For all LeftLinkers Radical Women has initiated a petition campaign to Pres Clinton for the immediate release of 5-year-old Cuban, Elian Gonzales Brotons, back to his country. The U.S. Government's abduction of Elian Glonzales Brotons, has disgusted the world. Late last month, Elian was one of 3 survivors of a boat that sank while transporting people from Cuba to Miami. Thanks to the U.S. Government's vicious and unrelenting efforts to crush Cuba's revolution, the trafficking of Cubans by petty profiteers (who get $8,000 - $10,000 per person) has become a new business. Washington DC swiftly "repratriates" undocumented immigrants, but illegally trafficked Cubans is another matter. Elian gets to stay in the U.S. -- in the custody of U.S. Immigration. What's common in this blatant contradiction? The rights of Elian and his Cuban family, and the sovereign rights of the Cuba, are utterly violated. Elian is a political hostage, plus a stolen child. Radical Women's petition campaign to Bill Clinton, demands the release of Elian to his country and the end of the U.S. embargo against Cuba. For copies of the petition, contact us. Below are two letters from Cuba with detailed information. Debbie Brennan for Melbourne Radical Women ________________________________________________________________ IMPORTANT TO LET PEOPLE KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON WITH THIS CASE AND ASK FOR SUPPORT FOR THE RETURN OF THE BOY 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. 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 Elian Gonzalez Bontons' 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 Elian 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" -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink