PRODOS: Last week we heard from Dr Edwin Locke, Professor of Business and Psychology at the University of Maryland and senior writer with the AR Institute defending the right of six year old Cuban refugee Elián Gonzalez to stay in the USA. I have invited Dr. Locke back to the show today. Thanks again for your time Ed.

ED LOCKE: It's a pleasure.

PRODOS: What Dr Locke presented on this show last week was a principled, philosophical, moral case for Elián's right to remain in America.

Also with us - from the Bahamas of all places - is Mark Da Cunha who runs the "Free Elián Gonzalez" website and petition. Mark thanks for your time.

MARK DA CUNHA: Thank you Prodos.

PRODOS: And I'm very pleased to also welcome two individuals - Cuban Americans - based in Miami who are passionate activists for Elián and for the rights of all those Cubans who want to live as free men and women in the USA. Those individuals regularly risk their lives to escape from Fidel Castro's Communist hell on earth. Let me welcome from the Cuban American National Foundation, Ninoska Perec. Hi Ninoska.

NINOSKA PEREC: Hi it's great to be with you.

PRODOS: It's a great pleasure to have you on the show. And the President of "Brothers to the Rescue" Jose Basulto. Hi Jose.

JOSE BASULTO: Hi, how are you, we are thankful to you for having us on your program.

PRODOS: We're truly honored to have you as our guests today. I think what you're doing to help defend the rights of people who simply want to live as free people in a free country is marvelous. In fact, Ninsoska and Jose, you are both originally from Cuba is that correct?

NINOSKA PEREC: Yes

JOSE BASULTO: That's correct in my case too.

PRODOS: Right. Ninoska when did you come to America and under what circumstances?

NINOSKA PEREC: Well, when I was a child, my parents as many Cubans back in the sixties were forced to leave Cuba because of Fidel Castro's Communist takeover, and  there began the exodus that has not stopped since.

PRODOS: Right, so what year did you go to America Ninsoksa?

NINOSKA PEREC: In 1959.

PRODOS: OK. Are you glad you did?

NINOSKA PEREC: Yes, I'm very glad I did. It certainly guaranteed that I could live a life in freedom.

PRODOS: And that would not have been possible in Cuba?

NINOSKA PEREC: Certainly not. Not the way that things were going in Cuba. Not the way that the revolution took over by killing people by a firing squad without a proper trial. Sending people to prison, taking everyone's possessions simply because Fidel Castro took over. And of course not only (by) himself but with the support of the Soviet Union.

PRODOS: Right. Jose when did you first arrive in America?

JOSE BASULTO: Well I've been in and out of the United States and I was here in 1959 - first as a student and then went back to Cuba. I joined the underground and participated in the 'Bay of Pigs' invasion and then after that came back to the United States and I have been here since.

PRODOS: So you came across as a student and then went back again. What year was that Jose when you finally decided to stay in the USA?

JOSE BASULTO: No, it was a no-choice situation for me, since I was a member of the underground - trying to depose Castro and having participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961 - if I stayed in Cuba I'd be in front of a firing squad.

PRODOS: Amazing! Dr. Locke, why should, in your opinion, Elián Gonzalez stay in America?

ED LOCKE: Because America is a place where his individual rights can be respected. In Cuba he would be, basically, a slave of the state. That's the principle American stands for - which is the protection of the individual's right to his own life.

PRODOS: Mark Da Cunha? Why have you gotten so involved with this campaign? What does it mean for you?

MARK DA CUNHA: Originally I just thought it was terrible that there was this six year old boy whose mother died and he was going to be sent back to his mother's killers. I mean she died trying to escape from Castro's Cuba. So I wrote an essay for Capitalism Magazine and it was publicized by Yahoo and I started getting a tremendous amount of hate mail over it

PRODOS: Hate mail did you say? Why? Because you were advocating Elián staying in America?

MARK DA CUNHA: Yes.

PRODOS: Wow!

