Interesting article...
aim.org
BLACKMAILED BY CASTRO
By Cliff Kincaid
May 18, 2000
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With few exceptions, the major media have failed to ask and answer a critical question about the seizure of Eli n Gonzalez: why was there such a rush to return him to Cuban government custody? Frank Calzon, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba, says there is reason to believe "that Castro made it known that if he does not have his will with Eli n, he will unleash a refugee crisis?another Mariel?on South Florida." Mariel is the Cuban port from which some 120,000 Cubans fled to Florida in small boats with Castro's permission in 1980. He exacerbated the difficulty of absorbing these refugees by including many hardened criminals and insane people in the mix, people who had to be sent to prison and asylums here.
Currently, about 200,000 Cubans are seeking visas to come to the U.S., and it is believed that hundreds of thousands of others would come if given a chance. Frank Calzon said, "No responsible American official can ignore the threat of a refugee crisis." Calzon said this explains the rush by Attorney General Janet Reno to remove Eli n from the home of Laz ro Gonzalez. "But no responsible American official can permit blackmail to become the coin of U.S.-Cuban relations," he said.
Former Clinton adviser Dick Morris agrees with this assessment. In a column in the New York Post, he said that Clinton is scared to death that Castro will permit another wave of Cubans to hit the U.S. This could spell political trouble for Al Gore in November. According to Morris, Clinton blames his defeat for re-election as governor in 1980 on a riot by Cuban refugees being held at Ft. Chafee in Arkansas at the request of President Carter. "I hate Jimmy Carter," Clinton told Morris.
Another possible explanation is that Castro is blackmailing Clinton through the use of communications intelligence obtained from the Russians or the Chinese who have large electronic listening installations in Cuba.
Illegal Search And Seizure
Whatever the motive for the pre-dawn raid, the major media were slow to expose the series of lies offered by the Clinton administration about the Eli n case. One lie that hid the illegality of the raid was denounced by two prominent liberal law professors, Alan M. Dershowitz of Harvard, and Laurence Tribe of Yale. They disputed the claim that Reno had the law on her side when she sent armed federal agents to seize Eli n. They agree with Sen. Bob Smith and Rep. Tom DeLay that she did not have a valid court order to grab the child. After the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals had refused to grant one, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) obtained a search warrant from a federal magistrate 10 hours before the raid, based on its claim that the boy was "a concealed person."
Senator Bob Smith, R.-Maine, disclosed that the INS had also issued a warrant for the arrest of Eli n as an illegal immigrant. This was cited as the basis for asking the federal magistrate to issue the search warrant. Reno was still pretending to negotiate the transfer of custody with Aaron Podhurst when the agents burst into the home. Podhurst, an attorney and friend of Reno's, was one of a group of Miami leading citizens who were negotiating a peaceful settlement.
Federal Flip-Flop
With the notable exception of Tim Russert, moderator of NBC's Meet the Press, few in the media have pointed out that it is the government that changed its position on the application of "the rule of law." First, the INS said that the custody of Eli n should be decided by a state family court. Then, suddenly, it said this was a matter for the INS to decide.
Here's the exchange that Russert had with Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder on April 9:
Russert: There seems to have been a change from the very beginning in the Department of Justice and Immigration Service attitude and view. Let me show you what was the first comment made by the INS on their stationery: "Although INS has no role in the family custody decision process, we have discussed this case with State of Florida officials, who have confirmed that the issue of legal custody must be decided by the state court. If Eli n's family is unable to resolve the question of his custody, it is our understanding the involved parties will have to file in Florida family court." U.S. Department of Justice Immigration Service. What happened? Why'd they change?
Holder: Well, I think we were looking there, initially, at some kind of temporary thing, as a question as to who would have custody of Eli n in the short term. That was never intended to mean that we were looking at using the state courts for the ultimate determination as to who would have custody of this young boy.
Russert let the matter drop at that point, proceeding to question former Clinton impeachment attorney Gregory Craig, another guest on the show, about the statement the father had read when he first arrived in the U.S. After claiming that it was "Juan Miguel's statement," Craig said that he and the Cuban government contributed to it and that Juan Miguel reviewed and worked on it. In another development, arranged by Joan Brown Campbell, former general secretary of the National Council of Churches, Craig said he was representing the father and insisted that he was being paid by "private" sources, not Cuba.
