonzalez family in Miami and not least of all Juan and Elian Gonzalez have surely been affected by the events of the past few months. If anyone continues to be adversely impacted by it all, it is only for Elian and his father that we should have any sympathy.
Tom Painter is the Guest Editor for OpEd.com.
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