Lawyer for Cuban Boy's Relatives Is Elected Miami Mayor

New York Times ^ | 11/14/01 | DANA CANEDY

[kattracks]

IAMI, Nov. 13 — Manny Diaz, a political no-name who became a central figure in the Elián González episode, shook up the local political establishment today by easily winning the race for mayor of Miami in his first campaign for elected office.

Mr. Diaz, a 47-year-old Cuban- American lawyer who became publicly known last year as a representative of the Miami relatives of Elián, the young Cuban survivor of a boat sinking, defeated Maurice Ferre, a former mayor who could not gain enough support among African- Americans and non-Cuban whites to overcome Mr. Diaz's lock on the decisive Cuban-American vote for the runoff election.

Mr. Diaz, an independent, had 55.3 percent of the vote to 44.7 percent for Mr. Ferre, a Democrat.

"Forty years ago my mother and I arrived as poor immigrants in this city and lived a couple of blocks away," Mr. Diaz said in his acceptance speech at his headquarters in Little Havana. "And 40 years later here I am as mayor of the city. God bless America."

In many ways, the election of the political newcomer was vintage Miami politics. In a familiar election theme here, a campaign that initially focused on taxes, city services and other municipal issues shifted in the last week into a battle dominated by race, ethnicity and Cuban-American ideologies. The shift highlighted the deep divisions among racial and ethnic groups in a city that prides itself on its international reputation.

The candidates were forced into a runoff after they came in first and second in the election on Nov. 6 in which no one received more than 50 percent of the vote. In qualifying for today's matchup, the candidates defeated Mayor Joe Carollo.

Almost immediately after eliminating their opponents, the front-runners began accusing each other of pushing ethnically sensitive hot buttons for political gain.

Mr. Ferre, who is Puerto Rican, accused his opponent of spreading a rumor in the Little Havana section that he supported Janet Reno, the Democratic candidate for governor who has been vilified among many Cuban-Americans for ordering the federal raid that returned Elián to his Cuban father while she was attorney general in the Clinton administration.

Mr. Diaz's supporters, meanwhile, pointed fingers at Mr. Ferre over pamphlets placed anonymously on cars in a black neighborhood that showed Mr. Diaz with Elián and suggested that he used the boy to advance his political agenda.

Both candidates denied the other's accusations while accusing each other of waging a divisive campaign.

"There's been a lot of dirty stuff here," said Mr. Ferre, who was mayor from 1973 until 1985 and campaigned on his experience, which included presiding over the city during the Mariel boatlift and the race riots in the Liberty City section.

"I think what has happened is that what keeps popping out is Elián and Janet Reno and, you know, the right- wing fanaticism in the Cuban-American community," Mr. Ferre said this afternoon.

"It is the lock-step blind fanatical rejection of anything not within the purview of what they think is right," he said. "There is no middle ground in the minds of many of these people."

Mr. Diaz's supporters said Mr. Ferre had simply run a negative campaign at a time when voters were looking for positive change.

"People are upset at the way Ferre handled his campaign," Alberto Lorenzo, Mr. Diaz's campaign manager, said this afternoon. "He's doing what he likes to do, which is divide and confuse."

Some voters, however, emphasized the need for political experience in a city that has been plagued by scandal and embarrassment.

More than a dozen Miami police officers are awaiting trial on federal charges of brutality and corruption. And Mayor Carollo has had his own legal troubles, having spent a night in jail in February after being accused of throwing a cardboard tea container at his wife. Prosecutors later dropped a misdemeanor abuse charge against him.

"Manny Diaz has never had this kind of job and has no political experience," said Marina Vazquez, 37, who voted for Mr. Ferre, saying he made her feel "a bit more secure."

Despite Mr. Carollo's troubles, his endorsement of Mr. Diaz seems to have been a factor.

"Running against a Cuban-American is always difficult here," said George Gonzalez, a political science professor at the University of Miami. "Cuban-Americans here do vote along ethnic lines."

