ELIAN GONZALEZ AND MICHAEL MOORE
including a few additional comments by Karen Lee Wald

The Miami Herald ran an article on August 6, 2004,  about how some Miami Cubans are really down on Michael Moore (or down on Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry because of links to Moore even if they are Democrats) which included excerpts from an "Open Letter to Elian Gonzalez" that Moore had published in 2000, when Elian was still being held captive by the Miami rightwing fanatics. The Herald printed only a few very selectively-chosen excerpts from Michael Moore's letter. Here is the complete text of Micheal Moore's letter. 
I've highlighted some words in red. My comments are in blue and bracketed.

Karen Lee Wald
kwald@california.com  
San Jose, California
August 7, 2004
------------------------------------------------------------
March 31, 2000
A Letter of Apology to Elian Gonzalez 
from Michael Moore

Dear Elian,

Please forgive me for writing to you in English. Three semesters of Spanish, and I can't remember a thing!

Also, please forgive us Americans for standing back and allowing the child abuse you are now experiencing. Normally, in this country, we arrest adults who put children through trauma and exploitation. Normally, we arrest adults like the Mayor of Miami who call for violence and incite a riot. Normally, in this country, we arrest terrorists and either jail or deport them. [It's too bad Moore doesn't go as far as Warren Hinkle, the San Francisco Examiner columnist, once did, by pointing out that when it comes to Cuba, all of these axioms are turned on their head. Unfortunately for you, we are doing none of this. I apologize. I can only imagine what you are going through. You do not deserve this treatment.

You are being told that your mother died trying to bring you to freedom. I am so sorry to have to tell you, that's not true. The Cuban court granted your father custody of you, and your mother decided to kidnap you [Actually, they had joint custody and Elian divided his time between the two parents and the two sets of grandparents, all of whom lived close to each other. But one parent taking off with a child when both parents have custody IS considered kidnapping]. She placed your life in horrible jeopardy by putting you in a leaky, overcrowded raft that eventually sank, killing everyone except you and two others. History is filled with many people who risked their lives escaping to another country because, had they stayed, they would have been imprisoned or killed.

That's not what happened in the case of your mother. Her life was not in jeopardy. Her son -- you -- was in no danger. The worst that could be said is that, in Cuba, you were in jeopardy of receiving free health care whenever you needed it, an excellent education in one of the few countries that has 100% literacy, and a better chance of your baby brother being born and making it to his first birthday than if he had been born in Washington, DC.

The truth is your mother and her boyfriend snatched you and put you on that death boat because they simply wanted to make more money. I can understand why they wanted a better life. Cuba is a poor country. America, from 90 miles away, looks like a rich country. The majority of people who have sailed to this country in the past have come for the same reason. Often, they have come because they did not like living in a country, such as Cuba, where you cannot freely elect your president and your basic rights are limited. I can understand that. 

[It's too bad he didn't stop after "same reason". Or at least have qualified the remark --which he  apparently felt obligated to make to "balance" the rest of what he was saying --  by saying that "Some" may have come because they weren't able to choose a president to their liking --although really what we are talking about here is not having the kind of economic system they think they want, as he has pointed out. And since he has already pointed out some of the fundamental rights Elian would have in Cuba as compared to the US (health, education), he should have said "some of your political and civil liberties are limited" rather than accepting the idea that "basic rights" are limited. The basic ones are the ones he named, the ones Cubans have....] 

But your mother placed you in a situation where you were certain  to die on the open seas (as most of the rest did) and that is unconscionable. It was the ultimate form of child abuse, and I see now why the Cuban judge did not give your mother custody. [But let's be fair to Elizabet Brotons, although I don't in any way condone what she did, and also considered it child endangerment for any adult to take a child with them on that risky adventure  -- they weren't "certain" to die --  "likely" would have been more accurate word; she certainly thought they were going to make it or she wouldn't have tried]

[Also, NO ONE in Cuba ever said anything negative about Elian's mom.  Cubans are VERY sensitive about not speaking badly of the deceased. And remember, too that her own mother, Elian's maternal grandmother, was grieving the loss of her daughter as well as the abduction of her only grandchild. The most Elian's mother was accused of was bad judgment, and her mother and others usually attributed her actions to pressure or force by her boyfriend.]

