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April
23, 2000
Victory
is not
complete
in
the
case of Elián,
warns Fidel
PRESIDENT Fidel Castro warned last
night, Saturday April 22,
that
victory is still not
complete in
the
case of Elián González,
because it's not
clear what
the counterrevolutionary Miami mafia is
capable of doing after losing
the boy it
had kidnapped.
Over
40,000 Cubans
gathered in Jagüey Grande,
Matanzas
province,
to
celebrate
the 39th anniversary of
the victory at
the
Bay of Pigs.
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He
made
this statement
during a speech in
the
town of
Jagüey Grande, Matanzas
province, in a ceremony marking the 39th anniversary of the defeat
of
the mercenary invasion at
the
Bay of Pigs.
He added
that
the struggle will also
continue against
unjust
laws such as the Cuban Adjustment
Act, the Helms-Burton Act,
the Torricelli Act
and the
United States’ economic
blockade against
Cuba, which he termed genocidal.
Fidel noted
that
U.S. President
William Clinton had acted nobly in
this
case, thus doing a service not
only
to
the boy but
also to the
United States
itself. He also praised the efforts of U.S. Attorney General Janet
Reno and Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris
Meissner, and recognized
the role played by
U.S.
public
opinion.
The leader of the Revolution
called April 22, the day Elián was returned
to his father, as truly
critical and serious, because
the
child’s father,
Juan Miguel González,
would not
accept
any more delays in achieving
the reunion with his son, and had announced
the decision
to travel to Miami with his wife and baby son to take charge of Elián.
That posed a potential danger for them, and the Miami mafia could have
created an impossible situation for the U.S. government.
Fidel
stated that it was a day of truce between the United States and Cuba,
perhaps the only such day in the last 41 years.
Regarding the
ruling of the Atlanta six-year-old child had the authority to request
asylum on his own. "What would become of the fathers in the Third
World if that position becomes generalized!" he warned.
As for the court's
ruling that the child could not leave the United States until the final
decision regarding that alleged right to request asylum is issued, he
called it unnecessary since Juan Miguel had already said that he was
willing to wait until the process is completed.
“That
prohibition was not needed," he said, adding that the ones who were
violating the law and defying U.S. authorities were the kidnapping
relatives, who had been blackmailing the government of the most powerful
nation in the world, with the support of the Miami mafia, which considers
itself immune.
Regarding the recent
situation in Miami in the case of Elián, he said that it was chaotic and
that there was even an attempt to convince the child to reject his father.
There were psychologists working on him as if the were training a dog, he
commented.
He
expressed the hope that now no one would block the issuance of visas for a
group of children chosen to travel with their teachers and a group of
Cuban experts, to help in Elián's reinsertion into his natural
environment.
ANTI-CUBA
RESOLUTION IN
GENEVA ENCOURAGED THE MAFIA
Fidel stated that
the resolution against Cuba in the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva
had encouraged the Miami Mafia. There is a close connection between this
and the Elián case, he said.
He
discussed the servile attitude toward the United States displayed by the
Czech Republic. "That hurts us, not because the were accusing us
without justification, which has happened man times over the last 41
years, but because it further incited the Miami Mafia and endangered
Elián's life."
A large
part of his speech was devoted to recalling incidents during the April
1961 invasion by mercenary forces from the United States, which tried to
set up a beachhead in order to ask for help from the Organization of
American States (OAS) and U.S. military forces. He praised the valor of
the Cuban fighters, who in 68 consecutive hours of fighting defeated the
invading force.
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