MARK DA CUNHA: And here I noticed that a lot of the mail I received was from people who thought life in Cuba was actually better than in the US.

PRODOS: (sarcastically) Oh absolutely! Yeah, it great over there - it's a holiday.

MARK DA CUNHA: I recognized that this was a result of what people were hearing from the press. So I decided to turn the article into a website to inform people more about Cuba in regards to Elián's case.

PRODOS: I'm over here in Melbourne, Australia of course and I've been scouring the various discussions forums and media commentary on the web. I'm APPALLED at the lack of understanding of what Cuba means. And even worse -- the lack of understanding of American's, I'm sorry to say, in appreciating of what they've got in America.

PRODOS: Let me ask Jose - are you appalled by that too? Do you find that Americans perhaps are not quite getting the picture?

JOSE BASULTO: Unfortunately American people are much too used to a three second sound bite to make their decisions and opinions. At this time they cannot comprehend - they simply cannot fathom the fact that there are two different societies, all together different from the very basis of it - legally included. Namely that they are not making a trade between a family here that is well established and can help the kid and another family member there in Cuba - namely the father that could take care of him. NO, what's happening here is that they are giving away the child to the government of Cuba who will take ultimate responsibility for the child. And after all the time and effort that they (the Cuban government) have invested in the streets and so forth they have to make that child a spokesman for the government. So they are going to have to put psychologists and everybody they've got to change the mind of that kid into a walking loud speaker for Castro's interests. That's the thing that we are afraid of.

PRODOS: Have you met Elián Gonzalez?

JOSE BASULTO: I've been [looking for] Elián since before he even got to the United States. I was part of the rescue search party that took place in the first few hours that Elián had been sighted. I run a search and rescue organization. We fly airplanes in the straits of Florida seeking to assist refugees in the straits and I was called to the case of Elián and we took off in our airplanes and looked for him. We didn't find him of course -- somebody else did. And since that very day I started visiting Elián's home on a daily basis. I think I have missed 2 or 3 days at the most.

PRODOS: That's wonderful. That's incredible. I'll just mention to listeners that Jose Basulto is the President of Brothers to the Rescue and that's exactly what they do. They scour the oceans looking for these poor refugees who are risking their lives to get the hell out of Fidel Castro's Cuba. Ninoska have you met Elián Gonzalez?

NINOSKA PEREC: Yes I have. The Cuban American National Foundation also from the very beginning met the family and has worked closely with the family ever since in trying to find a way. And we're not saying that Elián should be here because life is better in United States. We know that the child belongs with the father but what is the father really saying? What we know for a fact is that this was a man who knew probably that Elián was coming (to the USA) because it was the paternal grandparents who notified the family here that the child and the mother were on their way. My first, initial question was how did they know so fast that the relatives were missing out there. It was simply because a call from Cuba advised them of that. Initially the father had [said] "take care of his son, I will be there shortly"

PRODOS: Is that right!?!?

NINOSKA PEREC: And the next thing we knew it was the father in Cuba talking with a huge photograph of Che Guevara conveniently in the back and he was reading the script written by the Cuban government that we have heard so many times before. So all we are saying is this child has earned his right to be in the United States. His right to live in freedom. Why send him back so soon without having the opportunity to at least create some pressure as to that father coming here, or that child be able to stay here with the relatives. You said it yourself what does it mean to live in a communist hell like Cuba where a child would be a third class citizen.

Yesterday was the anniversary of Martin Luther King, which is a National Holiday here. And the blacks in this country waged a beautiful battle for their civil rights and during those times when they went to demonstrations they were asked why did they take their children -- because usually dogs were let loose and some of them were beaten. They said that the children had to be there because they were fighting for that right, for the right of that child not to be a third class citizen in their own country. That's what we're looking after for Elián. A Cuban in the island that cannot even stay in a hotel where foreigners are allowed to stay, is nothing more than a third class citizen in his own country.