The INS statement shown by Tim Russert was issued on December 1. It described "standard procedure in the case of unaccompanied minors." The situation changed on December 5 when Castro protested this decision and stationed several dozen Cuban soldiers outside the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba. On December 7, the State Department issued a statement that emphasized the father's rights, expressed concern for the safety of U.S. citizens in Cuba, and reiterated support for the migration accords with Cuba. Richard Nuccio, a former State Dept. official and Clinton adviser, said on Fox News on the day of the raid that the State Department had leaned on the INS to change its position. He said it was reacting to a speech by the head of the Cuban National Assembly, threat-ening another Mariel if Eli n wasn't sent back to Cuba.
The Crying Game
The establishment media did its best to show that Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who has been totally under the control of Castro government officials since his arrival in Washington on April 6, was a loving father who wanted to take his son back to Cuba. There is no reason to question his love for his son, but there is reason to question whether he is speaking for himself or for his Cuban controllers when he says he wants to take the boy back to Cuba. He has given only one interview to an American journalist. His handlers chose Dan Rather to conduct it. It aired in two parts on 60 Minutes on April 16 and 18. Fidel Castro has granted Rather four interviews, more than any other American journalist, because Rather can be trusted to treat him well.
Dan Rather's interview of Juan Miguel showed that Castro's trust in him was not misplaced. He didn't take advantage of this opportunity to find out if Juan Miguel really believed that Eli n should return to the totalitarian dictatorship he had fled. Rather asked him if he had wept when he saw the home video of Eli n saying he didn't want to go back to Cuba. Tearless, the father replied, "I have no tears left. I've run dry." Rather, his voice cracking, seemed almost to be on the verge of tears. He said "Ah, but a father never runs dry." It wasn't clear who felt worse about Eli n saying he wanted to stay in Miami, his father or Dan Rather.
If CBS News had wanted to do so, it could have provided Rather with some probing questions that might have helped viewers determine whether Juan Miguel Gonzalez was speaking for Castro or for himself. For example, he could have been asked why he and his wife had remained cooped up in the Cuban Interests Section residence (equivalent to the ambassador's residence if we had normal diplomatic relations with Cuba). Why didn't he and his wife go to Florida, meet with Elian and the relatives who had been taking care of him? Had the Cuban government forbade that? Why didn't he try to see more of the U.S.?New York City and Disney World for example?
If he wanted to stay here with his wife, their infant son and Eli n, would he be deterred from doing so by fear of what might happen to their relatives in Cuba? Would he not prefer that his son grow up in a country where there was no such fear, and where his career would depend on his own choice and ability, not on the wishes of a dictatorial government? Such questions were never asked. One question that Rather asked showed that Juan Miguel could not cope with serious subjects like liberty and opportunity. His idea of freedom was Cuba's free education and health care and freedom from fear that one's children might be shot in school. He simply parroted the Castro line.
Phony PR Stunt vs. Eli n's Video
One thing that Eli n will not be encouraged to do in Cuba is attend religious services. The Vatican missionary news agency, Fides, reports that Castro has used the Eli n case to mask a new campaign of repression against the Catholic Church in Cuba. Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, president of Barry University who hosted the meeting between Eli n and his grandmothers, has been depicted in the Cuban media as a demon because after the meeting she came to believe that Eli n should remain in the U.S.
This didn't stop Juan Miguel from going to church on Palm Sunday. On April 17, the Washington Post devoted nearly half of page A3 to a story that covered this important event. It said that he had attended church services at Shiloh Baptist Church, a black church in Washington, D.C. A photo showed Juan Miguel carrying his infant son out of the church. Both of them were clutching crosses made out of palm leaves. The Post reported that Juan Miguel received a standing ovation from the parishioners. Other reports indicated that he and his wife, Nersy Carmenante, "joined others in prayer." In the 20th paragraph of this 21 paragraph story, the writer, Karen de Young, got around to mentioning that Juan Miguel is a "non-believer" who simply keeps up "Catholic customs."
His going to a black Protestant church to observe Catholic customs was also arranged by Joan Brown Campbell, who had asked the pastor if his family could worship there. Most blacks favored sending Eli n to Cuba. By presenting him as a religious man, the handlers of Juan Miguel were conning the public. This transparent public relations stunt was pulled off with the full cooperation of the Washington Post.
