>Since when a 6-year old has the capacity to pursue legal actions in the US,
>seeking asylum or otherwise? By all legal standrads, Elian was a victim of
>kidnapping - under most state laws transporting a kid to another state (let
>alone country) without a consent of a non-custodial parent amounts to that.
> It is as if someobody tried to steal acar form my neighbor but abandoned
>it in my driveway - it would be preposterous for me to keep the car
>claiming that the neighbor owes me money.
My point was that the issue of Elian Gonzalez himself is basically uninteresting. Who would have cared if he had been eaten by a shark off the coast of Miami? His parents, I guess. This is just a custody battle, of which there are tens of thousands every year.
The only thing that makes it any different is the utilisation of the propaganda value of a photogenic young boy, not just by the exiles in Miami, but by the Cuban government and, yes, the US government.
None of those bodies give a damn what happens to EG - except for its propaganda value. I don't give a damn what happens to little Elian, either. I would happily impose the judgement of Solomon in this case.
What is fascinating about the case is precisely the fact that such seasoned political actors as the Washington and Havana governments and the Cuban reactionaries should be peddling this mawkish schmaltz.
Incidentally, your comment:
>
>The INS screwed things up when they found the boy - they should have
>returned him to Cuba immediately as they do with thousands of other illegal
>immigrants trying to enter this country.
Is revealing about the real motivations of the US government. They are aiming to limit immigration, and see this as a test case. They are also facing down the Cuban exiles - an action which is popular on this list, but the use of armed force in custody cases, it seems to me, is not something to be applauded.
The British government, too, is facing down some traditional right-wing constituencies, like the Ulster loyalists, but not for good reasons. -- Jim heartfield