Battle over six-year-old's fate brings Cuba centre stage

Think of the world stage some four decades ago . . . the Berlin Wall, Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, the Cold War between East and West . . . It all seems so far away now in an era where ideas like globalisation, transparency and e-commerce define nations and perhaps even nationality.

And then there is Cuba, an island anachronism some 160 kilometres off the coast of Florida. With leader Fidel Castro still bearded, clad in green military fatigues, and still spouting the religion of communist revolution some 10 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba seems little else but a tattered remnant of another time.

Its economy is a shambles, shortages of food and medicine chronic, its streets filled with 30-year-old cars and crumbling buildings. Despite its location, Cuba certainly seems to pose no threat to the world's reigning sole superpower.

Perhaps that is why the US position towards Cuba - it does not maintain diplomatic relations, is resolute in its 37-year-old economic embargo and forbids US tourists to travel - seems absurd to most observers, especially to those outside the US.

Why maintain such measures? The "war" is over. Communism is dead, and let's face it, even 73-year-old Castro will not live forever.

The answer lies, as much as anywhere else, at places such as Calle Ocho, the main street in Little Havana, a section of Miami, Florida, home to thousands of Cubans who fled their homeland for the US.

On Friday, December 10th, Senator John McCain, a Republican Party candidate for the Presidency whose campaign is threatening to topple that of rival George W. Bush, stood before a plate of fried pork, black beans and rice at a stop at a Cuban restaurant. Mr McCain took the opportunity to speak out on an issue that has mobilised the Cuban exiles in Florida, captured the attention of Hispanic voters in key states, and tugged at the hearts of even politically apathetic Americans - the case of six-year-old Elian Gonzalez.

The boy was plucked from the sea, floating in a rubber raft, on November 26th. His mother and stepfather, along with eight others, drowned in a desperate attempt to escape Cuba.

Now, the boys' relatives in Miami are fighting to keep him in the US. His natural father and grandparents back in Havana have launched an international protest, seeking to have him returned. Fidel Castro had personally demanded the boy's release, and daily demonstrations in central Havana have brought more than two million protesters to the streets. "Return Elian to his country" reads a billboard behind the city's Coppelia ice-cream shop.

The US legal position on such matters is generally that a child's natural parent should be allowed to keep the child. In any other situation, the child would be returned. But this boy is Cuban, politics and votes are involved, so nothing is assumed.

"I believe this young man should be absolutely assured that he will be able to live in freedom and not in slavery, and that he will be able to live in the United States," declared Mr McCain. "I would make it clear to President Clinton that under no circumstances should this young man be condemned to a life of communist oppression." The Cubans cheered, and called Mr McCain "a real man". For his part, Mr McCain described the Hispanic votes in states such as Florida, Texas and California as "the critical rising block vote in America".

And that is the simple answer as to why US policy towards Cuba remains what it is today. It is almost pure politics. But the consequences extend far beyond the emotional story of a six-year-old refugee and an ageing dictator.

This week the s so-called "wet foot-dry foot" immigration policy in relation to Cuba took centre stage in a prison siege in a small Louisiana town.

(The policy is like this: if you escape from Cuba and make it to dry land, the US will grant you asylum. Get caught floating in the seas and the US will return you to Cuba. The Cuban government maintains it is this policy that is responsible for encouraging people to risk the perilous journey.)

The FBI has surrounded a two-storey jail in St Martinville after a group of Cuban inmates took over and held three hostages. The Cuban inmates - estimates of their numbers run as high as 50, with the FBI saying there are four ringleaders - are some of the 125,000 Cuban prisoners sent to the US by Castro in 1980. Although they have completed their jail sentences, they are being held prisoner because of a dispute between Cuba and the US. Since they are not US citizens, they must be deported. Cuba, on the other hand, refuses to accept them. The US will not simply release them in the US, so the inmates are caught in an impasse. Altogether, the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service estimates there are 2,500 Cuban inmates in this situation in US jails, mostly in small towns in the southern US. For their part, the local jails are happy to have them; the INS pays the jails $55 a day to keep these prisoners, almost twice the normal amount that states pay for prisoner costs.

"All we want to do is leave the country," one of the inmates told a Louisiana radio station. "We will go anywhere. Drop us on a desert island."

The prisoners, armed with home-made knives, were threatening to kill the jail warden and two guards. FBI negotiators were reported to be talking to the inmates.

In Washington, Attorney General Janet Reno said: "We have tried to review the process by which we release people, and we have tried to take steps to release everybody possible." Still, without a country to accept them, it seems the inmates' fate remains uncertain. The fate of Elian Gonzalez may be resolved sooner, as the US government's appetite for a showdown with Castro seems to be waning. But further moves towards US reconciliation with Cuba, during an election year and with Fidel Castro alive and well, will probably remain on hold for the foreseeable future.