Now you are with "relatives" in Miami. Normally, in this country, when we say, "I'm going to stay with the relatives," we mean brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents.

You are with a "great-uncle" and a "second cousin." It's not that they aren't blood-related, but, let's face it, in our country they and the third cousins-once removed are usually not sitting at the Thanksgiving table and are only rarely heard from when they need bail money or part of the inheritance. But in our country, no "relative" replaces the parent. A brother, cousin or "great-uncle" who holds a child against the will of the parent is committing a major crime.

You must really miss your daddy! I hear he's coming soon. Those "relatives" are trying to prevent him from being with you. I know, that doesn't feel like love, does it? Please don't take it personally. They do love you. They love having you to toss around in front of the TV cameras so they can further their own political agenda.

You are only six, so I know you can't understand what all of the politics are about. That's okay. Some day, you will. In time, you'll read how these former Cubans, who are abusing you, instead of staying in Cuba and fighting for freedom like our ancestors did for this country in 1776, they turned tail and ran to Miami. Once here, they began demanding that we Americans fight their fight for them. [Although Moore is trying to make a good point here, he accepts the idea that there is a lack of freedom in Cuba that those people should have stayed to fight for. The analogy to the colonies fighting the British in 1776 is simply inaccurate.] What did we do?

Something stupid! We fought their fight for them! We based our entire foreign policy in this hemisphere on one thing -- eliminating Castro. We tried to assassinate him. We sent "troops" to invade at the Bay of Pigs. We prevented medicine and food from being shipped to Cuba. When I was nearly your age, we almost blew up the world over Cuba and Castro. Can you believe that? We had become as insane as those ex-Cubans in Miami! [Actually, US government and the corporations that rule it were NEVER doing this on behalf of the Cubans who left. They were doing it for themselves, to take control again over that island that the US has ALWAYS felt belonged to "us".]

And we've stayed that way for forty years. We're still whacked-out over Cuba. Last year, we fined an American citizen $10,000 because he went down to Cuba to tune pianos! It's illegal in this "free" country to travel here. Loopy, huh? We've been driven crazy 'cause that we still can't get rid of Fidel Castro. He's out-lived nine of our presidents!

We have allowed these ex-Cubans with the yellow stripe down their backs to operate numerous terrorist missions from South Florida. These same ex-Cubans were the ones who broke into a place called Watergate (that eventually brought down a president), ran drugs for arms operations (that brought down a popularly-elected government in Nicaragua), and, according to some Americans, were behind the assassination of our president, John Kennedy (that puts us on a slippery slope we're still sliding down).

Now, these very ex-Cubans who were afraid to stand and fight Castro have suddenly found the courage to fight...us! That's right, they have made it clear that they will fight, with violence, any federal officers or troops who are sent in to enforce our laws (those outrageous ones which say a son should be with his father).

And you are caught in the middle of all this. I am so sorry. I wish there was something I could personally do. I will write to our Attorney General and tell her to stop this child abuse. I will encourage others to do the same. I wish I could convince our vice-president (who's running for president) to help, but he too has decided to abuse you by using you for his own political gain. The governor of the state you're in, Jeb Bush, is the brother of a man running for president. He wants to use/abuse you, too. I just want you to know that 80% of the country doesn't like either of these men. [I wish that were true. He was right that 80% didn't AGREE with the Bushes on the subject of Elian, but on most other issues control of the TV networks has been sufficient to blind a sufficient number of Americans to the horrors that they do and to think they are great men. Although "think" is probably too strong a word for what most of those people do with their minds....<g>]

I guess that's the silver lining in your little cloud. The majority of Americans are sickened by the way you are being treated. Please understand that bad things are often done in our name and with our money and there is little we can do, as the choices on our ballots are nearly as slim as the choices your father has on his. [Too bad Moore knew so little about the actual workings of Cuba's electoral system. Hopefully he will go there some day -- or at least his researchers will update his information enough -- so that he will realize that Cubans actually have far more choices than most people in the US do -- although not nearly as many as those who would like to see that system overturned wish they had. 