PRODOS: Most of the press that I have read and many of much of American public opinion seems to suggest that he should go back to his father and that his father WANTS him back. In fact, just before the break Ninoska Perec revealed that the father in fact seemed to originally want young Elián in America. Dr Locke you have a question for Ninoska?

ED LOCKE: Yes. Recent reports in newspapers have led me to believe that the father is an enthusiastic member of the Communist Party. Is that true or is this just Castro putting pressure on him?

NINOSKA PEREC: Well, right now to be able to be able to hold a job in tourism - where the difference is that a regular Cuban makes probably $5 a month whilst somebody who works in tourism can make $20 which still makes him someone that earns a slave salary. However, people join the Communist Party in order to hold those jobs. We do not know for sure -- this was a man who some people in his hometown, say that he was only a few months ago looking for boat to leave Cuba. We do not know that he is a member of the Communist Party because those are his real feelings.

PRODOS: Does that address your issue there Ed?

ED LOCKE: I was just curious because if he's an enthusiast Communist -- to me that disqualifies him even again from being a parent because he wants his son to be a slave.

NINOSKA PEREC: Did you see the interview of the father in the program 'Nightline'?

ED LOCKE: No.

NINOSKA PEREC: Well, when asked what he felt like doing he said, 'Well, picking up a rifle and going and killing some of those politicians in Miami. Or breaking some necks (of those) people who are trying to keep Elián there.' I think that disqualifies him. Also the fact that he was asked, 'Would you like to see your son taken out of your home by force by US Marshall -- and he said, 'Yes why not?' And the presenter asked again, 'I'm going to ask you would you like to see force used even though it might traumatize your child?' And he says, 'Well why not? He is traumatized already.' And this is the same kid that everybody is watching playing with a puppy and joking around with his family.

PRODOS: Thanks for that. Mark Da Cunha, anything you'd like to ask or cover at this point?

MARK DA CUNHA: Yes. In the case of the father, the point is what happens if he says, 'I want my son to stay?' Castro has already orchestrated a holiday to give a hundred thousand women to go and march. Now what happens if this one man says, 'I want my son to stay.' [Would Castro give him a hug, and send him on his way?] Elián's father has a three-month-old baby with his new wife in Cuba. Now, if I were in his position -- given that my other child is in Cuba -- I would go along and do whatever Castro says.

PRODOS: Yes, yes.

MARK DA CUNHA: In other words, we do not know what he really believes.

PRODOS: So I wonder then if the best outcome there would be if the father could toe the Castro line - but knowing that America WON'T relinquish Elián. 

NINOSKA PEREC: Yes.

PRODOS: Jose Basulto, would you like to comment at this point?

JOSE BASULTO: Well, I can tell you that as I was telling you before, the situation in Cuba to which this child would have to go is such that it is unreal to any country's standards. What they intend to do is have Elián as an instrument of the State and to continue in using him for the propaganda effort of Castro within Cuba. Elián has been used thus far very successfully by Castro to create a perception - a focus of attention - outside the country where people are looking. They are not looking at the situation inside Cuba, which was very detrimental to Castro before the Elián issue started. So Castro has very successfully used Elián as a political tool and he wants to continue using him in the same way. 

I am a father and I am also a grandfather and let me tell you, I would not be insensitive enough to use this child -- as some people have done -- as an instrument of politics. What I am doing to try to have Elián stay here in the United States is because I do believe that it is the only choice where the child's sanity could be conserved. My first impression when I was looking for Elián and when he was found was that Elián perhaps should return to his father. Then I changed my mind altogether when I realized that the intentions that were behind the government of Cuba were to use him as a tool of the government, use him in politics. And this child would be subjected, if he is sent back to the island, to those same psychologist that have been saying so far that we have kidnapped him - which is not the case. The child by the way is very happy. I see him every day. The child smiles to the press, goes out there, because the press is there all the time - this is something unavoidable. And the child - I have never seen him - except for the first few days in which he was sad and remembering his mother - nowadays he has gotten over the situation, he is happy, he has a mother figure in his cousin, who is a 22 year old girl that treats him like her own child and the boy is happy with them (the family in Miami). Unfortunately, the Castro Government has used, as I repeat, successfully, the child to deviate attention away from the problems he has inside the island and he wants to continue doing so.

