Salon.com > John Lantigua

Miami’s rent-a-riot

Tue, 28 Nov 2000 17:49:00 +0000

On the surface, it looked like the good people of Miami at their worst again. Last week's melee at the county offices here -- followed by the local canvassing board's abrupt cancellation of a hand recount -- had all the trademarks of Miami's notorious tantrum politics. Screaming, shoving, fist-waving, intimidation, ties to Elian Gonzalez and even hints of good ol' Cuban-American political corruption.

But the fact is that the fracas at Miami's recount headquarters was engineered and carried out by Republican Party operatives imported from the heartland, far from South Florida. They might have reminded viewers of Elian's Army -- and might even have taken lessons from the Cubans -- but, by all accounts, the city's strident conservative exile community was very much in the minority. As one observer put it: "There were no guayaberas. This crowd looked tweedy. They were from out of town."

Indeed, all on-the-scene reports coming out now indicate that the Miami protest was carried out by rent-a-rioters flown in by the Republican Party. GOP spokespeople have said that at least 750 Republican activists have been sent into South Florida from around the country to oppose the recount, with the party picking up the tab for a number of them. And last Wednesday, when a gaggle of protesters sprang into action in Miami, those efforts seem to have paid off.

Palm Beach: Ground zero

Sun, 12 Nov 2000 02:59:00 +0000

Republicans used to have it real good here. In 1960, Richard Nixon crushed John Kennedy 62 to 38 percent. In 1984, Ronald Reagan ripped Walter Mondale 186,000 to 116,00. Four years later, George Bush Sr. did a job on Mike Dukakis by 37,000 votes. Democrats couldn't crack the GOP stranglehold in Palm Beach County.

Meanwhile, Jews and blacks once had it very bad here. Until the 1960s, Jewish people weren't allowed to live in many parts of the county, not to speak of joining the area's country clubs -- the settings of Town and Country magazine spreads. Blacks, outnumbered and outspent, had little or no political power.

But that has all changed, much to the chagrin of the GOP.

Cornelius Vanderbilt, William Rockefeller and their friends who once lived and played in the wildly wealthy town of Palm Beach -- a Republican fortress separated from rest of the county by a waterway -- must be rolling over in their burial vaults. The money is still here -- there's no GAP or Banana Republic on the main drag of Worth Avenue, only Chanel, Valentino, Armani and Gucci. But the local political power has gone "across the bridge to the mainland," as people here call it.

County official knew about ballot confusion

Thu, 09 Nov 2000 23:59:00 +0000

According to a memo distributed to poll workers in Palm Beach County Tuesday afternoon, the county's supervisor of elections was already aware that voters were struggling with the confusing butterfly ballot her office had prepared.

More than 19,000 ballots were nullified in Palm Beach County because voters selected more than one candidate as their presidential choice. Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan received a surprising 3,407 votes -- more than three times the votes the ultraconservative candidate received in any other Florida county, and almost 20 percent of his total in the state. Some complained that they had erroneously voted for the Reform Party candidate, and three voters filed suit Wednesday to force a revote in the county.

The Election Day memo, written by Theresa LePore, states "Please remind all voters coming in that they are to vote only for one (1) presidential candidate and that they are to punch the hole next to the arrow next to the number next to the candidate they wish to vote for."

Go figure

Thu, 09 Nov 2000 20:44:00 +0000

As the nation waits for a recount in Florida to decide who the next president will be, all eyes are focused on Palm Beach County, the liberal, Democratic stronghold that gave Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan a surprising 3,407 votes -- more than three times the votes the ultraconservative candidate received in any other Florida county, and almost 20 percent of his total in the state.

Three Palm Beach voters sued late Wednesday to force another vote in the county, alleging that the badly designed ballot was illegal and caused Democrats to cast their votes for Buchanan when they were trying to vote for Vice President Al Gore. Even Buchanan jumped into the fray Thursday, telling NBC's "Today" that "it seems to me that these 3,000 votes people are talking about -- most of those are probably not my vote and that may be enough to give the margin to Mr. Gore." Shortly after, a federal judge agreed to hold an emergency hearing on the lawsuit Thursday afternoon.