In his concession speech, Mr. Ferre again emphasized the ethnic and racial divisions that he believes helped to determine the outcome of the race. "The time will come in America when we can look and deal with each other based on our value and our worth and not on the color of our skin, our nationality or our ethnicity or our religion," he said. But he added on a hopeful note: "Today Miami seems to be a divided community but from a divided community to a united community, the change can be very quick and very short."

[Skybird]

Good news.

Send the city housing code enforcers over to Reno's place; there may be some citations to write.

[Southack]

No, no, no. The NY Times told us last year that there would be a "voter backlash" against non-Democrats for "stealing" the election, so no one could possibly beat the Democratic Party mayoral candidate in a Democratic (voter registration-wise) city.

< SARCASM! >

[Gracey]

Now we need to get to work electing Cuban Republican Orlando Sanchez as mayor of houston

And Orlando Sanchez is such a DECENT, conservative candidate... along with having the experience. GO Orlando!!!!! GO ON to VICTORY!!! Houston, Texas needs you, VERY MUCH.

[Brian_Baldwin]

Super news . . . of course, bad news for Janet Butch Reno who was more interested throwing one little Cuban boy out of the country but letting all the terrorist illegals stay . . .

[Gracey]

If you spouse took your child to another country where she/he had relatives and then she/he died, would you want those relatives to be given preference over you to have custody of your child? I wouldn't

Good point. However, I had the impression that the father wasn't as much interested in the child as Fidel Castro was. I would have prefered that the Father be given the opportunity to stay in OUR country but he was not given that opportunity. Also, I got the impression that the grandparents were not unhappy with their grandson remaining in the USA. Perhaps another case of manipulation by Castro. Many of us thought that Castro would just use the child as a propaganda tool, once he got back to Cuba. This is a difficult situation to support for none of us know the "real" story.

[JD86]

This is a difficult situation to support for none of us know the "real" story.

I agree....and the situation was made more difficult by the politics on both sides. Castro and the anti-Castro Cubans in Miami both used the boy for their own propaganda purposes. Personally, I would have been more sympathetic to the relatives in the US if they had been flying American flags in Miami instead of Cuban flags in Miami. And Elian would have been better served if our politicans had not been grand-standing while things were getting sorted out. I think most of them were more intent on embarrassing Castro than on protecting the boy. Bad politics on both sides, Castro's and ours.

[tallhappy]

1) This argument by you came up over and over again here and perhaps more people spewed your ill informed point of view.

2) You, as well as most, are simply unknowedgeable about the case.

For example:

Thank you. It is my understanding that the parents had joint custody of the boy in Cuba.

This was not true. I understand how one could have thought this because there were major newspapers that stated this, many times in fact.

But the facts were that Elian was born (and conceived) out of wedlock, after the parents had been divorced for a while.

As per Cuban law the father never had any parental custody from the day of the boy's birth.

The source for this little tidbit is quite interesting -- the father Juan Gonzalez himself who stated it in an interview with a Miami radio station a few days after Elain was rescued.

That is just one example of many many many.

Forgetting the arguments not based on fact, all anyone had to do to know about this case was ask one question.

Why didn't the father go to his Uncle's house and get his son?

If it were my son I would have been there as soon as humanly possible.

I also would have thanked my uncle and the people who rescued them over and over again.

But he sat on his couch for months, doing nothing, except hanging out with Castro.

What would you do if your son had been lost at sea and miraculously saved and was at your uncle's house 90 miles away?

Sit on your couch and drink beer or go get him?

[piasa]

Look over the old threads on google on the whole affair- if they are available- this has been discussed in agonizing detail before.

One argument was that the father and the mother were never married in the first place. They did not live together, and the son, Elian, was born after Dad left with another woman. Elian and the mother lived together and the mother had another man enter her life who treated Elian as a son. This was the man who also died at sea with the mother. But when they had just left Cuba, Elian's so-called bio father made a phone call to the relatives in Miami telling them the wife and kid were on the way. He also said he would be following shortly. The phone call was verified and did occur- what was said, however, is not known.

But it is clear that the father must have told the family the boy was on the way (before the father himself knew the boy was lost at sea without other survivors)... why? The relatives knew the kid was their family's before the kid's name was even released- they showed up at the hospital to see him and get him.