Some would say that this was no worse than Eli n's Miami relatives releasing a video showing him telling his father that he did not want to go back to Cuba with him. The argument was that the child was too young to have an informed judgment on this matter and that he was vulnerable to manipulation by his caregivers. But what the boy said on that much criticized video was very similar to what he had previously told ABC's Diane Sawyer. In what was called the most stunning example of network news censorship since NBC News delayed its broadcast of an interview with Clinton rape victim Juanita Broaddrick, ABC's Good Morning America refused to air what Eli n told Diane Sawyer.
ABC News justified the censorship by saying that "...in this inflamed climate on this inflamed subject, we thought it best not to broadcast the exact words of a 6-year-old." ABC later seemed to reverse course, airing Diane Sawyer's translation of Elian's answer to a question about whether he wanted his father to visit the U.S. He said, "No, because he'll take me to Cuba and I don't want to go to Cuba." But ABC still refused to air the boy's answer in Spanish.
ABC News President David Westin admitted the significance of what the network had done. He said ABC deliberately refused to air Eli n's response in Spanish because the answer could have been lifted from the broadcast and used for political purposes. "That was something we did not want to be party to," he said. What he means, of course, is that ABC did not want to be a party to anything that could be construed as helping Eli n stay in the U.S. Westin also contradicted himself. He claimed that ABC did the interview with him in the first place because "We're simply trying to report Elian's point of view." Yet they refused to air that part of the interview where he gave us his point of view about returning to Cuba. The Wall Street Journal asked, "Whatever happened to reporting the whole story and letting people decide for themselves?"
Stalinist Brainwashing
The "whole story" included the facts about life in Communist Cuba. In a move in federal court that was generally ignored by the major media, attorneys for Eli n's Miami relatives on April 14th argued that the boy should be barred from leaving the United States until our government could certify that his human rights would not be violated if he returned to Cuba. In Cuba, "Eli n would face the risk of being persecuted for having sought asylum in the United States," lawyers for his great uncle Laz ro Gonzalez said. The attorneys also said Eli n would be indoctrinated to believe his mother, her boyfriend and his Florida relatives were "traitors to the revolution." They asked that the U.S. government be barred from deporting Eli n unless the State Department can certify that Cuba is in compliance with the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights and that the country is "no longer engaged in systematic, gross violations of human rights." The Clinton administration has frequently called for the U.S. to sign, ratify and enforce such agreements.
But the big media never describe Cuba as a Stalinist state. They haven't explained how Cuban kids are brainwashed with the communist ideology. A Newsweek cover story, "What His Life Would Be Like in Castro's Cuba," claimed that Cuba's educational system is "among the best in the Americas..."
The truth was revealed in a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Human Rights on April 14 that was ignored by the major media. Rep. Chris Smith, R.-NJ, said, "(A)fter an exhaustive study...the only conclusion a reasonable person can arrive at is that Eli n will be forced to be a Marxist. To date, this aspect of this tragedy has gained little attention." Smith, the chairman of the subcommittee, said that Castro's educational system is "a daily indoctrination of communism." "State control over the lives of children in Cuba," he said, "is perhaps even more pervasive than over the lives of other citizens. In the Children and Youth Code of the Republic of Cuba, all persons who come in contact with children and youth are REQUIRED to be an example to the formation of the communist personality." It also requires that teachers show "a higher mission to the development of a communist personality in children." It limits eligibility for higher education to children who demonstrate "proper political attitude and social conduct."
Eli n's Future Foretold
Ileana Fuentes, one of the thousands of Cuban children sent to the U.S. by their parents in the early 1960s in Operation Peter Pan, gave compelling testimony on the abuses of Cuban child-ren's human rights. The government has a role in monitoring every aspect of a child's life, she said. "The child's progress will be charted in a personal file that will follow him through life. In that file will be recorded not only his young revolu-tionary zeal, but that of the parents as well. Only good communists will advance in the educational ladder, and only they will be able to pursue their career of choice." Fuentes also said that in their early teenage years, children are taken from their parents and sent to study and perform child labor on government farms. Parents can visit only on the weekends, and these schools are mandatory. "Parents and children who violate this mandate forfeit their right to higher education, and their file will reflect "deviant ideological behavior unbecoming a good Cuban revolutionary," said Fuentes.
