<< Back 6/12/02 There’s always a different opinion ... By Scott McLeod She held in her hands the news magazine cover of federal agents whisking Elian Gonzalez out of his temporary home in Miami, passion radiating from her controlled, carefully chosen words. “This is why Cubans in Florida will never vote for Janet Reno,” she said. We returned an innocent boy to a brutal dictator, his dying mother’s wish for him to grow up in a free country ignored. It was a terrible mistake, she said. When the other side of a story walks into your office, speaks eloquently, passionately, and gracefully — and almost certainly more knowledgeably — one can do little but listen intently, question your own assumptions, and, perhaps, retreat a little. Three weeks ago I wrote about Cuba and Fidel Castro. Those who know history know that his revolution promised the people of this beautiful Caribbean island a just and fair society void of the corruption that surrounded Fulgencio Batista. Once victorious in 1959, though, Castro spiraled way Left, imprisoning opponents and starting Soviet-style collective farms. His regime became hard-line communist and totalitarian, cementing relations with Russia and becoming the key (and only) Western Hemisphere country in the Soviet bloc. Dissidents were imprisoned, tortured and killed. Political opposition has not been tolerated for 40 years. In the first couple of years, families could leave on their own, and many did. Families sent their children to the U.S. without their parents to prevent their indoctrination into Castro’s communist philosophy. And when legal emigration was all but stopped, Cubans began risking their lives to cross the 90 miles of ocean to get to America, coming in rickety rafts and inner tubes, risking all for the dream of living in a free society. The wave has never stopped. I wrote that we should ease the embargo and use new tactics to try and loosen Castro’s grip on power. If, after 43 years, Castro endures, then why not take the failure of U.S. policy as a sign that we need to re-think the way we treat the island nation. Perhaps trade and the influx of money — and a taste of prosperity for the Cuban people — might hasten Castro’s downfall. The Cuban-American who visited me last week does not write letters to the editor or try to make headlines. She doesn’t give speeches. She is a private person who told me it took some soul-searching before even deciding to come to me and discuss the situation. She was raised in Cuba but has lived in the U.S. for more than 40 years, fleeing soon after Castro came to power. She knows the situation, has followed its every evolution since Castro’s takeover in 1959, still has close relatives on the island whom she is only able to talk with on rare occasions. She remembers pre-Castro Cuba as a place where, yes, there was poverty and corruption. Now, however, there is poverty, corruption — and widespread misery. The misery, she said, came with Castro’s policies. The hatred for Castro of those who lived on the island through the early days of his revolution is perhaps best illustrated by an episode in history that many today have either forgotten or never knew about. From 1960 to 1962, about 14,000 Cuban children — some as young as 5 — were put on airplanes with smuggled American passports and only the clothes they were wearing. Operation Pedro Pan (Operation Peter Pan) sent these children to families willing to do whatever it took to fight the spread of Communism. Many children remained in foster homes while others eventually reunited with parents and other relatives when they escaped from Cuba. Parents were willing to send their children away because they feared Castro’s influence. He had begun dismantling educational institutions, and in 1960 decreed that high school students would learn to bear arms and take part in militias. He sent 1,000 kids to the Soviet Union, ordered that all children over 10 be taught agricultural methods, and even created what was known as the Union of Rebel Pioneers. This was a group of children 7 to 13 years of age who would report “sabotage and counterrevolutionary attitudes in elementary schools” and in homes. As the dismantling of the old society hastened, parents found it in their hearts to send their own children abroad (the book Operation Pedro Pan by Yvonne M. Conde details this unique emigration). Castro is now old, and many think he has perhaps softened. The Cuban-American who visited me, though, says that is nonsense. He trades with the rest of the world and gets American goods, but the people don’t see them. His cronies benefit, and he uses the goods to attract tourists to get more money and remain in power, she said. People are starving from Castro’s greed, not from the U.S. trade embargo, she said. When he dies the regime will implode quickly because absolutely no one believes in anything Castro says or does. We in America, perhaps, are softened by our prosperity and assume a casual attitude toward a freedom we’ve never been denied. Like academics cloistered on a campus, our real-world experiences are often found lacking when compared to those who have lived and escaped from totalitarian regimes. And so this woman with a steely resolve and a strong backbone made me feel as if I had substituted expediency for morality. At least she made me question my assumptions and, by doing so, opened my eyes to another side of this issue. (Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com)