The belief is that the father had indeed intended to join his kid in America, and indeed at first did not seem concerned that the kid was in America nor did he ask for him back. All indications early on, was that he was happy the boy was in the US. But before he could get away himself and join his kid. he was taken to Havana by Castro. A week later he asked for his kid.

Before Dad was allowed to come, the Cuban government sent Elian's grandmothers... one of whom made a VERY peculiar and embarassing comment to the press that should have raised some serious eyebrows. This comment may have been an attempt to give the family in the US a reason to continue to oppose the turnover. When the grandmothers were returned to Cuba, they were not sent home, but rather, kept in Havana under guard.

You will notice that the father when he was in the US was not permitted to talk to congress when he was so invited. He was brought over by Cuba but not allowed to stay anywhere but on Cuban diplomatic territory. He was not allowed interviews WITH his wife and child outside of the consulate turf, and without the presence of the Cuban security officials. The one interview he had that was allegedly without guards and off the grounds, his wife and child were not in view but were in fact being held in the Cuban consulate some distance away. If he had spoken up, he would never be allowed to see them again.

All people were trying to do was get the father into a position where he and his wife and child were free to speak, without guards and without Cuban officials. Even then the relatives in Cuba would be in danger of reprisals, but was that too much to ask?

These kinds of 'games' have been played for years with communist countries. There have been times when people were made to say things against their will when it was in the interest of their government. (The Communist Vietnamese did that to POWs; North Korea did as well; and the USSR and eastern European countries did as much with dissidents.)

What if this had been, as was said all along, a plan to get the boy and his mother out of Cuba, with Dad intending to follow with his wife and child a bit later, when the infant was old enough to make the trip? You see, the administration didn't MAKE SURE that dad really wanted it the way the Cuban government said. The administration defied the law to do what it did. The administration even allowed a Cuban nurse to enter the country with mind-altering drugs in her medical kit... drugs which could have been used on Dad or the boy. A customs inspector caught the nurse with them. the administration allowed Cuban intelligence agents to enter the US at the time.

It even turned out that at the time, a Cuban spy was working IN our INS down in Miami, determining who could and could not be passed through. At that time there was a Cuban spy ring caught spying on military bases and other instalations in Florida. (Look it up in a search engine- Cuba is not just some island that minds its own business- they are actively involved in all kinds of things, from terrorism to electronic espionage- including jamming and falsification of signals in air traffic control as far away as New York) This whole affair was very sticky and the administration was going out of its way to cooperate with Cuba on many fronts.

[JD86]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I became aware of Free Republic last fall during the election so I am unaware of the discussions that took place during the Elian custody crisis. You have made some interesting points. I do not think though that the father would have been able to so easily retrieve his son. The uncle applied for the boy to stay in the US almost immediately and made statements that he wanted the child to stay in the US, irregardless of the desires of the father.

[tallhappy]

I do not think though that the father would have been able to so easily retrieve his son.

What difference does that make?

[Dr. Frank fan]

Everytime I have seen anything posted on this board about Elian, the position has always been that the boy should have been kept in the US because Cuba is a Communist country.

Interesting, because that's not my position. My position is that the boy should have remained here pending an asylum ruling as to his status, and that to raid the house predawn, Reno-style, tossed the Fourth Amendment (which is one of the few things Alan Dershowitz and I agree upon). As for the question of potential asylum in the first place, my reason for thinking that there was a valid case is not because Cuba is a "Communist country", whatever that means, but because it is a TOTALITARIAN DICTATORSHIP (which happens to call itself "Communist", or use some "Marxist" rhetoric, to prop its power.)

I hope you can see that my point of view is not quite as simple as you have painted it to be.

first, why not look at it strictly as a custody situation? the mother was dead, the child should be with his father.

Obviously a custody situation is the main question. And clearly if the mother is dead and the father is living, a child, any child, should go live with his father, no matter where.

Wait.

What if the father is in San Quentin? What if the father is being held hostage by Islamic terrorists? Clearly then you will recognize that in some cases, "the child should live with his father" is just plain false.

The question then becomes: was this one of those cases?