[But this isn't the place for Moore to take the time to explain that Cuban elections are actually "freer" than US elections because they don't cost money, and thus can't be bought and sold; or to go into the mechanics of the process that whittles down thousands of candidates for National Assembly before coming up with the 600+ slate that people can vote up or down, individually or as a slate...or the tiered process by which the National Assembly chooses the council of state and the council of state chooses its president -- which may be indirect, but so is our system in which people elect members of the electoral college and the electoral college chooses the president -- which is some cases results in the man who got fewer total votes becoming the president....]

It's not easy being six -- anywhere in the world. I know this all too well. My country, the one your mother thought you should be living in, allows its six-year olds access to guns, and a little six-year old girl in my hometown was killed last month by another six-year old. This is the world we adults have created for you. This is the world I promise to do my best, in my own small way, to change.

I pray you'll be playing catch soon with your wonderful, loving daddy on a Cuban baseball diamond. By the time you're 18, long after Castro and the Bushes and all this nonsense is gone, maybe you can come back to America on your own free will.

The Tigers, I can assure you, will still be in desperate need of some good pitching.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2000-03-31

 

MIAMI HERALD
Posted on Fri, Aug. 06, 2004
 

AP PHOTO

ON THE HOT SEAT: Filmmaker Michael Moore
speaks to a crowd at a gathering of the Campaign
for America's Future event last month. Moore is
being sharply criticized for years-old writings
on Miami's Cuban exiles.

Weeks after Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 became a controversial blockbuster in the United States, the film and its maker are generating a new wave of attention -- this time from Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits.

In Cuba, where leader Fidel Castro is in a heightened war of words with President Bush, bootlegged copies of Moore's Bush-bashing documentary were shown to packed cinemas for a week, and the film was aired on state-run television July 29.

In Miami and elsewhere, Cuban Americans who support Bush are vilifying Moore on Spanish-language radio, the Internet and in e-mails.

Their objection, beyond the new film: inflammatory pieces Moore wrote about Cuban exiles in 1997 and 2000 in which he called them ''Batista supporters'' and ''wimps'' who were wrong not to immediately send home child-boater Elián González.

The controversy has put Cuban-American Democrats in a sensitive spot: Moore's writings about Miami exiles are sure to offend some of them, but the filmmaker's anti-Bush message resonates strongly with Democrats eager to reclaim the White House.

Miami Cuban-American Gus Garcia, a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Boston, said he skipped the Florida delegation's July 28 breakfast with Moore because a relative called and read him an e-mail quoting Moore's writings.

''Total Cuban bashing,'' Garcia said Thursday. ``I lost my father when I was 11 in the struggle against Castro, so I did not appreciate that, as a Cuban American or as a human being.''

Cuban exiles are spreading Moore's writings around the globe ''in what I call the Web track, the information highway, going about 90 miles per hour,'' Garcia said.

Garcia's opinions form rare common ground with Radio Mambí host Ninoska Pérez Castellón, a staunch Bush supporter, who criticized Moore during her show on Tuesday.

''I mentioned the fact that what he's written about Cubans is totally insulting,'' she said Thursday. ``Of course there's a lot of talk, because people feel offended -- and rightly so -- by the things he has said.''

LOSS OF RIGHTS

As for the film being shown in Cuba, Garcia said it could send a message that ``this country allows criticism of the power structure, which the Cuban government doesn't. I think Moore should point that out. It's fashionable now to go to Cuba, but it's not quaint to point out the loss of human rights in Cuba.''

People are calling Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas' office to complain, too.

''They want us to stand up and tell Michael Moore a thing or two,'' Penelas spokeswoman Lynn Norman-Teck said.

