Letter From Cuba's Minister of Foreign Affairs
This web site has not been authorized by any government or group. The purpose of this page is to express what I believe to be the truth and facts behind the controversy over Elian Gonzalez Brotons.
Havana, December4,1999
Your Excellency,
I would like to draw your attention to a most
unfortunate situation created by the bizarre and
deplorable action of the government of the United
States of America in violation of the migratory
agreements signed by that country and the Republic of
Cuba and of the international law, but above all in
violation of the basic
standards of humanitarian behavior.
In the afternoon of last November 25, news
began to flow in on the shipwreck near the Florida
coasts of a vessel with illegal Cuban immigrants on
board. It was a clear operation of illegal smuggling
of aliens conducted by unscrupulous outlaws who
operate within the American territory. According to
further more precise information, a couple of
survivors were found in front of Key Biscayne while a
five-year-old boy was located holding from a rubber
tire near Haulover Inlet, close to Miami City.
The statements made by the survivors showed
that it was a group of 14 people who had departed
on November 22, before dawn, from a place in the north
of Cardenas City, Matanzas province, Cuba.
The name of the surviving child is Elian
Gonzalez Brotons.
That child was being illegally carried aboard
that vessel by a man named Lazaro Munero Garcia who
had close personal relations with the child's mother
already divorced from the boy's father, Juan Miguel
Gonzalez Quintana, a resident in the city of Cardenas,
Matanzas province, Cuba. The father had a very close
relationship with his son whom he constantly visited
as he properly discharged his obligations as a parent.
The child's grandparents, on both sides of the
family, had also a very close and loving relationship
with him as they live in the same city. They, too,
have been deprived of the boy's presence,
Neither the father nor any other relative was
consulted about the child's departure. The father's
permission was not requested to take his small son to
the United States of America, least of all to carry
him there illegally and by irresponsible and risky
means. The two persons responsible for illegally
taking the child, that is, the mother and her friend,
perished in the shipwreck,
The father of this child has addressed our
Ministry requesting that, the procedures to have his
son returned were immediately begun. The
grandparents on both sides of the family who also live
in Cuba support this request. They all claim for
Elian's immediate return to his family.
Accordingly, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of
the Republic of Cuba has presented two verbal notes,
on November 27, to the U.S. Interest Section in Cuba
and to the U.S. State Department in Washington. A
letter from the child's father requesting his return
was added to the note.
At this moment, there is still no reply from
the government of the United States of America.
Elian's fathers right to custody is
indisputably legal and provided for in both the Cuban
law and the international law.
Arbitrarily holding the boy in the territory of
the United States of America qualifies as an abduction
and constitutes a shameful act of piracy and a true
escalation in the stubborn and failed onfi-Cuban
policy rejected by the international community and
detrimental to the best interest of the American
and Cuban Peoples.
The manipulation of this case for political
purposes by certain groups in the United States,
particularly the notorious terrorist organization
known as the Cuban- American National Foundation, is
most disgusting.
It is inconceivable that an innocent child who
has just barely survived such a dreadful tragedy is
being so abused and that his misery is cynically
extended by preventing his return to his father, his
grandparents, friends and neighbors in the country
where he was born.
This predicament, which amounts to a violation
of the child Elian Gonzalez Brotons' basic human
rights, is building such a growing state' of anger and
irritation among the people here that if it is not
resolved in the shortest possible time it could lead
to dangerous tensions between the two nations.
Therefore, by describing this situation I am appealing
to you and to the international community to prevent
this huge abuse of and contempt for the basic norms of
civilized coexistence- Little Elian must be
immediately returned to his family as it befits the
loftiest concepts of justice and humanism.
Please, accept the testimony of my highest
consideration.
Felipe Perez Roque
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Republic of Cuba
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