wwnews Digest #36
WW News Service Digest #36 1) U.S. Role in Kidnapping Cuban Child by [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2) Miami Protest Defies Cuban Right Wing by [EMAIL PROTECTED] 3) Free Leonard Peltier--Now! by [EMAIL PROTECTED] 4) Albany, N.Y.: "Justice for Diallo!" by [EMAIL PROTECTED] 5) Vieques: P.R. Movement Says "No Deal" by [EMAIL PROTECTED] This digest is sent to you because you are subscribed to [EMAIL PROTECTED]. To unsubscribe, E-mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To switch to the non-digest, standard mode, E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send administrative queries to [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 21:37:27 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: Quoted-printable Subject: [WW] U.S. Role in Kidnapping Cuban Child Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 10, 2000 issue of Workers World newspaper - WASHINGTON TO BLAME IN KIDNAPPING OF CUBAN CHILD By Gloria La Riva The Clinton administration, the Justice Department, and specifically the Immigration and Naturalization Service must bear responsibility for the abduction of little Eli=A0n Gonz=A0lez by the U.S.-based Cuban right-wing, which has now entered its third month. It was the INS that turned the six-year-old shipwreck survivor over to distant relatives in Miami in the first place. It has continued to grant them temporary custody despite requests from his father, Juan Manuel Gonzalez, to return Eli=A0n home to Cuba immediately. It was Attorney General Janet Reno who, defying international, Cuban and U.S. law, agreed to allow the Miami relatives--themselves dupes of the right-wing--to take their case to court before the INS's own ruling to return Eli=A0n could take effect. And now the federal authorities have forced his grandmothers to return to Cuba without the boy after their heroic trip to the United States in late January to try to secure his release. Five-year-old Eli=A0n was rescued at sea in international waters on Nov. 25, 1999. The boat on which he was taken from Cuba sank and his mother, along with nine other adults, died. Without hesitation Eli=A0n gave U.S. medical doctors his father's address and telephone number in Cuba, but the U.S. authorities handed him over to his great-uncle in Miami without requiring any proof of his relationship to the boy. Within one day of his rescue, the right-wing launched a grotesque campaign to exploit the boy's plight for their anti-Cuba agenda. Later, the same U.S. officials would force Eli=A0n's father to jump through hoops to prove he was a father intimately involved in his upbringing. MEETING WAS A SET-UP Clear evidence of a set-up during Eli=A0n's meeting with his grandmothers at the house of a Catholic nun shows that the U.S. government is playing a duplicitous role that has delayed his return home. The INS went out of its way before the meeting to promise the Miami relatives in writing that Eli=A0n would not be removed from them. Then in the meeting, when the grandmothers handed the boy a phone to speak with his father, a Miami cop grabbed it out of his hand. They didn't want him "influenced" by his own father. Two days later, Jean O'Laughlin, the "neutral mediator" whose house was chosen by the government for the meeting, came out strongly advocating his stay in the U.S. The most vociferous opponents of Eli=A0n's return to Cuba are Miami right-wing thugs like Jose Basulto of Brothers to the Rescue and Jorge Mas Santos of the Cuban American National Foundation. They could easily be slapped down by the biggest power on earth if the U.S. ruling class really wanted to do that. For years, however, they have served as a convenient cover for Washington to continue its aggressive policy against Cuba through the U.S. blockade. Much has been made over the years of the sway that the right-wing is said to hold over Florida politicians, right- wing members of Congress and U.S. presidents. It is certainly true that opportunist politicians like Robert Torricelli, Jesse Helms, Dan Burton and Dan Smith have jumped on the anti-Cuba bandwagon to further their political careers. Some, like Burton, Helms and Torricelli, have sponsored monstrous bills against Cuba designed to inflict greater hardship on the Cuban people. But in reality, the Miami fascist movement was a creation of the U.S. imperialist rulers. The defeated forces of former Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista have been nurtured, funded and armed to the tune of tens of billions of dollars over 40 years for the convenience of the U.S. overall strategy of trying to destroy the Cuban revolution. While at times their fascist ideology does create problems for the U.S. government, they still are backed financially and politically by their masters. In the present case, the overwhelming support by the big capitalist media for sending the child home reveals a split in the ruling
