Yahoo! April 7, 2000
Elian's Dad Meets With Reno
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON, 7 (AP) - Juan Miguel Gonzalez today told his most powerful ally, Attorney General Janet Reno, about ``the suffering that I have been going through'' since his 6-year-old son was caught in an international tug-of-war. ``I'm sure that I'm going to have my boy with me,'' the father said
afterward.
Barely a day after arriving from Cuba, Juan Miguel, accompanied by his wife, his infant son and lawyer, went to the Justice Department to discuss the case. Reno, who earlier upheld an Immigration and Naturalization Service ruling that Elian should be returned to his father, shook everyone's hand
as they arrived at her fifth-floor conference room.
Speaking in Spanish, the father told reporters later that he was satisfied with the meeting and grateful for Reno's support.
The attorney general is trying to avoid an impasse with Miami relatives, who refuse to relinquish custody of the Cuban boy.
The father's attorney, Gregory Craig, said Juan Miguel used the meeting to express ``the depth of his pain and his feelings and his love for his child.'' He said the father asked that Elian be returned to Cuba ``instantly or as soon as possible.''
In brief remarks outside the Justice Department, the father said, ``I have been able to explain the suffering that I have been going through and the suffering my son Elian has been going through for the last months.''
Saying he was confident his son would return with him soon to Cuba, Juan Miguel said, "The United States has assured me that it's going to be that way, and I am sure that it's going to be that way, and I am going to have my child soon.''
Cuban Boy's Father Happy With Reno Assurances
WASHINGTON, 7 (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno gave assurances to the father of Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez on Friday that he would soon be reunited with his son, the father said.
``They gave me all their support in resolving this as soon as possible. They have assured me, the state and the government has assured me, that this will be done. I am sure that it will be so and that soon I will have my son with me again,'' Juan Miguel Gonzalez said after meeting Reno and
Immigration and Naturalization Commissioner Doris Meissner.
The father's American lawyer, Gregory Craig, said it had been a successful and emotional meeting.
``They gave him assurances that satisfied him on this point,'' he said.
Gonzalez, flanked by his second wife holding their infant son, thanked Reno for the meeting. Earlier, U.S. officials said the Miami relatives looking after the boy would be told on Friday that they would have to hand the child over next week to his father, who arrived from Cuba on Thursday.
Castro Predicts Elian's Return
By Vivian Sequera. Associated press Writer
HAVANA, 6 (AP) - Exhausted but satisfied, Fidel Castro predicted Thursday that Elian Gonzalez will return to Cuba within 10 days to two months, now that his father has traveled to the United States to claim him.
As for Juan Miguel Gonzalez getting temporary custody of the six-year-old, ``it seems to me that will be resolved rapidly,'' the Cuban president told reporters at the airport shortly after the father's plane took off for Washington.
But more time will need to pass before Gonzalez can return to the island with his boy, Castro said. Just how long will depend upon Elian's Miami relatives, whom Castro said had acted ``erratically'' during the international custody battle.
The 73-year-old president admitted that the campaign for the boy's return been an exhausting one, even for someone with the legendary stamina of Castro.
``I've slept a half-hour,'' Castro said in a small voice amid a small group of journalists jostling for position around him as he stood on the tarmac.
Castro traveled to the airport in the early morning hours Thursday to see off Gonzalez, his second wife, Nersy Carmenante, and their 6-month-son Hianny - Elian's half brother.
Although U.S. officials did not grant the 28 visas that the Cuban government had requested for the trip, it was a sweet victory for Castro, who has made the battle for Elian's return to Cuba a national campaign.
Castro won't have much time to rest.
``The one thing that I have not been able to dedicate time to is this summit,'' he said in a tone of regret, referring to a major gathering of heads of state being held in Havana next week.
More than 50 heads of state from developing nations - about half of them from Africa - have confirmed they will attend the gathering of the Group of 77 developing nations. Known as the South Summit, the event begins Monday and the heads of state and government will meet for three days beginning
on Wednesday.
U.S. Says Miami Kin to Learn Soon of Elian's Fate
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Miami relatives who refuse to hand over Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez to his father will probably get a letter on Friday telling them they no longer have custody of the child, the U.S. Justice Department said.
Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said a letter would be delivered as early as Friday telling the relatives that parole for the boy had been transferred from his great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez in Miami to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez.
``That will happen very shortly, perhaps as early as today,'' Holder told NBC's ``Today'' show.
