[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 365]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 365]]

               ELIAN GONZALEZ AND WHAT AWAITS HIM IN CUBA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.



  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, the case of Elian Gonzalez cannot be 
viewed through a prism of normalcy or merely by our views regarding the 
primacy of family and the rights of parents, because Castro's Cuba is 
not the United States. The totalitarian communist dictatorship in power 
since 1959 is not a Democratic government. The regime treats children, 
by law, as political raw material to be manipulated and exploited by 
the State.
  Children are forced from infancy to prepare for the defense of the 
country and its regime. Parents who follow their conscience and try to 
shape their children's values and education are considered enemies of 
the State and are arrested or persecuted.
  Those parents whose love for their children supersedes any individual 
concern for their safety are punished by the Castro regime, punished 
for violating Castro's laws. Laws such as the Code of the Child and 
Youth established by Law Number 16 published on June 30, 1978.
  This law reiterates the requirement that the young generations must 
participate in the ``construction of socialism,'' and that ``the 
communist ideological formation of children and youth'' must take place 
``through a coherent system . . . in which the Cuban Communist Party 
assumes the pivotal role of vanguard and protector of Marxist-
Leninism.'' Those are the exact words.
  The upbringing of Cuba's children, in other words, is the 
responsibility of the Cuban Communist Party. Based on this premise, the 
Code of the Child and Youth dictates in its first Article that the 
people, organizations, and institutions which take part in their 
education are obligated to ``promote the formation of the communist 
personality in the young generations.'' That is their quote.
  Mr. Speaker, if any doubt exists as to the true nature of this Code, 
Article 3 states that the communist ideological formation of the young 
generation is a primary goal of the State and, as such, the State works 
to instill in them, quote, ``loyalty to the cause of socialism and 
communism and loyalty . . . to the vanguard of Marxist-Leninism, the 
Cuban Communist Party.''
  By the same token, the State must develop in the children ``a sense 
of honor and loyalty to the principles of proletariat 
internationalism.'' Again, these are their words. ``And the fraternal 
relations and cooperation with the Soviet Union and other socialist 
communist countries.''
  Absolute adherence to Marxism is the crux of the educational system 
in Cuba. Article 8, for example, underscores that, ``Society and the 
State work for the efficient protection of youth against all influences 
contrary to their communism formation.''
  The regime equates Karl Marx with Cuban independence hero Jose Marti 
to mask the content of Article 14 of the Code, albeit unsuccessfully. 
Article 14 condones and advocates child labor as it dictates: ``The 
combination of study and work . . . is one of the fundamentals on which 
revolutionary education is based. The principle is to be applied from 
infancy.''
  In this manner, Cuba's youth ``acquire proper labor habits and other 
aspects of the communist personality are developed.'' The supremacy of 
Marxism is irrefutable as evident in Article 33: ``The State bestows 
particular attention to the teachings of Marxism-Leninism for its 
importance in the ideological formation and political culture of young 
students.''
  Is this the totalitarian society, where the communist party and the 
State dictates the education, the upbringing of every child, is this 
what our Justice Department, our INS and the National Council of 
Churches seek to send young Elian Gonzalez back to? What a travesty.
  Mr. Speaker, I commend to our colleagues an article published this 
week in the Wall Street Journal by James Taranto called ``Havana's 
Hostages'' which talks about a case of a congressional constituent in 
my district, Jose Cohen, who has three of his children, Yamila, Isaac 
and Yanelis, along with his wife back in Cuba, even though they have 
U.S. exit visas and have been approved for many, many years and Castro 
will not allow them to come to the United States. This story, Mr. 
Taranto points out, shows how little the Cuban dictator cares about 
family unity and how much his communist code that is in force in Cuba 
cares about communist ideology and loyalty to the socialist Marxist-
Leninist cause and not loyalty to true family unity.

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