dear friends,
below you will see the text of two letters sent from cuba regarding the
abduction of a cuban child by united states authorities.
this shameful act has been brought to you by the government that is so
loudly full-on about family values and human rights abuses! would they have
done the same had the child been haitian or mexican? no way...he would have
been back to his family faster than you can say human rights violation!
we will be demonstrating against this act of abuse outside the us consulate
at the
mlc centre, 19-29 martin place, sydney on friday, december 10 at 5pm.
please give your support to this action by coming along to the
demonstration and by passing on this information through your networks,
putting resolutions to your union meetings and publicising this outrage in
every possible way.
if you can't be at the demonstration but wish to be involved in helping
elian to return to his family, please contact the australia cuba friendship
society at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or at po box k364, haymarket, 1240, nsw.
yours in solidarity with cuba,
joan silk, secretary, acfs sydney branch
Letter by Dr. Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, Speaker of the National Assembly
of People's Power of the Republic of Cuba, to all members of Parliament in
the world.
Dear Members of Parliament,
Cuba has repeatedly denounced the double standard policy that the United
States government pursues towards Cuba with regards to immigration. While
the nationals of other countries are quickly deported when they illegally
enter that country, the Cubans are immediately granted permission of
residence in compliance with the so-called Cuban Adjustment Act thus
undermining the migratory agreements signed by both countries while
encouraging illegal migration. This has lately given rise to a new
phenomenon: the illegal smuggling of aliens when unscrupulous individuals
wanting to profit from others and despising human life have come from the
United States and surreptitiously enter our territory on speed boats to
fetch Cuban citizens that they take to that country on payments of 8,000 to
10,000 US dollars per person.
Most often, the travelling takes place on overcrowded boats and not few
people, women and children included, have perished during such trafficking
in humans. In addition to this, over two thousand weekly hours of radio
stations programming invade our radio-electronic space as part of a
campaign that repeatedly incites to ignore the established procedures for a
legal and safe migration in accordance with aforementioned agreements
signed by the United States and Cuba. The trafficking in humans is
conducted on rudimentary and unsafe vessels, either built or stolen in our
country by people who receive money from and act in complicity with others
living in the United States of America.
Last November 22, ancillary troops of our Coast Guard Forces detected,
within our jurisdictional waters, a vessel carrying a group of people to
Florida. As the efforts to persuade them to abandon their undertaking
failed --and in compliance with the well-known conduct observed in such
cases to avoid the use of force and intimidation to prevent accidents-- it
was decided to escort them up to the international waters. Additionally, an
immediate communication was forwarded through the established channels,
that is, fax and telex to the U.S. Coast Guard Service patrolling the seas
adjacent to Cuba about the presence and characteristics of such vessel
navigating towards Florida "with a group of about 13 people, including
children, on the northern coast of Matanzas province with the intent to
illegally enter the territory of the United States of America.
A few days later, on November 25, we learned that the U.S. Coast Guard
Service had rescued, near the coast of Florida, three survivors of a
shipwreck and that five-year-old Eli1n Gonza1lez Brotins was one of them.
That child was being illegally carried aboard that vessel by a man named
L'E1zaro Munero Garcia who had close personal relations with the child's
mother already divorced from the boy's father, Juan Miguel Gonz=E1lez
Quintana, a resident in the city of Cardenas, Matanzas province, Cuba. The
father had a very close relationship with his son whom he constantly
visited as he properly discharged his obligations as a parent. The child's
grandparents, on both sides of the family, had also a very close and loving
relationship with him as they live in the same city. They, too, have been
deprived of the boy's presence. Neither the father nor any other relative
was consulted about the child's departure. The father's permission was not
requested to take his small son to the United States of America, least of
all to carry him there illegally and by irresponsible and risky means. The
two persons responsible for illegally taking the child, that is, the mother
and her friend, perished in the shipwreck.
Once again the United States government has violated the basic principles
of law and respect for human dignity thus insulting the child's father, a
modest Cuban worker, and his grandparents when it has used the Immigration
and Naturalization Service to illegally retain the child in their territory
despite the father's insistent claim to recover his son in compliance with
his full right to custody. Far from acting with the urgency that the case
demands and returning the child to his father through the expedite
procedures provided for such cases, the United States government, in
connivance with the Cuban-American extreme right mob in Miami avoids a
fair, legal and human action and chooses to keep him in their territory
thus becoming a de facto and de jure kidnapper of the child illegally
snatched from Cuba.
From the moment a person is born until he becomes of age and is then
considered in full capacity to act on his own, it falls on the parents the
right and the duty to provide care, education and to keep him under custody
and attention. Until becoming of age and for his benefit, every minor is
legally subjected to the custody exercised by his parents, that is, to
depend from others; he cannot act of his own free will. Such dependency
shows in his capacity to act and the full exercise of his rights, which in
principle are determined by both parents or by one of them when the other
has died.
