Posted on 04/22/2005 4:01:14 PM PDT by MisterRepublican
"He's just a normal little boy" - is what almost everyone in this small, dusty Cuban town will tell you when you ask them about Elian Gonzalez.
A normal little boy who is doing well at school, has plenty of friends, and thinks that maybe he will be a gymnast when he grows up.
It is a far cry from the high drama of five years ago, when Elian was the world famous symbol of a bitter dispute between two nations, two political systems, and one family.
Court battle
Discovered floating alone in the Florida Straits, tied to an inner tube, he was one of just three survivors of a group of 14 Cubans who had set off from Cardenas, 129km (80 miles) east of Havana, in late November 1999.
They were hoping to reach the US in a handmade boat. The voyage turned into disaster when, 56km (35 miles) from the US coast, the fragile craft ran into a storm.
Elian's mother, who could not swim, is believed to have been one of the last to drown.
Elian's relatives in Florida claimed that she had died trying to get her son to freedom. They said it would only deepen the tragedy if the boy were sent back to Communist Cuba.
The US courts got involved, and eventually ruled in favour of Elian's Cuban father.
Elian returned to Cardenas.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
The kid makes a run for the US and asylum the moment he gets the chance.
So you don't think he'll be sufficiently brainwashed by the commies, if he hasn't already been?
No more than his mom was before she lost her life in the attempt.
04-22-1970 1st "Earth Day" created by Gaylord Nelson to raise the planet's awareness of global cooling.
04-22-1955 Nikita Khruschev announces 1st "communism celebration day" (later moved to May Day, May 1st)
04-22-1870 Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov (aka Lenin) is born.
Coincidence? I think not.
Also... 04-22-1955 Eisenhower Admin. orders "In God We Trust" to be printed on all U.S. coins.
Shades of the fellow travelers who visited the Soviet Union in the 1930s and reported that all was well. I wonder if Stephen Gibbs speaks Spanish, or was ever alone with any of these witnesses? But I don't wonder very hard. Castro didn't allow reporters to talk to Elian or his family alone even while they were in the United States, thanks to clinton and Reno.
Elian will probably be raised by Castro himself to be sure he's fat and happy just to show the world how great he and communism are.
They are SO GREAT in fact, Cuba announced today, it is raising it's minimum wage from $4.20 to $9.40!!!! ...what ?.... oh, that's per month.
Poor kid. I'll never forget that day. How are his relatives in Miami doing?
Poor little kid has had his brain washed thoroughly by now.
LOL! Yup, and he will probably move to Miami and become a prominent exile..
Seeing that photograph again makes the bile rise up my throat, as it did when I first saw it. May Bill Clinton and his cronies receive everything that's coming to them. IN SPADES!!!
Bump. Never forget!
"Suffer little children to come unto me."
He was just a baby out on the open ocean. It is a miracle the little guy survived. Too bad the caring (tm) people decided he should have been sent back to El Jefe's 'Paradise'...
Sorry, but I totally disagree on the Elian situation. The mom had no right to take the child without the father's permission. It's kiddnapping, whether you agree with his politics or not.
Yeah, without even establishing paternity.
Elian was born two years after his mother and his alleged father were divorced.
It was more important to the subversive socialists in X42's administration to suck up to Castro than to delve into such mundane matters as the truth.
Wouldn't surprise me. Of course improvement may come to Cuba before Elian comes to the USA, as Castro won't live long into Elian's adulthood.
That said, I don't see how the USA could not send a kid to his father if that father said he wanted his child back. So long as the father was alive, not shown to be unfit, and was asserting his parental right, we were, in the end, bound to return the kid.
True, the Clintons and their sleazy leftist entourage did so in part for the wrong reasons, but it was still the more correct decision. People cannot take someone's child just because the parent lives in a crappy dictatorship. If they could, we could all just fly into Burma or Vietnam or Cuba and snatch a few toddlers off the playground.
I hope not to Florida!
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