Jim and Don
This is what is going on with Elian in Wye Mountain per New Hampshire newpaper.
theunionleader.com
News - May 8, 2000
Smith: Elian Gonzalez in 'concentration camp'
By JODY REESE
Union Leader Correspondent
SALEM Even in his new position of authority as chairman of the politically
important Environmental and Public Works Committee, Sen. Bob Smith hasn't
toned down his politics.
Yesterday at a town hall meeting in Salem High School, the New Hampshire
Republican told about 30 supporters that 6-year-old Cuba refugee Elian
Gonzalez is being "re-educated" at the Wye River plantation on the eastern
shores of Maryland with the help of tranquilizers.
Smith also said Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, had known about his
son's trip to the United States, and had asked the Miami relatives to take
care of his son until he could come to the United States to live.
"The father didn't want him back. He had planned on coming here," Smith
said.
Smith afterward said he based this comment on information he received from
Elian's Miami relatives. He said Elian's father "made no mention of having
his boy come home" when Miami doctors contacted the family after the boy
arrived here last November.
"Fidel Castro was the first one to ask to have the boy come back," Smith
said.
Smith added that Juan Miguel Gonzalez' father "called Miami to tell the
relatives that they had left Cuba and 'we're heading to America.' . . . That
came from Juan Miguel's own household . . .
" Federal agents on April 22 stormed the Miami home of Elian's relatives,
who have been caring for the boy, and returned him to his father.
Elian cannot leave the United States until a federal court decides on the
appeal the boy's Miami relatives filed of the Immigration and Naturalization
Service's rejection of an asylum petition. Oral arguments are scheduled May
11.
Elian's Miami relatives contend Elian will be returned to Cuba against his
will. "Right now this little boy is in a concentration camp on American
soil. It's surrounded by Communists. He's got his Communist playmates there
so they can re-indoctrinate him. And he's not going to be with his father
for long when he gets back to Cuba. He's going to one of those Cuban schools
where he learns to be a good little soldier of the revolution," Smith told
the gathering in Salem.
"They've already found tranquilizer drugs with the doctors. I think you can
reasonably assume that on May 11 the little kid is going to come say 'I want
to go back to Cuba.'"
Smith later said he based his comments on published news reports that a
doctor was intercepted with tranquilizer drugs leaving the compound where
Elian is staying.
"My feeling is that he is being re-educated so he will not want to stay in
America. He will want to go back to Cuba," Smith explained.
Smith has been involved in Elian's case since January, meeting with Elian's
Miami relatives Jan. 8 where he said the boy told him, "Please help me,
Senator Smith."
After the boy was seized from his Miami relatives' home April 22, he
accompanied several of the relatives to Andrews Air Force Base where their
request to meet with Elian's father's attorney was denied.
Smith has criticized the U.S. Justice Department's seizure of the boy.
"I don't have a problem with the boy being with his father. I lost my father
when I was three and a half years old, and I still miss him," Smith said.
"But the issues here is more political with [Fidel] Castro."
Smith says it comes down to a play by President Clinton to secure a place in
history and Castro using Elian for political gain.
"So finally it got to the point where there was a deal struck between
Clinton and Castro and when that deal was struck that was the end of it,"
Smith said.
"Now Castro owes Clinton, and Clinton wants to, I think, maintain some
legacy here probably before the end of the year he'll be in Havana or
something trying to get diplomatic relations with Cuba."
So how did Castro keep Elian's father from defecting to the United States?
"Castro kept him in control. And he has him in control now because he has
another child in Cuba and his mother's in Cuba. She's under house arrest
right now just to make sure he comes back. So the man's stuck. He's a decent
guy, but he's stuck. He's got to go back with the kid. Clinton played right
into their hands," Smith claimed.
"There's no justification for that raid," Smith said. "If Ronald Reagan had
ordered that raid under those circumstance the impeachment proceedings would
have begun by the Democrats," he said. Smith also opposed federal policy on
the census, calling it an "invasion of privacy."
"On that subject my view of a census is it should be who you are, where you
live and that's it," he said. "All this other stuff is total nonsense."
One out of four homes have been getting a long census form, which asks
questions about income and other personal information.
Smith said he believed the information being collected for the census was
being sold to advertisers, even though it's illegal for the Census Bureau to
share the information it collects.
"And they're using your name, lists and who you are and that's why you're
getting that mail that you're getting.
Smith said he wasn't telling anyone to break the law, which requires census
information to be complete, but said the long forms weren't constitutionally
required.
Smith may not tone down his rhetoric, but he has to now work with the
federal government as chairman of the Environmental and Public Works
Committee. And he is.
Smith supports spending $5 billion over 36 years to save the Florida
Everglades, and supports the $900 million Land and Conservation Fund. He
also opposes drilling for oil in the Arctic National Park in Alaska.
"We need a balance," he said of protecting old-growth forests and logging
other not so ecologically important lands.
He is also working with the federal government on I-93. He says he will make
sure it's on track for 2004, which is when it's slated to be widened from
the I-93 and I-293 interchange to the Massachusetts border.
"I'm going to be right on top of this," he said. To do that he is asking the
different agencies, which will regulate the project, to meet him and each
other so they can work more smoothly together.
"I'm trying to use this as a model," he said. Still, Smith said he doubts,
even as chairman, he can have the start date moved up, as many in Salem,
Windham, Londonderry, Derry and Manchester want. "I'll just make sure it
doesn't slip (behind schedule)," he said. |