Will Penelas, a Cuban-American Democrat running for a U.S. Senate seat, take up the cause? Norman-Teck said she would ask him when he got out of a meeting. There was no answer Thursday night from Penelas, who did attend the delegation breakfast in Boston at which Moore spoke.

Shawn Sachs, Moore's spokesman in New York, said Moore declined to comment.

Fahrenheit 9/11 reached Cuban homes and 120 cinemas ''from an unauthorized, pirated copy'' broadcast without prior knowledge of Moore or the film's distributors, their representatives said.

In a country with a long-held distrust of U.S. governments, the film has sparked widespread public interest and added to a recent barrage of official -- and personalized -- attacks on President Bush.

Relations between Washington and Havana have soured since the White House tightened the Cuba embargo on June 30. New rules limit visits and cash gifts from Cubans in the United States.

For Maria, a wife and mother struggling to support seven loved ones in her cramped Havana apartment, watching Fahrenheit 9/11 on Cuban television last week had the intended effect:

''I'm surprised at what [George Bush] was doing when Sept. 11th happened,'' said Maria, who agreed to give only her first name. ``I couldn't imagine that he was in the school visiting children and that terrible thing was happening and he didn't do anything.

``In my opinion, he is not intelligent enough to be president of the United States. I wish that in November he would not be the president again.''

Encouraging the masses to bash President Bush is a shared goal for filmmaker Moore and Castro. But they share opinions about more than Bush.

DISLIKE OF EXILES

According to material written in 1997 and 2000 by Moore, both men abhor Miami's Cuban exile community. In a chapter of his 1997 best-selling book Downsize This! that is excerpted on the Internet, Moore wrote about Miami's Cuban exiles as ''always present and involved . . . in every incident of national torment that has deflated our country for the past three decades,'' including as examples the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Iran-Contra and the drug-abuse epidemic.

In a letter of apology to Elián on Moore's website, Moore calls Elián's mother a child abuser for taking the boy to sea. Elián's mother died on the journey, setting up a tug of war for the boy between his father in Havana and his Miami relatives.

The film's distributors hastened to say they had not provided the movie to Cuba after a report this week suggested that it could be disqualified from the Academy Awards because it had aired on television within nine months of its theatrical distribution -- a violation of academy rules.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/9332301.htm?

 

MIAMI HERALD
Posted on Fri, Aug. 06, 2004
 

• Excerpts from Downsize This!, Moore's 1997 book, available at www.lanuevacuba.com/nuevacuba/notic-04-07-2902eng.htm:

``It is [in Miami] that a nutty bunch of Cuban exiles have controlled U.S. foreign policy regarding this insignificant island nation. These Cubans, many of whom were Batista supporters and lived high on the hog while that crook ran the country, seem not to have slept a wink since they grabbed their assets and headed to Florida.

``U.S.-based Cuban terrorist organizations have been responsible for more than 200 bombings and at least 100 murders since Castro's revolution. They have got everyone so afraid to stand up to them that I probably shouldn't even be writing this chapter. I am, after all, one of the few unarmed Americans.

``So why am I not worried? Because these Cuban exiles, for all their chest-thumping and terrorism, are really just a bunch of wimps.

``That's right. Wimps.

``Need proof? For starters, when you don't like the oppressor in your country, you stay there and try to overthrow him. . . . But you don't just turn tail and run like these Cubans.''

• Excerpts from an open letter Moore sent to Elián González on March 31, 2000, available at www.michaelmoore.com:

``You are being told that your mother died trying to bring you to freedom. I am so sorry to have to tell you, that's not true. The Cuban court granted your father custody of you, and your mother decided to kidnap you. She placed your life in horrible jeopardy by putting you in a leaky, overcrowded raft that eventually sank, killing everyone except you and two others. . . . The worst that could be said is that, in Cuba, you were in jeopardy of receiving free health care whenever you needed it, an excellent education in one of the few countries that has 100% literacy, and a better chance of your baby brother being born and making it to his first birthday than if he had been born in Washington, D.C. . . .

• Message board on Moore's Excerpts at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1183125/posts:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/9332323.htm