wwnews Digest #36
Teresa Gutierrez, a national organizer for the Committee, told the rally that the committee would not stop its work until Eli=A0n sets foot on Cuban soil. Rep. Dan Burton, who was in Miami the same day, and other right-wing politicians are moving ahead with plans to make Eli=A0n a U.S. citizen. According to news reports, however, this has little support. Even Republican elected officials have said they would not support a citizenship process. Federal Judge William M. Hoeveler will hear an appeal by Eli=A0n's Miami relatives on Feb. 14 in U.S. District Court in Florida. The hearing is to determine whether the Immigration and Naturalization Service ruling that granted Eli=A0n's father in Cuba custody will prevail over any state court. POLL A front-page headline in The Jersey Journal of Jan. 31 reads: "Hudson to Eli=A0n: Go Home to Your Father and Motherland--Poll also shows desire to normalize relations with Cuba." What gives this headline special significance is that it refers to Hudson County, N.J., which has the second- largest concentration of Cubans in the United States, after south Florida. The article reports on a poll taken in the county by New Jersey City University. It shows that over half the county's residents were for sending Elian home. And almost half were also for normalizing relations with Cuba. Hudson County has been the political base of two of the most rabidly anti-Cuban politicians in Congress--Robert Torricelli and Robert Menendez. Torricelli was the sponsor of a law tightening the blockade against Cuba. - END - (Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 2 Feb 2000 22:25:58 -0500 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: [WW] Free Leonard Peltier--Now! Message-ID: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 10, 2000 issue of Workers World newspaper - 25 YEARS OF INJUSTICE: FREE LEONARD PELTIER--NOW! By Moonanum James Feb. 6 is the 25th anniversary of the arrest and unjust imprisonment of Leonard Peltier. Leonard Peltier is an American Indian Movement warrior who was wrongfully convicted in 1976 of shooting two FBI agents at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota the previous June. Peltier's trial was filled with manufactured evidence, intimidated witnesses and outright lies. It has been proven that the FBI and federal prosecutors intentionally withheld evidence that would have proven Peltier's innocence. Even the prosecutor of the case now admits that the government has no idea who committed the crime for which Peltier is serving two consecutive life sentences. Yet the courts have refused to grant Leonard Peltier a new trial, and the U.S. government has consistently denied Peltier parole. Peltier has had an executive clemency petition pending before President Bill Clinton since 1993. During a recent visit to Pine Ridge Clinton was confronted by Peltier supporters carrying banners and signs demanding freedom for Peltier. Clinton is reported to have asked, "Who is Leonard Peltier?" How dare he ask such a question after millions from across the United States and around the world have written him demanding Peltier's freedom. The Canadian government recently issued a report on the circumstances surrounding Peltier's arrest and extradition. At that time, the U.S. government did not have enough evidence to warrant extraditing him. A Native woman has admitted that the FBI and U.S. prosecutors coerced her into signing affidavits claiming she was Peltier's girlfriend and witnessed him murder the agents. When she later confessed to not knowing Peltier and not being at Pine Ridge on the day the agents were shot, her confession was suppressed by the FBI and never entered into evidence at Peltier's trial. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, along with other attorneys, has filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the Parole Commission's refusal to recognize Peltier's procedural parole rights. The Parole Commission has repeatedly refused to grant parole, saying that Peltier has "not yet taken criminal responsibility for the deaths of the two agents." During the latest hearing, held in December of 1995, the commission went on the record as "... recognizing that the prosecution has conceded having no direct evidence that Peltier participated in the killing of the two FBI agents." The commission still refused to grant parole because of Peltier's "... evident decision not to accept criminal responsibility." How can he accept responsibility for something he did not do? If this is unsuccessful, Leonard's next