Maria Dominguez, Executive Director of the St. Thomas University Human Rights Institute, said that the 1992 Cuban Constitution declares that "Cuban parents have a duty to contribute actively in their children's integral development as ?useful, well-prepared citizens for life in a socialist society.'" Dominguez continued by saying that parental decisions are subservient to the State, and that parents will be punished if found that they disagree with the State's principles to develop the communist personality in children and youth. "The primary role of the family in socialist Cuba is to contribute to the development and upbringing of children in accordance with socialist values," said Dominguez. She said that any dissent or attempt to deviate from this role is punishable under the law.
Playing the Press
As noted, Castro has a cozy relationship with U.S. journalists. Foreign correspondents in Cuba have to report and echo the party line or they face expulsion. The result is the kind of obsequious behavior by the CNN correspondent in Havana, Lucia Newman, that we saw during an appearance on Larry King Live on CNN on April 4. She was on the show to bring viewers up to date about the father's plans to come to the U.S., but she also disputed the remarks of anti-Castro panelists, including Castro's daughter, Alina Fernandez, and the famous singer, Gloria Estefan.
Alina Fernandez said, "The American legal system is sending back a boy to a dictator who leads a regime that four years ago sunk a tugboat, killing 12 children, in front of the Cuban harbor." These children and their parents were trying to flee Cuba on an old tugboat. They were crowded on the deck of the boat and many were washed into the sea by Cuban vessels attacking them with high pressure fire hoses. Altogether, 41 died. Lucia Newman did not dispute the facts of this case.
Fernandez added that children at age 11 are sent away to school and are required to do farm work for no pay. They are allowed to see their parents only 3 days a month. Estefan said the children are put to work "cutting sugar cane and doing things of this nature."
Newman, who had been on the program earlier by satellite from Havana, called back to say that what Fernandez and Estefan said was incorrect. She said, "Right now, starting from secondary school, children go every year to the countryside for one month, not to cut sugar cane, but rather tobacco and other crops. And they're allowed to get visits from their parents every single weekend. And those who are in boarding schools in the countryside also do some agricultural work, and they're allowed to go home every weekend. "
Newman was right about the children not cutting sugar cane, but recent escapees tell us that parental visits are allowed every ten days. She mentioned "boarding schools in the countryside" without disclosing that attendance at these schools is mandatory for the last three years of high school. Children of high officials may get special treatment, such as assignment to the elite Lenin School.
Fernandez was wrong in saying the children are sent away to school at age 11. Boys and girls are sent to these schools when they enter 10th grade at age 15. They study, do farm work and live in close proximity. Sexual promiscuity is commonplace and pregnancy rates and the incidence of venereal disease in these schools is high. This contributes to the high rate of abortion in Cuba. A woman who escaped from Cuba in 1997 and who has close relatives who attended these schools, says that the teachers that have sex with students are not punished.
The idea behind these schools is to separate the children from their parents, which they consider necessary to develop the new communist man. This requires weakening the influence of the parents and their teachings. During his visit to Cuba in January 1998, Pope John Paul II publicly criticized Castro's policy of separating children from their parents and denying them the right "to choose for their children the pedagogical method, the ethical and civic content and the religious inspiration which will enable them to receive an integral education." This was clearly a call for ending manda-tory attendance at the boarding schools. Castro ignored it.
The effectiveness of the brainwashing is recorded in each student's Cumulative Academic Record (CAR). This measures the ideological conformity of the students and their families, recording attitudes and associations. Teachers serve as "ideological police." Bright students with black marks in their CAR, such as church membership, have been barred from desirable careers such as medicine, law and education. This is a club held over the heads of the students and parents.
Foreign Reporters At Risk
Lucia Newman's call to correct what Alina Fernandez and Gloria Estefan had said about the schools contributed nothing to our understanding of the abuse of education in this totalitarian dictatorship. Her call may have been just a manifestation of her leftist sympathies, but it could also reflect the pressure under which foreign correspondents in Cuba work. They have to report things the way Castro wants them reported. The State Department Human Rights Report on Cuba points out that in February 1999, the "Law to Protect National Independence and the Economy" was enacted. It provides that anyone caught possessing or disseminating "subversive" literature may be fined or imprisoned for 7 to 20 years.
This report says that Ricardo Alarc¢n, the president of the Cuban National Assembly, "told foreign correspondents that under the new law, even reporters working for accredited foreign media could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison if the information they publish is deemed to serve U.S. interests. Several times during the year, the domestic press, and even President Castro in televised speeches, specifically mentioned correspondents from international news services and publications as being particularly unresponsive to the government's positions, and possibly serving U.S. interests."