“We’ve had a wreck here”

Thu, 09 Nov 2000 19:51:00 +0000

Invoking the spirit of the civil rights movement and the historical alliance between blacks and Jews, the Rev. Jesse Jackson called for a "national rally" here on Thursday to demand a new election in Palm Beach County.

Before a noisy crowd of 2,500 people, Jackson said the high vote count for Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan was the result of a "misalignment" -- a reference to the controversial "butterfly" design of the ballot in Palm Beach County, which led to erroneous votes and the nullification of 19,000 votes.

"When you're going down the road and your wheels are not aligned, you have a wreck," Jackson told the crowd. "We've had a wreck here in Palm Beach County ... We will march until we have fairness in this election."

"We want not just a recount or a revote, we want a fair first vote," said Jackson.

The rally was spirited and, at moments, angry. The crowd consisted largely of Gore supporters and reflected the area's large black and Jewish populations. Representatives from both of those groups criticized the ballot.

Civil war in Miami?

Thu, 11 May 2000 16:00:00 +0000

The threat of secession is dividing the deep South. A confederacy of Miami voters, incensed by the Elian Gonzalez affair, is pressing for a recall of the Cuban-American mayor, and, possibly, a partition of the city.

"If we can't live with them -- I mean with the radical Cuban element -- then let's live without them," says Annette Eisenberg, a fomenter of what has become known as the Bayshore Secession movement. According to the rebels' plan, the predominantly non-Cuban neighborhoods that hug Biscayne Bay -- including the liberal enclave of Coconut Grove and the downtown business center -- would break away from Miami and form a city known as Bayshore Miami.

On Thursday the action in the Elian saga moves to Atlanta, where lawyers for the Miami Gonzalez family on one side and Elian's father on the other will battle in federal court over the boy's right to be considered for political asylum. Whatever the court decides, the hearing will keep alive an issue that many Miami residents are ready to see resolved.

The idea of a Miami confederacy is a long shot. Attempts to divide or dissolve the city have failed in the past due to legal technicalities and the voting power of Cuban-Americans who don't want to cede relatively affluent areas of the municipality.

Raid on Little Havana

Sat, 22 Apr 2000 14:47:00 +0000

Federal agents staged a lightning raid Saturday morning on the home of the relatives of Elian Gonzalez, removing the boy by force and reuniting him in Washington with his father. The sudden raid ended a months-long standoff, triggered minor disturbances and calls for a general strike from some in Miami's Cuban-American community.

At 5:15 a.m. EST, several white vans of the Immigration and Naturalization Service roared up to the small house in Little Havana, surprising a group of some 30 protesters holding vigil outside. About 20 INS agents in commando gear jumped out, some of them carrying rifles and some wearing cloth masks over their faces.

The agents, wearing riot gear, pounded on the door demanding entry, and when they were refused, they broke down the door and stormed the home of the family which had defied INS orders to relinquish the child. According to Attorney General Janet Reno, a team of eight agents entered the house and spent only three minutes inside.

A Spanish-speaking female agent wrapped the 6-year-old boy in a white blanket and, with the help of a male agent, carried him outside to a van. Her expression was anguished as she faced the glare of reporters cameras and protesters outside the house. Protesters threw chairs and other objects at the agents, who responded by firing pepper smoke into the crowd. No serious injuries were reported.

Showdown in Miami

Thu, 13 Apr 2000 11:09:00 +0000

The drama in the Elian Gonzalez case grew and grew all day Thursday, the colorful horde outside the house getting larger and louder, until you sensed something had to give. And finally it did, when a federal court in Atlanta countermanded the Justice Department and it was decided to not move the boy from Miami, at least not yet.

The surreal scene outside the small stucco home had taken on the look of a Hollywood premiere by then, as Cuban-American celebrities arrived to throw their support behind Elian's Miami family. The crowd included thousands, and those in the front lines oohed, aahed and applauded actor Andy Garcia, singer Gloria Estefan, television talk show maven Cristina Saralegui and countless Cuban-American politicians on cell phones. They all arrived before the 2 p.m. EDT deadline the Justice Department had set for the family to deliver Elian to a local airport, from where he would be flown to Washington to be reunited with his father. But the family had refused and the standoff was on.