PRODOS: Thank you for that. Ed Locke, last time we spoke you based your arguments not so much on the political football aspect and on the publicity Castro was getting, but on the issue of the right of Elián Gonzalez to own his own life and live in a free country. Would you like to comment further on that?

ED LOCKE: Well I think now the real question is can he be saved? I've heard that Congress is considering giving him citizenship. I'd like to ask the two people from Miami whether if Congress gives him citizenship this will help in enabling him to stay in the US?

PRODOS: Let's ask Ninoska firstly on that one.

NINOSKA PEREC: Well it would certainly do is take the case away from the Justice Department and the decision of a bureaucrat in Washington to send him back. It would then go to a custody hearing in Miami where, contrary to what has happened with the INS and the Justice Department, the child's well being will be taken into consideration. And then as Mr. Locke said: is the father qualified for that child? What are the kinds of conditions that that child would be sent back to? Those are the things that will be taken into consideration. And perhaps the most important of all which is Elián's wish.

JOSE BASULTO: Let me say something here. Ninoska mentioned something very important which is Elián's wish. Elián has mentioned time and time again, and I have been there when he has said it, he wants to stay. He is very happy here. The only times that I have seen Elián kind of sad or concerned or worried is when somebody mentions the possibility that he may have to be returned to Cuba.

PRODOS: Does [Elián] say why he does not like Cuba?

JOSE BASULTO: (laughing) I wouldn't even dare repeat the words he used the other day talking to his father (on the phone).

PRODOS: Is that right?

JOSE BASULTO: He said, 'Don't send me back to that so and so. Please, you come over here.'

PRODOS: Is he angry with his father?

JOSE BASULTO: No he's not. He loves his father - (after all) it's his father. What he would like to be is together with his father - but in the United States. And I'm sure the father would like that too but at this time and this juncture in which Castro found that Elián was a gold mine for his propaganda effort and to detract attention away from his internal problems he is not going to let him loose so easy. So if Elián's father's possibility of coming here to claim his child, I think, is next to zero. Most especially if he tends to bring his [Cuban] family along to do that.

PRODOS: Mark Da Cunha, you are very involved in this issue of course with your Free Elián website. You are publisher of Capitalism Magazine, which is an magazine dedicated to independent thinking and developing a free world, what would you suggest as the proper strategy to make a change to actually win this case? 

MARK DA CUNHA: Well, the basic issue is to make American citizens aware of the actual facts and issues. Most of the press has just avoided mentioning a lot of these things like our Cuban friends in Miami are mentioning.

PRODOS: Why though! Why haven't they mentioned those? I just want to double check that, Ninoska and Jose, are you happy or unhappy with the way the press has been reporting the issue?

NINOSKA PEREC: I think the press has been totally biased because you see some of these programs and reporters are not saying how the story is, but how they have written it. And one perfect example is how, the other day - which is not the kind of thing that a reporter [should] do - Lucian Newman from CNN, which has a very vested interest in covering this because they are the only network that has a bureau in Cuba - she was saying that the father was not pressured! Now, how does she know this? 

PRODOS: Oh, that's ridiculous!

NINOSKA PEREC: The other person was a correspondent from ABC News who happens to be a Cuban in the island linked to the political police. Now she may be very useful for the ABC to get the interviews but not necessarily to come out and say - which they (Cuba) wouldn't allow a reporter to say that anyway - that she knows that the father has not been pressured. So this is how it is being handled with a lot of politics behind it.

PRODOS: Thanks Ninoska.

