A POTEMKIN CHILDHOOD :

He's just a normal boy, with President Castro for a friend (Daniel Schweimle, May 3 2002, Financial Times)

The return of Elian was a battle won, ranking alongside Cuba's victory over the US-backed forces that tried to overthrow Mr Castro at the Bay of Pigs in southern Cuba in 1961. Last year the Cuban president opened a museum in Elian's home town. Called the Museum for the Battle of Ideas, it charts how Cuba has defied what it sees as US aggression. But in reality it is a museum to celebrate the return of Elian, with pictures of the crowds that thronged the streets to demand his homecoming.

During the opening ceremony, as Mr Castro addressed a crowd made up mostly of local primary schoolchildren on the evils of capitalism, a bored Elian played in the street, watched over by a burly bodyguard. The media are not allowed to talk to the boy or his family, to safeguard his "normal life".

His mother sacrificed her life for his freedom and we shipped him back to bondage.

(via Reductio ad Absurdum)

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 8, 2002 8:29 AM