The report adds, "Credible reports indicated that, after several sharp attacks in the local press, including accusations of distortion, sensationalism, calumny, and manipulation, the government persuaded a major international news agency to replace its bureau chief in Havana by promising increased access to government officials if it did so. Two other longtime resident foreign correspondents also left under difficult circumstances." Newman doesn't want to share their fate. Besides, her boss, Ted Turner, has been an admirer of Castro.
What You Can Do
Send the enclosed cards or your own cards or letters to Donald E. Graham, Publisher of The Washington Post, Ted Turner, Vice-Chairman of Time Warner, Inc. and to an editor of your choice. Converting the messages on the cards to letters will add to their impact.
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May A AIM Notes:
THE SEIZURE OF ELIµN GONZALEZ BY INS AGENTS ON APRIL 22 SHOWED OUR government's determination to send him back to Cuba. A Zogby poll of 680 adults on April 23 found that 73 percent agreed that the boy belonged with his father, which means returning him to Cuba. Among Republicans, 69 percent agreed and only 20 percent disagreed, which is why the Republicans in Congress are not eager to hold hearings on the Justice Department's handling of the case. I don't believe the results would be that lopsided if the media had done a better job in recent years and recent months of reporting what Castro and his Stalinist system have done to Cuba and its people. I have found that a lot of people think that Castro has been an improvement over Fulgencio Batista. They don't realize that he is one of the few remaining Stalinist dictators and that Stalinism hasn't worked any better in Cuba than it did in Russia, China and the other countries where it has been tried.
THE INTENSE MEDIA FOCUS ON ELIµN SHOULD HAVE BEEN USED AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO bring people up to date on what life is like in Cuba today. I was surprised at how few good stories I could find on this in the papers or on TV discussing conditions in Cuba today. The best newspaper article I could find was one by James C. McKinley, Jr. in The New York Times of Jan. 11, 1999, over a year ago. In 1990, before Castro lost his $4 billion annual subsidy from the Soviet Union, the New York Times reported that Cubans were entitled to a ration of 10 ozs. of beans per month, 9 ozs. of beef every 27 days, and a pound of chicken every 9 days. That doesn't mean that is what they actually got, because rationed items were not always available. Since then the situation has deteriorated markedly.
THE NEW YORK TIMES STORY OF JANUARY 11, 1999 SAID THAT BY 1993 THE ECONOMY had shrunk 35 percent, many factories had closed and prices had skyrocketed. By the end of 1998, hunger was common. Each person was entitled to a ration of one lb. of rice and 8 ozs. of peas per month. No meat or fresh vegetables were available in the state store where the rations were sold. McKinley said that those who don't have access to U.S. dollars may go months without eating meat. The Internet's Cuba Free Press (cubafreepress.org) reported in January 2000 that the per person ration of chicken in Santiago was 6 ozs. every 3 or 4 months. Beef was 4 ozs. every 6 months except for children under 14 and elderly on a doctor-ordered diet. Two to 4 lbs. of potatoes and a plantain (platano fongo) that used to be pig food may be available 2 or 3 times a month. Privately produced foodstuffs are available in private markets at prices far beyond the reach of most people. If the seller is not a government employee, the buyer may pay in either U.S. dollars or pesos. McKinley's story in the Times pointed out that a dockworker with a salary equivalent to about U.S. $5 a month would have to pay 80 percent of his salary for 6 lbs. of beans at a private market. The vendors buy produce that is in excess of what the government demands of the producers They are able to make a profit of about $5 a day after taxes.
THERE ARE OTHER WAYS THAT DESPERATE CUBANS HAVE FOUND TO KEEP FROM starving to death. Jobs that pay in dollars, like that of Eli n's father, are lifesavers. The Times interviewed (1) a veterinarian who was working as a tour guide because he could earn dollars; (2) a teacher who was selling black-market cigars on the street to tourists; (3) a mother who quit a job as a clerk in a store to become a prostitute catering to foreigners to support her child; and (4) the son of Communist parents who had given up studying medicine to become her pimp. He was quoted as saying, "I don't see a future in this country." A covert poll taken by El Norte, a Mexican newspaper, of 400 people on the streets of Havana in 1990 found that 63 percent said they were not happy in their country, 45 percent said they listened to Castro's speeches to keep their jobs and only 26 percent regarded him as a hero. That was before the withdrawal of the Soviet subsidy collapsed the economy. A similar poll today would undoubtedly show a higher percentage of unhappy people and a much greater dislike of Castro and communism even though they have experienced 40 years of brainwashing.