Such a transcendental action as it is the separation from his country,
because it uproots the child from his daily life, his family, his
classmates and friends, his culture and nationality, demands the previous
consent of both parents when one of them intends to leave the national
territory. It is for these reasons that Eli=E1n's father and his
grandparents' right to demand his immediate return to the home and family
from which he was illegally snatched is not negotiable. This claim is
decidedly supported by all the Cuban people as a perfectly just defense of
the infringed rights of this child and his father.
The behavior of the government of the United States of America which
violates Eli=E1n's right to enjoy his father's love and understanding, to
fully and harmoniously develop his personality and to grow in the loving
family from which he was unfairly separated and where he has his dearest
and deepest affections, is thus denounced by the National Assembly of
People's Power that on behalf of the Cuban people exposes this vandalistic
action and appeals to the most determined support of all Members of
Parliament in the world.
Sincerely,
Dr. Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada Speaker of the National Assembly
Of the Republic of Cuba " JC
************
To all the World Ministers for Foreign Affairs,
by Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister -Felipe Perez Roque
Havana, December 4, 1999
Your Excellency,
I would like to draw your attention to a most unfortunate situation
created by the bizarre and deplorable action of the government of the
United States of America in violation of the migratory agreements
signed by that country and the Republic of Cuba and of the
international law, but above all in violation of the basic standards
of humanitarian behavior. In the afternoon of last November 25, news
began to flow in on the shipwreck near the Florida coasts of a vessel
with illegal Cuban immigrants on board. It was a clear operation of
illegal smuggling of aliens conducted by unscrupulous outlaws who
operate within the American territory. According to further more
precise information, a couple of survivors were found in front of Key
Bizcayne while a five-year-old boy was located holding from a rubber
tire near Haulover Inlet, close to Miami City. The statements made by
the survivors showed that it was a group of 14 people who had
departed on November 22, before dawn, from a place in the north of
Cardenas City, Matanzas province, Cuba.
The name of the surviving child is Eli=E1n Gonz=E1lez Br=F3tons. That child
was being illegally carried aboard that vessel by a man named L=E1zaro
Munero Garc=EDa who had close personal relations with the child's
mother already divorced from the boy's father, Juan Miguel Gonz=E1lez
Quintana, a resident in the city of Cardenas, Matanzas province,
Cuba. The father had a very close relationship with his son whom he
constantly visited as he properly discharged his obligations as a
parent. The child's grandparents, on both sides of the family, had
also a very close and loving relationship with him as they live in
the same city. They, too, have been deprived of the boy's presence.
Neither the father nor any other relative was consulted about the
child's departure. The father's permission was not requested to take
his small son to the United States of America, least of all to carry
him there illegally and by irresponsible and risky means. The two
persons responsible for illegally taking the child, that is, the
mother and her friend, perished in the shipwreck.
The father of this child has addressed our Ministry requesting that
the procedures to have his son returned were immediately begun. The
grandparents on both sides of the family who also live in Cuba
support this request. They all claim for Elian's immediate return to
his family. Accordingly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the
Republic of Cuba has presented two verbal notes, on November 27, to
the U.S. Interest Section in Cuba and to the U.S. State Department in
Washington. A letter from the child 's father requesting his return
was added to the send note. At this moment, there is still no reply
from the government of the United States of America.
Eli=E1n's father's right to custody is indisputably legal and provided
for in both the Cuban law and the international law. Arbitrarily
holding the boy in the territory of the United States of America
qualifies as an abduction and constitutes a shameful act of piracy
and a true escalation in the stubborn and failed anti-Cuban policy
rejected by the international community and detrimental to the best
interest of the American and Cuban peoples.
The manipulation of this case with political purposes by certain
groups in the United States, particularly the notorious terrorist
organization known as the Cuban-American National Foundation, is most
disgusting. It is inconceivable that an innocent child who has just
barely survived such a dreadful tragedy is being so abused and that
his misery is cynically exten ded by preventing his return to his
father, his grandparents, friends and neighbors in the country where
he was born. This predicament, which amounts to a violation of the
child Eli=E1n Gonz=E1lez Br=F3ntons' basic human rights, is building such a
growing state of anger and irritation among the people here that if
it is not resolved in the shortest possible time it could lead to
dangerous tensions between the two nations. Therefore, by describing
this situation I am appealing to you and to the international
community to prevent this huge abuse of and contempt for the basic
norms of civilized coexistence. Little Eli=E1n must be immediately
returned to his family as it befits the loftiest concepts of justice
and humanism.
Please, accept the testimony of my highest consideration.
Felipe Perez Roque Minister of Foreign Affairs Republic of Cuba"=20
--
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