JOSE BASULTO: I quite agree with Ninoska. She is very right on that. Unfortunately the press has been creating an impression here that this is an even exchange. That Elián is going from one part of the family to the better part of the family, namely his father. They don't realize that 'fatherhood' in Cuba begins with the government. Namely that the custody of the child WILL be given to the government of Cuba which, by law, Cuban law, they have a right to educate the child under the Communist guidelines, indoctrinate that child to the maximum -- especially a child like Elián that has become so visible! Now Elián has to become an instrument of the state and he would have to say and repeat all the slogans of Cuban Communism and so on. And that is precisely what we are afraid of - that the child would fall into the hands of the political apparatus that would make the child and that would ABUSE the child to the point that they draw all the juice they can out from the poor child in order to use him for their intentions - for their political intentions for promoting their form of government.

PRODOS: Thanks Jose. Mark, you were saying something there?

MARK DA CUNHA: Well, one thing I'd like to bring out. There's a similar case to Elián's from the 1930's. There was a boy who was twelve by the name of Walter Polovchak who was visiting Chicago in 1980 from the Ukraine. And he actually was in a court battle with his father because he didn't want to go back. And the [family] judge actually ruled in his case that - the judge found that the child had a right to be protected from persecution and that a parent did not have a right to basically bring a child back into communism - which is in Russia. So there is like a precedent set

PRODOS: Good one!

NINOSKA PEREC: The only thing that is not a precedent in the Polovchak case is that actually the state kept appealing and the only way that he got off the hook was because he became of age by turning eighteen.

PRODOS: Ah, so it was not actually resolved in fact? It was not actually resolved by the court arguments - it was just finally resolved because he came of age eventually?

NINOSKA PEREC: Yes, by the age. But it's still a typical example of how a boy's wish prevailed in his long court battle. Also, another factor was the case that Polovchak  was 12 which was considered by the courts an age where a child can give a better opinion that if he is six.

JOSE BASULTO: There is another situation here that should be looked into. The US Government tried to place the resolution of this on who could speak for the child, and I think that the right criteria is not who can speak for the child, but really what the best interests of the child are.

PRODOS: Good point!

JOSE BASULTO: In other words, the child is not a piece of property like he's been dealt as so far. The child has his own interests to be protected. And the interests of the child at this point - and on the basis of everything that has gone by from Castro's side - with all this propaganda effort and so on - it would be, I believe, extremely detrimental to the child to be sent back to those conditions. From now on Elián is a special person. The state of Cuba cannot afford to have him inside the island saying, I want to go back to Miami. So until Elián is worked on - to have him say what they want him to say, that child would not have peace on the island. They will have to twist his mind to the point that Elián would perhaps suffer a tremendous amount of psychological damage on account of these efforts to make him be a spokes-child of the government.

PRODOS: Yes, thanks. I want to ask Dr Edwin Locke - I wonder if I could invite you Ed to be brutally honest on this one. What do you think of the arguments that are being put forward by the Cuban American community? Are they persuasive? Are they arguments by essentials or are some big parts of the picture being left out?

ED LOCKE: Well the ones I've heard today are very good arguments because they are saying that if he goes back he will be a slave of the state - to be used like an object. And that's what a dictatorship is (all about). So I think they ARE identifying that it is objectively harmful to his life and well-being to go back to Cuba and that is exactly the argument that needs to be made in court.

PRODOS: You also maintain that his father in fact has proven himself unfit to be a parent - by his statement and his position?

ED LOCKE: Well, either he's being pressured into lies -- and if he means them then that's even worse! Because then he means he wants his son to be a slave.

PRODOS: OK. Ninoska, what is Communism and what is Capitalism? What's the difference in your views?

NINOSKA PEREC: The difference is that the one is a system that destroys the individuality of the human being. When Castro took over and in post-communism - on the people of Cuba he had to turn them into atheists first and then turn them into what Che Guevara has said -- and this is what was written on the ID's that were found on Cuban soldiers that were killed in Angola. It said the following: "Hate as the motivation. The kind of hate that makes a human being a cold and calculating killing machine. This is the hate that our soldiers must have."

