Cuban Americans Still Angry Over Elian

MIAMI â€”  One year since heavily armed federal agents snatched a 6-year-old Cuban boy to allow him to return home with his father, the wounds in the Cuban American community still fester, the anger burns bright.

“We will never forget this, that this happened on U.S. soil,� said Armando Sotolongo, 52, an exterminator. “They broke into a peaceful house, acting like the Nazi party did when they tried to capture the Jews.�

On Sunday, a stream of friends, sympathizers and visitors called at the single-story bungalow in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood where exactly a year before, Elian Gonzalez was grabbed at gunpoint in a predawn raid.

“This year has been the longest year of my life--like a whole lifetime. Because we lost so much,� Anna Bonnin, 57, said, fighting back tears. “A lot of us have lost our trust in the American way, the American system.�

Elian miraculously survived a shipwreck in November 1999 in which his mother and 11 other people trying to reach Florida from Cuba drowned. The child became a potent political symbol as his great-uncle and other Cuban exiles fought to keep him here and Cuban dictator Fidel Castro waged a public relations war to get him back to Cuba.

In June, in the company of his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, Elian flew home to the island, where he was greeted like a hero.

For U.S. authorities to let him depart, Bonnin said bitterly, was as immoral as banishing him to a “concentration camp.�

Many Cuban Americans claim their disgust over the Clinton administration’s handling of the case cost former Vice President Al Gore the presidency. Capturing Florida became the key to the November elections, and the final margin of victory was razor-thin.

Outside the home here where Elian lived for five months as legal battles raged over his custody, a sign claims the ultimately defeated Gore “paid the price� at the ballot box for how the boy was treated.

“It’s going to be a long time before we vote for another Democrat,� said Elier Cruz, 35, a private investigator.

Outside the house on Northwest 2nd Street, one speaker with a bullhorn denounced the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, which seized Elian from his Miami relatives, for “anti-Cuban racism.� A sign stuck on the chain link fence proposed sending former President Clinton and former Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to Cuba so they could live the same life to which they condemned Elian.

The modest white stucco home is being converted into a museum and shrine to the child and the anti-Castro struggle he came to embody for Cuban Americans. The facade is festooned with a large wooden crucifix and a banner depicting the Virgin Mary. Palm trees in the small frontyard have been decorated with yellow ribbons, as signs of optimism that Elian will one day return.

“We have hope, hope for Elian, hope for the people of Cuba,� said Lily Espinosa, 58. All at once, the former office worker seemed dubious, as if recalling that Castro has been in power since 1959.

“Well, maybe,� Espinosa said. “We have been waiting for 42 years.�

According to news reports, Elian, now 7, is living with his father in the Cuban coastal city of Cardenas, where the elder Gonzalez is employed as a cashier and waiter. Agents have been watching to make sure the boy’s privacy is not disturbed by journalists or other curious visitors. When he goes to school, he has a police escort.

According to Sunday editions of the Miami Herald, Elian’s 32-year-old father has been lionized as a patriot, appearing at Castro’s side at important events such as last week’s commemoration of Cuba’s victory over the Bay of Pigs invaders in 1961. In July, he was given Cuba’s highest civilian decoration.

According to the Herald, the elder Gonzalez has also been promoted to a leading position in the local Communist Party organization. For its loyalty to Cuba and Castro, the family has reportedly benefited materially as well, receiving a new washer, TV set and other scarce consumer goods.

To tell the other side of the story, plans are to restore the Little Havana house in which Elian lived to exactly the way it was on April 22, 2000, when INS agents swooped down.

It was in the right front bedroom that an armed INS agent found an obviously frightened Elian, an instant immortalized in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph. That room is now empty, save for an old console TV and a coffee table.