The New York Times. April 2, 2000
All Seems Calm, for Now, in Battle Over Cuban Boy
By Rick Bragg .
MIAMI, April 1 -- If there is such a thing as a quiet day in the tumultuous story of Elián González, it was today.
After a tense week filled with defiant speeches against the federal government by local politicians, accusations by family members that Elián's father has been verbally abusive to the boy in telephone calls and an unexpected show of support for the Miami relatives by Vice President Al
Gore, a comparative calm settled over Little Havana this morning.
Even the demonstrators -- a few dozen have kept vigil around the clock there -- were mostly quiet outside the house where the 6-year-old Elián lives with his great-uncle, Lázaro González, and other relatives.
This week, angry demonstrators clashed with and routed a small group of counterdemonstrators who said they believed Elián should go back to his father in Cuba, and yelled "comunista" at reporters.
But today, an elderly man -- retirees have made up a large part of the weekday force of demonstrators outside the home -- waved pleasantly to a passing reporter.
But then, the crisis itself seems on hold for the weekend, after Lázaro González and federal government officials agreed to suspend their long-running negotiations over how, and whether, the boy will be handed over to his father or federal authorities.
That seeming calm, say people who have been following the case, will evaporate with the coming week.
"They think if they make enough noise the U.S. government will listen," said Lisandro Pérez, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.
But the government, despite Mr. Gore's defection from his administration's position on the Elián situation, seems to be holding to Attorney General Janet Reno's resolve to reunite the boy with his father.
Immigration officials said that on Tuesday they will revoke the boy's right to remain in the United States if his great-uncle, Mr. González, still refuses to sign an agreement to peacefully hand the boy over if the family loses its appeal for custody of Elián in the United States
Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta.
Immigration officials are afraid of violence, as well as trauma for Elián, if federal officials do not have Mr. González's cooperation.
Kendall Coffey, a lawyer for the boy's Miami relatives, said the family had never said it would resist if federal authorities went to the house to take the child. Lázaro González has said he would not, however, deliver the boy to them.
It all led to an unusually ugly confrontation between the federal government and Cuban exiles here, and one that grew steadily hotter as the week has progressed.
"They are destroying justice because we are Cubans," said Dulce González, a retired teacher who arrived from Cuba 30 years ago, and has been keeping vigil at the house all week.
It was, for everyone associated, a dizzying week.
On Tuesday, Lázaro González refused to sign the government's agreement, while in the streets of Little Havana exile leaders continued to drill a small army of demonstrators in protest tactics, including a "human chain" intended to prevent federal officials from taking Elián.
On Wednesday, President Fidel Castro surprised many when he said that the boy's father, Juan Miguel González, was ready to go to the United States to reclaim his son, and would be accompanied by an entourage that would include Elián's family in Cuba, Cuban officials, a teacher,
classmates of Elián, psychiatrists and others.
A Justice Department official told The Associated Press later in the week that the boy's father would most likely be given custody of Elián if he travels to the United States, though it is uncertain when that would happen.
Meanwhile, 20 elected officials in Miami said they would not lend their resources to federal officials if they arrived to retrieve the boy, and warned that there could be violence.
On Thursday, Mr. Gore broke with President Clinton and Ms. Reno, saying the boy should be allowed to stay.
And on Friday, lawyers for Elián's relatives in Miami said that the boy's father was verbally abusive to the boy on the telephone, and that he told his son that his mother was still alive in Cuba. The boy's mother, Elizabet Brotons, died when the boat that was bringing her, the boy and 11
others to Florida capsized in the Florida Straits. There were two survivors besides Elián.
The coming week is likely to bring more of the same furor. Federal officials have said they will not go in and immediately take the child if Lázaro González does not sign the paper, but that they will revoke the boy's immigration status, clearing the way for his removal from the
home.
But in the streets, demonstrators say they were ready, at a moment's notice, to block that effort.
Elian Needed an Embassy
By Gary Hart. The New York Times, April 2, 2000
ITTREDGE, Colo. -- The warped relationship between Cuba and the United States is a principal cause and complication of the controversy surrounding Elián González, yet it barely figures in the debate. The pathetic tug of war over a small child could have been managed much more
maturely if we had normal diplomatic relations.