JOSE BASULTO: I wanted to ask something here - when you talk about an unfit father. The question here is not whether Elián's father is really an unfit father but the 'unfit' here is the environment and the circumstances under which he would be sent into. The unfit circumstances are the ones that are going to damage for ever that child if he's sent back there and that is what we are trying to prevent. What we are trying to do here in the United States at this point is to obtain a court hearing -- a family court hearing -- where all these arguments can be heard and an informed decision can be made. Not the decisions that are made by just listening to the media - listening to three second sound bites - but listening to all the arguments (many of which) are not known here because the frame of reference that the American people have about law, about parenthood, about custody is not the same frame of reference under which Elián is going to have to operate in if he is sent back to the island. And THAT is the frame of reference we must explain to the court and to the American people before a decision can be made in the best interests of Elián.

PRODOS: Thank you for that. Ninoska, you seem to be against atheism. I picked that up in your commentary. I myself an atheist but I am an ardent anti-communist.

NINOSKA PEREC: Right, but nobody forced you to be an atheist.

PRODOS: No, but is there something wrong with being an atheist?

NINOSKA PEREC: No there is nothing wrong. But not when it's forced upon you. So you chose to be an atheist and that's your will.

PRODOS: Sure.

NINOSKA PEREC: The problem is that children in Cuba did not choose it.

PRODOS: I appreciate that but I'm curious to ask you Ninoska and then I'll ask Jose, is being a Christian more likely to make you in favor of individual rights?

JOSE BASULTO: Well, let me tell you something, which is very important - Elián's story of his odyssey at sea. He tells us of how he came all the way holding on to that (inner tube?) and he was praying all along as he came on the (inner tube?). He prayed to God. You know people sometimes find God in the most difficult circumstances and I hope you don't have to find it that way too. (Prodos and Jose laugh) But Elián's faith in God I am sure was a strong thing as that (inner tube?) was to bring him to safety.

PRODOS: I'd say that Jose Baulto's planes probably were just as powerful as God in this case! (all laugh)

(station break)

PRODOS: Prodos world wide at www.prodos.com - defending the right of Elián Gonzalez to live as a free person in a free society. Escaping from Cuba his mother died, his step-father died - to take him to freedom - to take him to America. Now the politicians and many others think that he's got to go back to his father and have ignored the fact that his father may be under duress and that in any case - whether or not his father wants him back and is genuine - it would mean having to grow up as a Cuban Communist and be subjected to what could only be described as psychological torture and brainwashing.

Erich Veyhl, a colleague of mine, sent me a note saying that "New York Congressman Rangler - one of the more brash, reckless loud-mouth - Clinton supporters during Clinton's impeachment - claimed we only want Elián to stay, out of an obsessive hatred for communism". Gee, I thought that would be a GOOD thing! Having an obsessive hate for communism sounds pretty healthy to me. Mark Da Cunha, as somebody who runs Capitalism Magazine, do you have an obsessive hatred for communism - in the nicest possible way?

MARK DA CUNHA: My main love is for Capitalism. The problem is with Communism that it resurfaces in different ways as with Fascism and Socialism and so forth. But I'd like to ask a question of Cuban friends.

PRODOS: Sure!

MARK DA CUNHA: I was reading about life in Cuba for children and tried to concretized difference between life as a child in Cuba and life as a child in America. I was reading for example that children had to have compulsory military service until a certain age and that they have to work in a farm labor camp so many days per year. Can you verify any of this or explain any of this?

NINOSKA PEREC: Children have to serve military service from sixteen to twenty-four. But children after they are age eleven they have to work thirty to forty-five days per school term in the fields - whether it be picking up coffee beans or cutting sugar cane. Now, on top of this they tell you "education" is free in Cuba -- but this is the life of a child. A child who at seven the ration card decides that he is not eligible to receive milk anymore, while a tourist in a hotel can have all the fresh milk he wants. That is basically the life of the child. Plus the fact that the control the government exercises over the parent's will to raise their children is basically what is a negation of the right of a parent to raise a child in whatever way he wishes.

