If six-year-old Elian Gonzalez is sent back to his father's home in Cardenas, Cuba, he'll live in a house permeated by black smoke belching from the neighborhood rum factory and go to a school where, just yards away, state sanctioned hookers ply their trade.
"Prostitution is big business in Cuba," reports Cindy Adams in her Monday column, available only in The New York Post's print edition. And Elian's school is right across the street from "the best little whore house in Cardenas," says the columnist.
Adams' source? Karen Feld, a freelance reporter with whom she's worked in the past and who, during a recent trip to Castro's Caribbean Alcatraz, broke away from the government-sponsored tour and instead visited the street where Elian's dad, Juan Miguel Gonzalez lives.
Private telephones are rare in Cuba, says Feld. The homes in Gonzalez's neighborhood are "a shambles ... Small fish swim in the gutter in front of his house."
"The bathroom is a curtained-off area. Behind the curtain a hole in the concrete floor ... Electricity is minimal," Adams reports Feld told her.
"An apple costs one dollar. Kids hustle strangers for money, soap, pens, notebooks, aspirin. The prettiest building in the area is the brothel."
Feld knocked on the door and struck up a conversation with three hookers inside:
"They appeared chatty until I asked what they thought about Elian. Then they became scared. They motioned they could not speak," said Feld.
One of the prostitutes explained to the American reporter, "We are not free to discuss capitalism, prostitution or drug use."
Traveling back to Elian's school, Feld discovered 900 children in red and white uniforms. She asked one teacher what the student-teacher ratio is. "We are not permitted to give out such information," Feld was told.
As for Cuba's vaunted health care system, Adams' friend discovered that the town where the Clinton administration wants Elian to live does indeed have a Soviet-built hospital. But glowing reports in the American media about Castro's medical miracle have apparently been exaggerated.
"Surgical patients must supply their own sheets," reported Feld.