The cold war is well over. Cuba offers no threat, military or otherwise, to the United States. Our 40-year trade embargo achieves nothing. Our policy toward Cuba can be summarized as waiting for Fidel Castro to die. For those who find this worthy of a great nation, it should be noted that both
of his parents lived into their 90's. Regardless of his health, the policy is demeaning to the United States.
We had diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union throughout the cold war. Under the leadership of Richard Nixon, we opened diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. We have an embassy in Hanoi. There is no valid reason for our anachronistic policy toward Cuba.
But there is a reason -- it is politics. Both political parties court the Cuban-American vote. National candidates of both political parties assume they need these votes to carry Miami, and Miami to carry Florida, and Florida to win the White House.
As they did in the Soviet bloc, normal diplomatic relations and open trade and travel can lead to freedom and democracy in Cuba much faster than the present policy, which serves only to satisfy the resentment of one segment of our people.
In today's controversy, the candidates, the media and all involved focus on where the boy ends up, not where the national interest ends up. And this is the point: not what is in the interest of the Cuban-American community, but what is in the national interest.
It is in our national interest to have normal diplomatic relations with Cuba, as it is to have them with most other nations. Why cannot any leader in the United States, including the president, say this clearly and directly? The vast majority of the American people would applaud such a step as
genuine leadership. And the people of the world would note that the United States had taken a diplomatic step worthy of its principles.
Gary Hart is a former Democratic senator from Colorado.
The Miami Standoff
When Policy and Personal History Mix
By Don Van Natta Jr. April 2, 2000
WASHINGTON -- In 1980, a race riot in Miami confronted Janet Reno with the first crisis of her public life. As state attorney of Miami-Dade County, Ms. Reno had failed to win the convictions of four white police officers charged with the beating death of a black insurance salesman. In the
streets below her office window, an angry mob chanted, "Reno! Reno! Reno!"
Twenty years later, the specter of another public disturbance in her hometown has shaped Ms. Reno's response to the escalating Elián González immigration drama. In a series of emotional and personal remarks last week, Ms. Reno appealed to Miami's Cuban-American community to
peacefully accept the return of 6-year-old Elián to his Cuban father.
"This case has been heartbreaking for everybody involved," Ms. Reno said. "But we believe that the law is clear. Elián should be reunited with his father."
Since the 1980 riots, Ms. Reno has always been cautious in assessing and responding to a potential confrontation. She has kept her own counsel (one friend said Ms. Reno "uses three words when five would be all right"), and been criticized for it. In 1993, for example, during the long
standoff at Waco, Tex., which began just weeks after she was sworn in as attorney general, Ms. Reno said very little publicly and is still considered by some to be hiding the truth of that fiasco.
As Ms. Reno grapples with the Elián case, she is again being criticized for her deliberate approach to an emotionally and politically charged case and is even being blamed for worsening the conflict. This time, however, she is being uncharacteristically talkative.
Her friends say she is convinced that communication with her former neighbors in Miami is good. They also say that the Elián case has been especially difficult for her because it is roiling the city where she was born, grew up and served for 15 years as an immensely popular state
attorney. She is also convinced it is the best way to ensure that the international tug-of-war over a small boy does not end in ugliness.
On Friday, relatives of Elián said they would not turn the boy over to his father, Juan Miguél González, even if he comes for a visit, and suggested that they may not hand him over to the authorities, even if they lose their custody case in court. The lawyers also questioned
the father's fitness as a parent.
Immigration officials have said they would revoke the boy's right to remain in the United States on Tuesday unless his great-uncle signs an agreement to hand Elián over, peacefully and painlessly, if the relatives lose their custody case after legal appeals are exhausted.
Ms. Reno's concern over events in the community intensified last week, her friends say, after Mayor Alex Penelas of Miami-Dade County said that local police authorities would not help the federal government remove Elián from Miami. The remarks were viewed by some as an invitation to civil
disobedience.
From the beginning of the case, most immigration and international law experts have criticized the attorney general for not moving quickly enough to return Elián to his father. Jan Ting, a former assistant commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said that it was "an
abject act of spinelessness" that the Justice Department has continued to engage in lengthy negotiations with Elián's Miami relatives over the conditions of the boy's return to Cuba.