JOSE BASULTO: By law the child is supposed to believe in communism.

PRODOS: By law!?

JOSE BASULTO: By law, yes. The books in school reflect the ideology of the government, Communism and the heroes of the government of Cuba -- namely Che Guevara, Fidel Castro and the others are portrayed in the school children's books so that this indoctrination begins at a very early age. This is not as damaging to a regular child as it would be to Elián. Elián has known different. Elián will have to face having to repeat those slogans no matter what or else he is going to have tremendous difficulties in the island. The other children that know no better they find out when they are exposed to the truth after they leave the country and they can leave all that behind. But Elián has known different and Elián needs to be transformed into a (puppet) of the government so Elián will have to swallow all that information provided to him by the government and repeat it at the government's will.

PRODOS: It would be a bit hard now that he has had a taste of freedom, now that he's experienced a country like America. I can't see how he could ever change back unless he becomes a zombie. They'd have to kill his intellect to do that.

JOSE BASULTO: Ah, They're very good at that in Cuba.

PRODOS: Oh!

JOSE BASULTO: In Cuba they have all sorts of means to work on the human mind and especially when they concentrate on a single person - and it's even easier if it is a child. And that's what we're very afraid of - that the child will be used in this way.

MARK DA CUNHA: What are significant examples of what they do with children and adults, like that you might know first hand from people you've spoken to?

PRODOS: Examples of how they actually inflict this change of mind on them?

NINOSKA PEREC: One example was at the beginning of the revolution - and this is again - I don't think anybody has to be a Christian or anything - everybody should believe in what they want - but children were in Catholic Schools at the time they were abolishing Catholic Schools. And these were children who were brought up in Catholic Schools and they would go in - the teachers were forced to go in and say, 'Do you children want ice-cream?' Everyone would say, 'Yes.' 'OK, ask God for the ice cream.' And the ice cream wouldn't come. And then 10 minutes later they would say, 'Now ask Fidel.' And the ice cream would show up.

PRODOS: (laughs) That's very clever actually. Malicious but pretty clever.

NINOSKA PEREC: (laughs) Right.

PRODOS: Dr Edwin Locke, what I like about what our Cuban guests are saying is that they're recognizing both the material deprivation and also the lack of intellectual freedom that prevails in Cuba.

ED LOCKE: We should add to that, if he becomes of a certain age and protests any of these things that are being done to him he can go to jail.

PRODOS: Now that's the thing that I would find the most compelling argument. That's because, personally, if I was given the choice of living in a rich Communist country (which I know is a contradiction) or a poor free country, I would choose to not have the milk and not have all the luxuries but still live as a free man.

NINOSKA PEREC: Right.

PRODOS: So I think Edwin Locke's argument is correct and most compelling one. In other words the right of free speech, the right of free expression, the right of free association -- those things which are enshrined in the free world are lacking in Cuba and therefore Elián would not have those. Did you want to say anything further Ninoska?

NINOSKA PEREC: No! That is exactly what we are fighting for. And for him to not to be a third class citizen. It's not about the milk or being poor or not having toys versus the life here. It's about that - the fact that he will not be able to perhaps talk about his experience here in freedom, the fact that his mother will be a traitor to the revolution because she chose to leave.

PRODOS: Yes, yes. And he would carry that with him.

NINOSKA PEREC: And all these are the things that will be forced upon him again.

PRODOS: Yes, of course - thank you. Jose, you mentioned that you were in the underground movement in Cuba. I wonder if you could say a few words about that. What did you actually do? Did you go around slitting people's throats...

JOSE BASULTO: (laughing) No!

PRODOS: Or dropping bombs in government offices?

