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All in Elián's family
The media is holding back on the shady past of the young Cuban refugee's Miami relatives.
By Myra MacPherson
[04/08/00]

Meet Miami's Cuban moderates
The eruption over Elián González is eclipsing a newer, tamer politics emerging in South Florida.
By John Lantigua
[04/07/00]

Grumpy old men
The aging exile leaders who are trying to keep Elián González in the United States have a lot in common with their anti-democratic nemesis, Fidel Castro.
By Max J. Castro
[04/06/00]

Harlem's un-Sharpton
Rudy Giuliani finds an ally in Imam Pasha, a black Muslim leader with a pro-Giuliani, pro-police message.
By Rob Mank
[04/06/00]

"Dead, I can't do anything"
Francisco Santos, a former kidnap victim of drug lord Pablo Escobar, became a symbol of hope for Colombians weary of violence and fear. But when leftist guerrillas ordered him killed, he had to flee to the U.S.
By Ana Arana
[04/05/00]

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Myth No. 5: Miami's Cuban leaders represent the democratic alternative to Fidel Castro. If anything is apparent by now, it's that Miami's mainstream Cuban leadership has little use for the machinery of democracy if it gets in the way of its war with Castro. If federal courts rule that Elián must go home, Miami's local government has emphatically said it will refuse to cooperate. When the Miami Herald a few years ago ran articles charging Cuban-American leaders with corruption, the paper received bomb threats.

Also Today All in Elián's family The media is holding back on the shady past of the young Cuban refugee's Miami relatives. By Myra MacPherson

Historically, the only free speech Miami's Cuban leaders care about is the speech they can buy. Between 1979 and 1997, the Cuban American National Foundation and its leaders funneled more than $3 million into congressional and presidential campaigns, creating, as the Center for Public Integrity has said, "an influence machine that, dollar for dollar, is arguably the most effective lobbying force in Washington."

Let's face facts: Guided from the start by such profound distortions and myths, Elián's saga has degenerated to the point where there can be no good outcome.

There's no good outcome for Miami's Cuban-Americans, either. Those community leaders who appointed themselves handlers for Lazaro González may have hoped to increase their influence and attain a symbolic victory over Castro. Instead, they have convinced the rest of the United States that they are narrow-minded fanatics, and have so diminished their political influence that even the Republicans have turned against them. The bill to give Elián González permanent residency cannot get out of committee in a GOP Congress, surely the greatest failure of all time for the massively well-heeled Cuba lobby. The Elián story has done more to erode public support for the Helms-Burton Cuba embargo than all the visits to Havana by liberal churches and lawyers in the past 20 years.

There is certainly no good outcome for Gore, who, just a week after positioning himself as a born-again reformer, managed to convince most of the American public that he is an inveterate panderer. He may well have even hurt his chances of winning Florida's 25 electoral votes, since many Floridians resent the special treatment granted Little Havana.

Most of all, there is no good outcome for Elián. He has already lost his mother and spent four months in legal and emotional limbo, paraded before television cameras. His departure from his Miami relatives will certainly not be easy, and he will carry new scars to his reunion with his father. His delusional Miami foster family seems at this writing to be nurturing one final fantasy, that Juan González will make a sudden decision to remain in the United States. Don't hold your breath.

The time for fantasies -- for prophetic visions of the Virgin and dolphins -- is over, and the sooner Elián is on a plane to Havana, the better. When he is gone, there will be only one question worth asking: Who are the politicians -- from Little Havana to Washington -- who were so willing to sacrifice a child?
salon.com | April 8, 2000

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