Twenty years ago Saturday, April 22nd in a pre-dawn raid Elian Gonzalez was taken at gun point from his family in Miami, and sent back to Cuba. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 1/40

His mother had died trying to bring her son to freedom, but the Clinton Administration returned the young boy to the Castro regime. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 2/40

Castro had the winning narrative, framing the argument as a boy being reunited with his father. The reality was far more complicated, but did not fit into newscasts that demonized the Cuban community in South Florida & clamored for the child's return. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 3/40

I still remember liberal Cuban friends of mine in tears telling me that the only radio show they could listen to was Rush Limbaugh, because all the others were full of hateful and bigoted tirades against Cuban exiles and Cuban Americans. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 4/40

When people wonder why Cuban-Americans continue to vote Republican in large numbers they only need to revisit history. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html
5/40

President Clinton did well with Cuban voters in 1992 and 1996, but his moves to normalize relations began early with the Castro regime. We learned later that much had been going on behind the scenes in the early days of the Clinton Administration. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 6/40

According to Raul Castro in a December 2008 interview with Sean Penn under the Clinton Administration a new relationship was initiated between the Castro regime's military and the United States military : https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 7/40

"We've had permanent contact with the US military, by secret agreement, since 1994." Not only contacts but joint military exercises. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 8/40

Again the source is Raul Castro:

"It is based on the premise that we would discuss issues only related to Guantánamo."

https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 9/40

"On Feb 17, 1993, following a request by the United States to discuss issues related to buoy locators for ship navigations into the bay, was the first contact in the history of the revolution. Between March 4 & July 1, the Rafters Crisis took place." https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 10/40

"A military-to-military hot line was established, and on May 9, 1995, we agreed to monthly meetings with primaries from both governments. To this day, there have been 157 meetings, and there is a taped record of every meeting." https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 11/40

"The meetings are conducted on the third Friday of every month. We alternate locations between the American base at Guantánamo and in Cuban-held territory. We conduct joint emergency-response exercises." https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 12/40

For example, we set a fire, and American helicopters bring water from the bay, in concert with Cuban helicopters. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 13/40

On Clinton's watch the Castro regime shot down two civilian planes in international airspace in a premeditated and calculated conspiracy that allegedly included members of the Clinton Administration and the Cuban Wasp spy net work. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 14/40

The network was broken up on September 12, 1998 when it was discovered that they had planned acts of sabotage and terrorism on American soil, including the murder of an alleged CIA agent living in Bal Harbour Florida. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 15/40

During the Clinton Admin a threat assessment was prepared by the Defense Dept that reported Cuba was no longer a threat to US national interests, but in 2001 it was discovered that the main author of the report, Ana Belen Montes, was a Castro agent. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 16/40

While mainstream media was demonizing Cuban Americans during the Elian affair, in Jan 2000 conservative firebrand Phyllis Schlafly acknowledged Elian's mother's sacrifice for her son to live in freedom, understood where Cuban Americans were coming from, and made the case: 17/40

"The mother of six-year-old Elian Gonzalez sacrificed her life so that her son could grow up in America. Her dying wish, according to a Cuban man who survived for two days on an inner tube, was that Elian could reach the United States and freedom." https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 18/40

A reporter for the socialist Madrid newspaper El Pais investigated and learned that Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, had wanted Elian to go to America. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 19/40

Elian's relatives in Florida know very well that Elian is far better off in free America than in Communist Cuba where people are denied the everyday liberties we take for granted, including freedoms of speech, travel, and education. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 20/40

One person, however, disagrees: Fidel Castro, whose apparatchiks no doubt "persuaded" Mr. Gonzalez to change his story. Elian's escape, like all defections, is an acute embarrassment to Castro. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 21/40

Communist suppression of the right to travel has long demonstrated the inhumanity of its system. The Berlin Wall, guarded by sharpshooters ordered to kill anyone who attempted to escape, symbolized the terror of Communism for an entire generation. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 22/40

Flight that risks death constitutes the ultimate repudiation of Communist regimes and is often followed by vindictive attempts at retaliation by the humiliated dictator. KGB files newly opened to the West are full of examples. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 23/40

Like all dictators, Castro is used to getting his way. He deliberately raised the political stakes of this controversy to the point where Elian Gonzalez is unlikely to have a normal life if he were returned to Cuba. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html
24/40

The arguments about father's rights and family unity are phony when it comes to Elian's predicament. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 25/40

If U.S. authorities send Elian back to Cuba, it won't be to Elian's father; it will mean sending him back to be paraded around as a Castro trophy and raised, perhaps in a daycare center, to be a good Communist. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 26/40

The only persons the United States has forcibly returned to Cuba are criminals, and Elian surely is not a criminal. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 27/40

Does anyone believe that, if Elian's mother had died in the act of throwing her son over the Berlin Wall that we would have forcibly returned her boy to East Germany? https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 28/40

The mystery is why Clinton has sided with Castro. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 29/40

Perhaps his corporate friends are salivating over the potential for investments in tourism, gambling and other industries in Cuba where forty years of Communism have depressed the economy to the point where the ultimate luxury is a 1956 Chevrolet. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 30/40

Perhaps the Clinton Administration considers deporting Elian as necessary to appease Castro & facilitate open trade relations. Based on Clinton's policies toward Communist China, "follow the money" is usually a good explanation of his foreign policy. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 31/40

Phyllis passed away in 2016, and her life is now being caricatured and mischaracterized on FX and Hulu. Sadly, we Cuban-Americans can relate to such demonization, but the only defense is to lay out the facts and challenge the lies. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 32/40

Vanessa Garcia in The Miami New Times has written an important article 20 years later and brought forth some inconvenient facts that explode the dominant narrative: https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 33/40

As the Elián story dragged on, those who were allowed inside his circle were able to glimpse that reality. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 34/40

One such person was the late Roman Catholic Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, whom Reno appointed to mediate when Elián's two grandmothers were dispatched to the United States in January 2000 to argue on behalf of Juan Miguel that Elián should be sent back. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 35/40

Reno was sure O'Laughlin would remain neutral, but she did not. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 36/40

"I expected to witness a meaningful visit. But I had no idea that what I saw would be so powerful that it would change my mind, persuading me that Elián should not be returned — at least for now — to his father in Cuba," O'Laughlin in her February 2000 @nytimes op-ed. 37/40

O'Laughlin believed the grandmothers were not acting out of their own "free will." She also discovered that one of them wanted to defect. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 38/40

"This talk of defecting got me to thinking; if one of the adults wanted out, perhaps it was not a good place for the child," she subsequently elaborated to the Miami Herald. https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 39/40

The Elián drama came to a head at 5:15 a.m. April 22, 2000, when, on Reno's orders, federal agents forcibly entered the house where the boy was living. The raid was code-named "Operation Reunion." https://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2020/04/elian-gonzalez-was-taken-at-gunpoint-20.html 40/40