JOSE BASULTO: No, actually my work was information. I was a radio operator - radio telegraphy - and I encrypted messages and sent them to the co-ordination of the operation outside of Cuba which was at the time in the US. And that was my work. I was 20 years old at the time and that was my mission. And I learned there how repression works. I learned there how the fear of the government works inside people. That the worst part of this type of repression is that you internalize it and you become sort of a zombie. You start being afraid of yourself. In other words you FEAR thinking things against the government. You become so controlled that your own thoughts become threatening to you. And this is what the government - drop after drop - that they give every day, every Cuban manage to obtain. They manage to get people to be afraid of themselves, to be afraid of their own actions, to be afraid to act free, to be afraid of being free. And in essence this would pretty much go on to Elián. Elián, as I said before, cannot - the government of Cuba cannot afford to have Elián contest any of its rules. So Elián is different to all the children on the island, all the children on the island if they start contesting Castro - well, they become members of the opposition later. But Elián is a national hero now. He's become a special thing. And that special thing can only say things that are good for the government.

PRODOS: Well, unfortunately his father, in a sense, has also become a pivotal point so he has no choice but to say what he is going to say. And also if he toes the line he'll be a national hero. And if he bucks the line then he is probably going to end up in jail for the rest of his life if not dead!

JOSE BASULTO: Something else we're very much afraid of is that Castro sees that he is going to loose the battle of Elián - namely that the child is going to stay here for some reason or another. We're very much afraid for the life and the fate of the father of Elián who's also a human being and who may appear as a suicide person one given day.

PRODOS: My god!

JOSE BASULTO: This is something not unheard of from Castro - doing horrible things. He did this to our airplanes in 1996. We were performing a humanitarian mission in the Straits of Florida and three of our airplanes were attacked by MiGs and four of our pilots were killed when two airplanes were shot down by Castro with absolutely no reason -- in International Waters. Castro is a murderer! And in effect, if this child is sent back to Cuba, what the US is doing is granting the custody of a child to the murderer of a country -- to Castro. Castro is the one that will get the custody of Elián if he is sent back. And this would be outrageous - and this is the reason why we are fighting for this child to have his day in court - to have the opportunity to present all these arguments so a sensible decision can be based on the interests of the child.

PRODOS: What sensible decision? It's very clear cut to me! I cannot understand how anybody - given what you've just been saying, given what Ninoska's been saying, what Ed Locke and Mark Da Cunha have been saying - I can't see that there's any choice. The child must stay in America. It's impossible to send him back to Cuba. How could anybody doubt it?!

JOSE BASULTO: You'd be surprised at the amount of propaganda and the amount of resources that have been expended by the government of Cuba - and also by the American Left to present Elián's case as a simple matter of custody between family members in two states . . . They don't realize that this is a very special case - that all the rules are broken here - not because of the law but because of the nature of the Castro government in Cuba which does not respect or have any law that would have Elián's interests before anything else. Because the interests of the state that go before anything else and this is what the US would be granting to Castro - the opportunity to use and abuse Elián if sent back.

ED LOCKE: The American Left likes Communism.

PRODOS: They like Communism?

ED LOCKE: Yeah, they think Communism is a great system.

PRODOS: Gees!

MARK DA CUNHA: To continue Ed Locke's point. I think the link between the American Left and Castro is that where Castro wants to force people into slavery, I think the American Left, like Clinton and so forth, wishes us to vote our selves into slavery.

PRODOS: (Prodos and Ninoska laugh) The freedom to be slaves!

MARK DA CUNHA: We see that through the U.S. government's expanding public education system; we see that through volunteerism where if you don't 'volunteer' to pick up garbage, you don't graduate from High School; we see that in the drive by the Clinton administration to enslave American doctors. So no wonder the American Left  can see no difference and nothing wrong with Cuba. That's where they want to lead us to!

PRODOS: So here we have, on the one hand, these poor Cubans trying to escape to freedom while the freest country on earth is going towards Socialism and Communism. Folks we've got to leave it there. Thanks very much for your time and helping us to defend the rights of Elián Gonzalez!

An interview by PRODOS of Prodos World Wide Radio