The boy's father arrived from Cuba on Thursday to reclaim his son and is staying in Washington until he can be reunited with the boy. Later on Friday, Gonzalez, accompanied by his second wife and their six-month-old son, is due to meet Attorney General Janet Reno to discuss the transfer.
The 6-year-old has been living with his Miami relatives since last November when he was rescued off Florida's coast, floating on an inner tube after surviving a disastrous migrant voyage in which his mother and 10 others drowned.
Backed by the vocal Cuban-American community in Miami, the relatives argue that the boy's mother died while trying to save him from communist Cuba and that he should stay in the United States. The boy's father says he belongs with him in Cuba.
Holder said after receiving the first letter telling them that parole of the boy would be transferred, the relatives would then get instructions telling them how and where the child should be handed over to the father.
``It is our hope we can work something out so that we can do that in an orderly way with the least disruption to Elian ... we have a young boy of tender age and we have to keep his well-being uppermost in our minds,'' Holder said.
Talks between the Miami relatives and U.S. officials over the fate of the boy broke down on Thursday, setting in motion what the government hopes will ultimately be a ``peaceful'' transfer of the child to his father.
``We think we are at the beginning of the stage where we will be reuniting him (Elian's father) relatively shortly with his son,'' Holder said.
Asked if the government had drawn up a plan to remove Elian from his great uncle's home in Little Havana neighborhood in Miami, Holder said it was his sincere hope that strong measures would not be necessary.
A lawyer for the Miami relatives, Linda Osberg-Braun, told CNN the family wanted to meet with Elian's father and would go to Washington ``in a heartbeat'' if he agreed to such a meeting.
She said any transfer of the boy should take place in a gradual manner and be done with care and not speed.
She told CNN the family would not break the law but said the boy's great-uncle faced a ``moral dilemma'' that if he handed the child back he would be returned to communist Cuba.
``They hope that Juan Miguel will stay here ... hopefully forever to live in freedom,'' she said.
Miami Relatives Angry Over Gov't Demands on Elian
MIAMI (Reuters) - A lawyer for the Miami relatives of Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez said on Thursday that talks with U.S. immigration officials had ended with the government unwilling to give any guarantee the father would not go straight back to Cuba if he took custody of his son.
Jose Garcia-Pedrosa told reporters that the Immigration and Naturalization (INS) officials had been willing to discuss only how to transfer the 6-year-old to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez.
The father arrived in Washington earlier in the day to press for custody of his child, who has been caught up in a fierce custody battle since surviving a migrant voyage from Cuba last November in which his mother and 10 other people died.
``Believe it or not, the government would not guarantee to us even if we made an agreement with them that the father, Juan Miguel, would not take the child to Cuba right away even during the pendency of an appeal,'' Garcia-Pedrosa said, denouncing the government's stance.
``The government rejected the standard of the best interest of the child as the guiding principle,'' he said.
Americans Identify With Gonzalez
By DAVID BRISCOE, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Juan Miguel Gonzalez may have come to America as a loyalist of Fidel Castro, but many Americans - including some very important ones - identify with him as a father seeking the return of his 6-year-old son.
Others, in equally personal terms, see political freedom as an issue deeper than the father-son bond.
All say their only concern is the future of a boy rescued at sea more than four months ago after his mother drowned trying to bring him to America.
The boy's father arrived in Washington Thursday with the backing of the Cuban government, the Clinton administration and, according to polls, the sympathies of a majority of Americans. But he faces the resistance of Cuban Americans in Florida who insist his son would have a better life in
democratic America than with his own father in Castro's Cuba.
Only Gonzalez can call Elian ``my son,'' but many Americans and Cubans on both sides of the issue feel his ordeal as a personal crisis of freedom and family values.
The case has raised debate among American mothers, fathers, grandparents and others who have seen their own families torn apart in ugly custody battles or who simply love children they wouldn't want to lose.
Attorney Gen. Janet Reno talks of ``heartbreak'' and the ``sacred bond'' between a father and his child. ``It is time for this little boy, who has been through so much, to move on with his life at his father's side,'' she said.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sees her own 6-year-old grandson. ``It's the question of a child needing to be with its natural parent and the desire for that child to have a good life,'' Albright said in an interview with The Associated Press on the eve of Gonzalez arrival. ``It's a
terrible, terrible case.''
