june 26, 1990
An article published in Granma this past June 16 referred to Operation Peter Pan, which separated -according to figures cited in the newspaper- more than 14,000 Cuban children from their parents due to a lie released from the CIA in the early days of the revolution. The imperialist “lie” stated that the Cuban State would snatch parents’ rights to their children in order to subject them to communist indoctrination. The author of the article in Granma maintains that now, in Venezuela, a campaign backed by the CIA against the Bolivarian revolution has been unleashed in which the same point is argued, namely that the Organic Education Law promoted by the Venezuelan government “would grab the children’s custody from their parents”.
Beyond the forced similarities in the Cuban process, which the Venezuelan government, in a disproportionate lack of originality, insists on advocating and of which the people of Venezuela should take account and effects, the occasion leads me to review, after so many years, the events that took place the deep darkness and evil that surrounds the mentioned Operation in Cuban history. The official information relating to that undercover event stands out because of its tangential and meager nature, and it raises more questions than answers. For starters, the sheer number of children involved in that difficult episode that official sources have cited would need further study and wider dissemination of facts. The use of children as a playing card in the game of politics is too dirty a chapter, whether by one party or another, and, in the case of Operation Peter Pan, it seems to have been the wildcards of two contenders, not just of one.
One of the most basic questions could be that if the Cuban government mobilized the nation in 1998 to recover the child Elián, even so far as to paralyze the country because of the colossal political campaign, even though -it was known-, the father had all the rights and advantages to win the case, as eventually happened, why were those thousands of children, victims of the operations of the CIA, not claimed at that point? Was it that other interests besides those of the dark agency were at play? Was it that Cubans, who have a special sensibility for children, wouldn’t have mobilized themselves in favor of the plight of those children? Why didn’t the magnanimous and just revolution call on its ever-enthusiastic people? After almost 50 years of that perfidy, in whose political favor did the Operation Peter Pan result? Who are all those who were responsible? Did not one of the thousands of affected parents try to recover their children? What help did the revolution offer these parents? I do not know the answers.
Operation Peter Pan, despite its dramatic burden, is not studied in Cuban History school programs, apparently the Protest at Baraguá or the current 5 heroes are more important than the virtual kidnapping of thousands of Cuban children. They are not spoken of in classrooms, they are not remembered, and they are barely mentioned tangentially in brief and sporadic references of the official press, as in this one presented by Granma.
Nonetheless, there was some semblance of reality in the CIA conspiracy. The revolution snatched the parental rights from millions of Cuban parents though not de jure, but de facto. Just a superficial review of these 50 years is enough: at first -and for a sufficiently long time- the government took advantage of its popular support and charm and cleverly manipulated the psychology of the masses to achieve its purposes. Many parents agreed to the separation of children from their homes when they were barely teenagers. Let’s remember, what ages many of those who were sent to alphabetize were, those who were separated from their families at the behest of the revolutionary government to venture into the most remote parts of the island? And the peasant women welcomed into the famous program “Ana Betancourt”? And the “little Camilos” who studied in military schools under a regime of internship from the seventh grade? Later on, what would start out as “volunteerism” of parents and children would turn mandatory: the Field schools, where adolescents stayed in rustic shelters and promiscuous conditions for 45 days, far from their elders. In the 1970’s, Field schools were opened, with students placed on a voluntary basis at first. First there were the secondary schools (ESBEC), after that, the pre-universitary (IPUEC) and “vocational (IPUEVC) schools, with the last two schools ending up as mandatory in the 1990’s for anyone who wished to attain a high school graduation.
Skillfully, over the years, the revolutionary government introduced a wedge which tended to separate children from their parents in order to brain-wash them at will. Towards that end, it centralized and monopolized education, and eliminated any alternative to the official indoctrination without any help from the CIA. This government has been responsible for disavowing the family and supplanting it in the rearing of children, now we are reaping the fruit of such a purpose: the young have not found the bright future that stepfather State had promised, and they do not respond to the interests of the revolution any more. But, at the same time, many of them, brought up far from home, have lost the concept of family and the values that were traditionally passed on. The revolution has meant, in a thousand different ways, the fragmentation of the Cuban family, and, with it, a cultural loss that could be irreparable for purposes of the Nation. Surely, the CIA could have created an occasional monstrosity called Operation Peter Pan decades ago, but the “educative” work of the Cuban government –half a century of permanent abduction of children- could very well have been plotted by Captain Hook himself.