I look at the facts and I notice that the kid's mom gave her life trying to get him here, and there are indications that (until the accident) the father was making preparations to do the same. That tells me something. That tells me that they didn't want to be there.

And so, we sent him back to a place where neither he nor his parents wanted to live, to a crazy old dictator, at the point of a gun. And you're happy about that, apparently. Well, God bless America.

second, if that had not been the outcome, what precedent would we have set in other situations? A parent could take a child to a communist or Muslim country. Would they be justified to keep an American child and refuse to return the child to a country of infidels?

No, they wouldn't. Moral equivalence doesn't fly with me, buster. American freedom and communist or Islamicist fascism do not exist on the same moral plane.

I think to argue Elian should stay in the US no matter what..is short-sighted.

I agree. Neither I nor anyone I know or read about ever said that "Elian should stay in the US no matter what". Nice straw man.

Had the kid wanted to go back to Cuba, then I would have said, fine. Had the father been allowed to come here and just go get his damn kid, without being under armed guard at all times to control his actions, then I would have said fine.

Instead we sent the kid back to a dictator at gunpoint, with no objective indication that's what the father even wanted.

We would lose our right to argue for the return of American children.

No we wouldn't. We would and will always have the right to "argue for" the return of American children. The question is whether we are willing to back it up with action. But that is separate from the particular case in question, of the Cuban kid. Or at least it should be.

I suppose you take a different view? Namely, the view that it was valid to sacrifice the kid, quite possibly against his own wishes and those of his father, for the sake of hypothetical future situations, primarily because you envision us being too wimpy to ever do anything other than say "pretty please" in such hypothetical custody battles, so you want us to be able to point at the Cuban kid and say "look, we sent that kid back, now please give us this one". And you apparently believe that thinking like this should dominate our policy in such situations.

Needless to say, I do not share your views.

[Dr. Frank fan]

As a legal matter, I don't think it should make a difference between countries.

Interesting. I hate to use this analogy then, but you've forced me into it.

It is the mid-1940s. A Jewish boy escapes Germany; his mother dies in the attempt. Now US authorities hear from the Germany Kommissar of such-and-such that The Father Is Still In Germany And Wants His Boy Back.

Clearly "a boy belongs with his father", and you "don't think it should make a difference between countries", so therefore, you send the Jewish boy back on the next boat to Nazi Germany.

Correct?

[JD86]

What difference does that make? Your contention was that the father could have gone to Miami, retrieved his son and the uncle would have handed him over......that's all the difference in the world....when in reality he would have been going into Little Havana (isn't that a great name for an American city?) to pick up his child from anti-Castro activists and take him back to Cuba. You really think that would have happened peacefully?

[JD86]

Thank you for your detailed response. As you pointed out, there was more than one facet of this situation. I was asking for the input of others because my background and training highlights the legal issues of a custody situation. You have presented the political issues well and I appreciate your moderation of tone and politeness to my inquiry.

[Ann Archy]

Is "Hino"..Human In Name Only?

I call her WINO...Woman In Name Only....or sometimes just Uncle Janet.

[Darheel]

'Correct?'

Correct. There's no doubt that Castro's Cuba is tantamount to Nazi Germany 90 miles off our coast. What Libs should be asking themselves is how could they allow that communist gulag to exist for soo long, it is an infamnia and Castro is a slap in the face to civilization as Hitler was.

[tallhappy]

Your contention was that the father could have gone to Miami, retrieved his son and the uncle would have handed him over

I made no such contention.

The question remains, you are a father, are you going to go get him or not?

You can make up excuses all day long -- maybe I will get in an accident and die on the way, maybe my uncle will not "give him back" etc...

[KQQL]

Yes it is, I like Wino too.
She is a Wino and a HINO .

[JD86]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I hope no one ever kidnaps one of your children and hides in another country.

[Dr. Frank fan]

in reality he would have been going into Little Havana (isn't that a great name for an American city?)

It offends me almost as much as the name "New York". New York my foot, they should give it a real American name, not name it after the old country! < /sarcasm >

to pick up his child from anti-Castro activists and take him back to Cuba. You really think that would have happened peacefully?

Personally, I don't see why not. You think otherwise?

On what basis?