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Published Monday, September 3, 2007 d

Politics and Adoption in Miami
By Alejandro Armengol

A CubaNews translation by A. Regalo

It seems to me that anywhere besides Miami, this case would never have come to court: a mother giving up custody of her daughter while the father decides to take charge of the little one. The father has no history of domestic abuse or violence, nor is he a drug addict, nor does he lack economic means to support her. The norm is that the state tries to oblige a parent to fulfill their obligations, almost always without achieving it. Here it looks to impede that from happening. Interesting that a department well-known for imposing all kinds of requirements before an adoption can take place is so disposed to making this one happen, to the point of investing resources in attorneys and bringing the case to court.

The question that I've still not seen asked is this: Why such interest in negating the rights and responsibilities of a father? Who wins with this litigation?

I can't see any other answer save that the girl lives in the United States as a refugee; the father wishes to take her back to Cuba and the man who wants to adopt her for years distinguished himself by engaging in an activity which particularly irritated the regime in Havana, and which moreover, served to make him famous and wealthy.

At first glance, it would seem that this case is outside the realm of politics. The mother won the right to come to the United States thanks to the visa lottery. She wasn't part of the island's opposition. She simply arrived in this country in large part at random, in search of a better future. Something that many people long for all over the world. Valid reasons, but not fundamentally ideological ones. The father, according to what is known, has also not been known for a militant attitude, nor does he work for the Cuban government.

Politics, however, are the determining factor. It's all well and good from a legal point of view to keep it outside the decision, but not mentioning it is to behave like an ostrich. How else can one understand that in a country that puts such a priority on family values and with a government that goes so far as to make it a campaign theme, we are presented with a situation where all this is relegated to second place. Under what criteria could adoption be justified, if not for the better lifestyle offered by the United States and not by Cuba, with the additional benefits of a comfortable home?

To understand what is happening in Miami, one must speak of Joe Cubas, the man who is fighting in court in this city, with the full support of the Department of Children and Families, to retain the girl.

Cubas has been a key figure in the desertion of some of the most famous Cuban baseball players for whom he arranged passage to the Major Leagues. He wasn't the only agent dedicated to this activity, but he was the most aggressive in doing so, and garnered the most publicity and surely has caused the most disgust for the Cuban government, especially Fidel Castro. The subject is a particularly sensitive one for the regime which since its beginnings has used sports as propaganda.

Whether this was beneficial or detrimental to the island would depend on your ideological point of view. Another point is the benefits obtained by Cubas and the manner in which he achieved them. According to an article by Andres Viglucci which appeared in the Miami Herald, over the years there were mounting denunciations that he had stripped the earnings of the players and his business partners and abandoned the players who'd deserted without a second thought, but later failed to obtain professional status for them. Accusations which have been denied by Cubas, who was once sued by an ex-associate, but won the case.

Some of the strongest accusations, among them the claims that Cubas solicited bribes from the teams, came out in the 2001 book, The Duke of Habana, which cited profusely and by name, numerous ex-associates of sports agents. Various among them had to do with declarations that supposedly Cubas contracted with smugglers to get Rolando Arrojo off the island, because the player refused to desert in any other way. The book's authors, Steve Fainaru and Ray Sanchez, said that Cubas' career as an agent was characterized by presenting "two faces in his business activities and for financial juggling," as well as a "greed without limits." In 2005 the Major League Players Association suspended the sports agent's license. Now he is in the real estate business.

In other circumstances, Cubas' business history would be irrelevant. The same article by Viglucci affirms that even some former associates who broke with him characterize him as a "devoted family man." However, it helps to understand the pressure being exercised against the girl's natural father. It could be that the gag order imposed by the judge until fairly recently, which prohibited the divulging of the names of those involved, has made it so that the details of the history which brought the Cubas family to defend the girl's adoption with such force, are still unknown.

If on the one hand we have a powerful exile seeking to adopt a girl, on the other we are not exactly faced with a "guajiro" without resources. Izquierdo told Wilfredo Cancio, according to information which appeared in this paper, that it was the Cuban Interests Section in Washington which established the connection with the Miami attorneys. "They [the Cubans] contacted Magda Montiel so that she could represent me," said Izquierdo.

The reality is that everything that we say about the girl's destiny, after a brief declaration of impartiality, inclines us to see the situation from a political point of view. This column is a good example of that. That's also our fault, something from which we can't free ourselves.