THE BALTIMORE SUN ON MARCH 30 RAN A ROSY SCENARIO STORY UNDER HEADLINES that read: "For Eli n, Cuban life might not be so grim; Propaganda: Given Cuba's emphasis on schooling and its free medical care, not to mention a loving family, life in that socialist nation might not be as horrific for the little boy as some in Miami suggest." Asking what life in Cuba is really like, reporter Jean Marbella quoted Wayne Smith, one-time head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana who is known for his leftist views. He said, "Yes, it's a socialist society and it's not an open, democratic society, but kids by and large are happy and well cared for. The right-wing crowd in Miami would have you believe there's blood in the streets and everyone is starving. There are problems, to be sure, but it's not as they portray it."
THAT WAS FOLLOWED BY A QUOTE FROM ELENA FREYRE, DIRECTOR OF THE CUBAN committee for Democracy, "a Miami-based group that takes a more moderate stance toward Cuba." She commented on the fact that Eli n will no longer be eligible for a milk ration in December, when he turns 7. She said, "What other country in Latin America, in the Third World, guarantees milk for every child until they are 7? Go to Liberty City?that's a poor neighborhood here in Miami?and ask the parents if their children are guaranteed milk?" Marbella went on to explain that the horror stories about the harshness of life in Cuba date back to the years immediately following the termination of the Soviet subsidy in 1991. She quoted Marta Farinas, a writer who frequently visits Cuba, as saying, "It was incredibly awful."
MARBELLA SAID THERE ARE STILL SHORTAGES, BUT THINGS ARE IMPROVING, THANKS TO foreign investment in hotels and other businesses and the fact that "Cuban leader Fidel Castro began allowing Cubans to receive money from their relatives in the U.S. As a result...hundreds of millions of dollars flow into Cuba from the exile community." What he did was allow Cubans to possess U.S. dollars and use them to buy things, giving rise to the dollar economy, opening up a chasm between the dollar-haves and the have-nots. Since Eli n's father is paid in dollars, he will be one of the haves and won't have to worry about starving, as many in Cuba now do. But he might have to worry about two things Cuba boasts about?medical care and education. Marta Farinas was quoted as saying they have great doctors and hospitals but they don't have aspirin and other common medications and there are shortages of such things as syringes, cotton and sutures. Patients have to take their own linen to the hospitals. Nevertheless, Marbella says, "The health system is just one of Cuba's points of pride."
ON EDUCATION, MARBELLA SAYS, "CUBAN CHILDREN PROBABLY DO FEEL MORE OF A government presence than American children do. As youngsters, they join the Young Pioneers, making them the next wave of the continuing revolution. As adolescents they can be sent to the ?schools in the country' where they do farm work and continue their education." She mentions some criticism of these schools, which we discuss on page 4 of this AIM Report, before turning to another frequent visitor to Cuba, Nadine Fernandez, an associate professor at Florida International University in Miami. Fernandez credits Jos‚ Mart¡, a fighter for Cuban independence, with the idea of having students do manual labor to foster equality. What it fosters in Cuba is teen pregnancies, abortions, and an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases. The professor had no comment on the Cumulative Academic Record, the document described in this report that determines a student's career based on how well he or she conforms to communist ideology.
JEAN MARBELLA, THE REPORTER WHO WROTE THIS ARTICLE FOR THE BALTIMORE SUN, apparently interviewed only individuals, mainly Cuban-Americans who are frequent visitors to Cuba, who are more favorably disposed toward the Castro dictatorship than the great majority of Americans. Nothing in her story indicates that she asked any of them to comment on the basic philosophy of education found in these quotes from Cuba's "Code of the Child:" "The communist formation of the young generation is a valued aspiration of the state, the family, the teachers, the political organizations and the mass organizations that act in order to foster in the youth the ideological values of communism....The society and the State watch to ascertain that all persons that come in contact with the child during his educational process constitute an example for the development of his communist personality. Upon completion of primary schooling, young people may continue their education...on the basis of their academic achievement, political attitude and social conduct. The State gives special attention to the teaching of Marxism-Leninism due to its importance in the ideological formation and political culture of the young students."
IT IS HARD TO SEE HOW ANYONE WHO HOLDS DEAR THE BASIC PRINCIPLES THAT underlie the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States can praise and hold up as a model for other countries an educational system based on |
