A year after saga began, Elian's impact still felt

Elian's story captured the world's attention

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) -- Photogenic 6-year-old Cuban Elian Gonzalez has been out of public sight for months now and memories of his colossal custody battle are fading even here.

But, one year after his fateful voyage to Florida that launched the saga, the Elian story still reverberates in U.S.-Cuba relations and the boy has been immortalized in Havana's official "revolutionary" pantheon.

"The battle for the return of Elian Gonzalez demonstrated what socialism and solidarity are all about," Vice President Carlos Lage said recently in one of the frequent official allusions to the case. "Elian was just a child, but he was the son of every Cuban. That's why we had to fight."

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Elian, then only 5, left Cuba this time last year in an overcrowded boat with his mother and 12 other illegal would-be migrants to the United States. The rest is history -- and made-for-TV drama.

When the boat capsized in stormy waters, Elian's mother and most of the others onboard were drowned, leaving the exhausted, dehydrated boy cast adrift on an inner tube in shark-infested waters for two days and nights.

Then, on the U.S. Thanksgiving Day (November 25 last year), two fishermen from Florida saved Elian's life when they saw him at sea and brought him to his relatives living in Miami.

That was the start of a bitter family feud over Elian's future between his Cuban father, who demanded his immediate return, and the Miami family, who said he should not be sent back to communism after his mom died taking him to "freedom."

Politicians on both sides of the Florida Strait quickly seized on Elian's case, turning it into another notable flashpoint in four decades of Cold War hostilities between President Fidel Castro and his foes in the United States.

Anti-Communist Cuban American groups made Elian a "cause celebre" and fought tooth-and-nail in U.S. courts and public opinion to keep the boy in Florida. Castro, meanwhile, launched an unprecedented patriotic "Free Elian!" campaign -- with millions of protesters on the streets on a near-daily basis -- which dominated the Caribbean island's life for seven months.

Elian was rescued in the waters off the coast of Florida on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1999

Eventually, Elian's father prevailed in U.S. courts and the bemused boy came home on June 28, disappearing quickly back into local life in the downbeat coastal town of Cardenas.

His school and house were guarded by police this week to stop prying eyes on the anniversary of his tragic sea voyage. Relatives declined interview requests and the boy himself -- last glimpsed by media at the start of school in September -- was nowhere to be seen.

But officials were only too pleased to comment on what Castro called as important a victory as the 1961 defeat of a CIA-backed Cuban-American invasion force at the Bay of Pigs.

"For the U.S. people ... it was an opportunity to know the truth about Cuba," Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said, reflecting Havana's view that the affair showed up the excessive influence of Cuban American extremists.

Inside Cuba, the Elian campaign "represented a boost to the ideas of the revolution and gave an opportunity to young Cubans, who didn't experience other revolutionary times, to realize their vocation for freedom and independence," he added.

The INS raid to take Elian in April 1999 sparked protests in Miami

Cuban Americans who fought to keep Elian in Miami, as well as not a few local Cuban dissidents, dispute that interpretation, arguing that Castro seized obsessively upon the case to exploit it for maximum political benefit.

Abroad, he succeeded in weakening the influence of the Cuban American lobby on U.S. policymakers. At home, he rallied his people around a cause most believed was just.

"One thing was defending the father's right to be reunited with his son," a moderate local dissident, Oswaldo Paya, said. "Another was turning that, as they did, into a campaign of support and reaffirmation for the political regime in Cuba."

Paya said the "abhorrent public campaign" became an all-consuming "poisonous cloud," which for seven months drowned out non-orthodox voices in a festival of pro-Castro patriotism.

On the streets, few Cubans can forget Elian, who was for seven months virtually the only theme on their state-run media.

"The people went out into the streets to defend the revolution. Neither the Miami mafia nor the U.S. government can defeat us," said Havana resident Ahmed Martinez, 31, recalling the seven months of public rallies. While that is a common sentiment, some Cubans also grumbled in private that the Elian affair took over their daily lives.

Since he returned, the government has made good its promise to keep him out of the limelight, although that in itself has fueled suspicions in Florida that the boy has been undergoing a Communist indoctrination process.

Following April's pre-dawn raid Elian was reunited with his father Juan Gonzalez

As for his future, Cuba says Elian will enjoy a normal life, but many doubt that will be possible since his name has become synonymous with a landmark in the turbulent history of U.S.-Cuba relations. He, his father and his grandparents are local celebrities, their names and images enshrined on every Cuban's consciousness, and the success of the "Elian battle" is constantly invoked by the government.

Although authorities have made efforts to rid Cuba of the tens of thousands of "Free Elian!" posters and banners that went up across the island, faded T-shirts showing his face behind bars are still worn by thousands of Cubans.

"What must he think when he see someone in the street with an old T-shirt and then realizes it's him on the front? It must be a bit strange, if not traumatic, for the boy," a Western diplomat in Havana said.

Eager to harness the political momentum from the Elian saga, Cuba has kept intact all the campaign structures it put into effect for him. They include a new $2 million "anti-imperialist" square used for political rallies opposite the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana and a daily televised "roundtable" discussion where state commentators expound the official view of whatever is the favorite topic of the day.

But Cuba's latest campaigns -- against U.S. immigration policy enshrined in the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act and against Congress' modifications of the economic embargo -- have not had the same ring or international impact as the little boy with the coy smile.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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