"Every immigration authority I know of outside of Dade County, Florida, agrees that the administration had legal authority to return Elián to his father as soon as they confirmed the father's identity and fitness," said Mr. Ting, who is a professor of law at Temple University's
Deasley School of Law. "Ironically, the local officials may be right in saying that President Clinton and Attorney General Reno are responsible for any civil disorder in Miami, not because of their action but because of their inaction."
To understand Ms. Reno's handling of this matter, one must look to her long public career in Miami, where she presided over -- and survived -- race riots, crime waves, drug cartels, massive influxes of immigrants and brazen acts of political and judicial corruption.
"Even though this is an international and national issue, the fact of the matter is all politics are local, and this is a local issue and she's very sensitive to that," said Jeffrey Weiner, a Miami defense lawyer who has known Ms. Reno for 26 years. "Had this been handled by an
attorney general who was not from South Florida, it would probably have ended a long time ago. She really felt the pain of the riots here. I think it has contributed to her insistence that this play out in the courts."
lthough Ms. Reno refuses to speculate about Miami's response to Elián's departure -- "I don't do what-ifs," she said -- friends say her comments were intended to quell the community's intense anger.
Last week's negotiations occurred at the home of Elián's Miami relatives, which was often surrounded by a human chain of angry Cuban-Americans who believe that the United States government is plotting to drug Elián to expedite his swift return to Cuba.
Ms. Reno, however, has thus far remained patient. When she was asked about her reaction to last week's ABC interview with Elián, who insisted that he did not want to return to Cuba, she replied: "I think most people understand a 6-year-old. And I can remember, I loved to go to my
grandmother's house. She had such a wonderful house, and she cooked us biscuits just right, and she loved us. And she took us to the movies, and she got us French vanilla ice cream. And she read to us, and she taught us to play cards. She was a wonderful lady.
"And it came Sunday afternoon, and I'd run around behind the house and hide because I didn't want to go home."
Ms. Reno said it is easy for her to understand why Elián wishes to remain with his great-uncle in the United States. "I think they are his own feelings," she said. "They were certainly my feelings when I ran behind the house and cried and didn't want to go home."
Hillary opposed legislation
By Adam Nagourney. The New York Times. April 2, 2000
Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday that she opposed legislation -- backed by Vice President Al Gore and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani -- that would grant Elián González permanent resident status, and prevent the United States from returning the boy to his father in Cuba.
Mrs. Clinton disclosed her position a day after Mr. Giuliani said he strongly opposed returning the 6-year-old boy to Cuba.
Mr. Giuliani, who is running against Mrs. Clinton for senator from New York, said he supported Congressional legislation that would grant Elián permanent resident status, allowing him to remain in the United States while a family court, rather than immigration officials, determines
whether he should be returned to his father or allowed to remain with relatives in Miami.
Elián's mother died at sea while bringing her son from Cuba to Miami.
Mr. Giuliani made his remarks a day after Mr. Gore broke with the Clinton administration and backed the bill. The mayor was attempting to put Mrs. Clinton in a position of either siding with her husband or with Mr. Gore on the issue.
After a day of consideration, Mrs. Clinton sided with President Clinton on the legislation.
"Special Congressional intervention at this point would only further politicize and delay this situation," Mrs. Clinton's spokesman, Howard Wolfson, said in a statement issued yesterday afternoon.
"In the interest of Elián's well being, we should all be working together to resolve this case as quickly as possible."
Even as she opposed the bill, Mrs. Clinton did not specifically say whether she agreed that Elián should be returned home.
Mr. Wolfson said that Mrs. Clinton wanted to see the case proceed through normal immigration channels, which would in all likelihood result in the boy's being returned to his father in Cuba.
Mr. Wolfson accused Mr. Giuliani of trying to exploit the situation for his political campaign.
"It is time for Rudy Giuliani to stop turning this young boy into a political football," he said.
Bruce J. Teitelbaum, Mr. Giuliani's campaign manager, responded: "Give me a break. It seems that everyone has taken a clear position on Elián, from President Clinton to Rudy Giuliani, to the entire New York City Congressional delegation. Only Mrs. Clinton is ducking the issue."
Even as she opposed the bill, Mrs. Clinton did not specifically say whether she agreed that Elián should be returned home.
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