Meet Miami's Cuban moderates

Fri, 07 Apr 2000 16:00:00 +0000

The eve before Juan Miguel Gonzalez arrived in the United States in an attempt to retrieve his son Elian and take him back to Cuba, television broadcasts showed Cuban exiles in Miami barging through barricades outside the Gonzalez family house, pumping fists, shouting and spouting epithets in Spanish about the Clinton administration. The focus of the cameras was necessarily tight because, in truth, there weren't many protesters -- perhaps 150 out of South Florida's 800,000 Cubans. But it made for good TV.

What would happen in the coming days, no one knew. Elian's fate lay squarely in the hands of Washington, where Juan Gonzalez was to make his custody pitch to Janet Reno, and Miami, where the U.S. Attorney's Office continued its negotiations with the arm of the Gonzalez family holding custody of the 6-year-old.

Miles away, but still in Miami, Alfredo Duran, 63, a former anti-Castro warrior, has no plans to visit the scene or get involved. One would expect a man with Duran's past to be a participant on the front lines. A veteran of the failed 1961 exile invasion of Cuba, he spent 18 months in Cuban prison after getting captured, and later presided for two terms as president of the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association, one of the most aggressive of the Cuban-exile organizations. He has an anti-communist résumé to rival anyone's in Miami. But Duran is eschewing the barricades.

Bracing for Hurricane Elian

Fri, 31 Mar 2000 17:00:00 +0000

The 62-year-old grandmother wearing a sun visor and holding a parasol outside the house of Elian Gonzalez made the heightening tension in Miami starkly clear. "If what Janet Reno wants is another Waco, she could have it here," Cuban exile Elena Aguilar said Thursday. "We won't let her take the child. Not now, not ever."

Though lawyers for Elian's Miami family met for the second day with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and secured an extension until Tuesday of the deadline for the latest legal proceedings, many Cuban exiles have already come to their own verdict: The legal system under President Clinton and Attorney General Reno can not be trusted, and no matter what the federal courts might decide they say they will not honor those decisions.

"Reno killed children in Waco and Clinton marched with people who burned the American flag during Vietnam," said Aguilar's friend, Maria Alonso, 73. "Who are they to speak about justice and patriotism? If justice is done, the boy will stay here."

Should he stay or should he go?

Wed, 08 Mar 2000 11:00:00 +0000

Manuel David Orrio, a well-known
dissident journalist in Cuba and a
former political detainee, is about to
utter a phrase that will open the
latest chapter in the political tug-of-war over Elian
Gonzalez -- one that
pits Fidel Castro's opposition groups in
Miami and Havana against each
other on the eve of a federal court case
that will determine the young refugee's
fate.

"Fidel Castro is right in this case,"
says Orrio, a member of the
Cooperative of Independent Journalists
in Havana. "According to
international accords on children, the
boy should be brought
back to Cuba to be with his father,"
Orrio argues when reached by phone in
Cuba. "Castro is right about that and
has used the case to rally tremendous
support here in Cuba and in the
international community. The people
pushing this have played into
Castro's hands."

Of course, in the eyes of the right-wing Cuban exile community, Fidel Castro has never been right about anything, and Orrio would be lucky to escape a Little Havana restaurant in one piece, despite his credentials as an anti-communist.

Trump takes Miami

Tue, 16 Nov 1999 10:06:00 +0000

Donald Trump took his prospective run for the presidency of the United States on the road for the first time Monday swooping into Miami in his private 727 jet with his latest model-girlfriend, Melania Knauss on his arm.

Trump, who is obviously relishing his half-serious flirtation with the Reform Party presidential nomination, landed in Miami from the Dominican Republic, where he attended the 32nd-birthday party for baseball star Sammy Sosa at Sosa's new pyramid-style mansion.

Trump came to South Florida to address two separate constituencies, Cuban-Americans and members of the Reform Party, in his uphill battle to convince both that Trump is the real deal. In both instances he received warm receptions, but few assurances of support.

About 1,000 supporters of the Cuban American National Foundation, the most powerful anti-Castro lobby in the United States, gave Trump several standing ovations during a speech Monday night peppered with applause lines. "Castro has jails full of dissidents, cemeteries full of patriots and a government full of thugs," Trump said, before unveiling his highly-developed Castro policy: "Adios, amigo." The crowd went wild.