President Clinton, early in the standoff over Elian's future, said ``all fathers would be sympathetic.''
The father on Thursday night talked with members of Congress who visited the house outside Washington where he's staying about his love for his son, showing them pictures and talking about family life with Elian.
Never mind that the boy is going back to life under a dictatorship - a fear raised in equally personal terms by opponents horrified at a father who wants to raise his son as a communist.
Some see political repression as an issue that overwhelms the father-son bond.
``I am a father and a grandfather, and I don't doubt for a minute that the father doesn't love his son,'' said Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla. ``But I don't believe for a minute that the father is able to speak freely because of Fidel Castro's regime of fear and intimidation.''
Miami's Cuban-American mayor sees himself in Elian. He says he's just grateful his own parents brought him to America.
``I also came to this land of freedom at 6,'' said Miami Mayor Joe Carollo. ``I remember clearly about how the militia men would come while I was playing, asking me if my parents were with Castro or not. I realized then the sacrifice my parents made for me.''
Suspicion remains as to how much Castro might be controlling Gonzalez, but few Americans have denied sympathy for his quest.
``If somebody said, for political reasons, they were going to take one of my children and keep those children away from me, you can bet that those would be fighting words,'' said presidential candidate Alan Keyes (news - web sites) in one of the Republican debates.
Sen. Tom Daschle, Senate minority leader, last week deplored the plight of Elian and his father in agonizing terms: ``Keep in mind, you have a 6-year-old boy who thinks his mother is out there lost somewhere. I mean, how tragic can you be? This is as despicable a situation as I've seen in a
long, long time.''
Since Elian's Nov. 25 rescue at sea, presidential candidates and other politicians have lined up on both sides. But Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites) and his likely Republican rival in the November election, George W. Bush (news - web sites), have ended up on the same side: with
Cuban-American voters in Florida.
About six of 10 Americans feel otherwise, that the boy should go home to live with his father, according to national polls.
Bush has said all along that a family court should decide the issue, not the ``Clinton-Gore Justice Department, whose record of putting politics ahead of the law does not inspire confidence.''
Gore split from the Clinton administration just a few days ago, as the Justice Department appeared to be making headway in its effort to get the boy turned over to his father.
But even Gore declared his new position was in ``the best interest of the child, not diplomacy, not politics, not immigration precedents.'' Gore now says a family court should settle the case, and the father should get a full opportunity to air his feelings in court.
Congress struggled with the question last month, but ended up taking no action.
Sen. Patrick Leahy said at the time that the family issue has to rise above the political.
``A young boy belongs with his parent, not with distant relatives,'' the Vermont Democrat said. ``Because we all oppose Fidel Castro does not mean we should oppose this boy being with his father.''
Elian's Dad Secluded in D.C. Suburb
By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer
BETHESDA, Md. 6 (AP) - Touches of Cuban and American culture mingled in a suburban Washington neighborhood Thursday, where Juan Miguel Gonzalez secluded himself in a diplomat's home to await a reunion with his son Elian.
An unidentified man brought Cuban coffee out of the house, serving it from a silver pot on a silver tray to police on security duty outside the Bethesda, Md., home.
``It was very good,'' said Montgomery County Police Lt. Bill O'Toole.
Another unidentified person took a baby car seat into the house, an American requirement for driving with Gonzalez's infant son, 6-month-old Hianny.
Gonzalez arrived around 8 a.m. Thursday and came out of the house about two hours later to shake hands and say goodbye to several visitors.
He re-emerged later in the evening to see off Reps. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., following an hourlong conversation at the house. Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, D-Texas, also paid a two-hour visit.
``I saw his eyes get moist when I started to talk to him about my children ... and he said, 'What do I have to do to prove I love my child,''' Serrano said. He called Gonzalez ``a humble, soft-spoken man who only raised his voice when he talked about the folks in Miami who he feels are not
acting in the boy's best interest.''
Jackson-Lee said Gonzalez, his wife Nercy Carmenate Castillo, and their child were similar to any American family. ``And I think they should be reunited with Elian,'' she added.
But neither Gonzalez nor his wife spoke to the nearly 100 journalists who had set up cameras and parked a dozen satellite trucks in the usually quiet neighborhood.
A handful of Cuban-Americans who had protested loudly during Gonzalez's airport arrival early Thursday, quietly gave interviews for about an hour, then left.
``We are not protesting, we are here to tell Juan Miguel Gonzalez that we are not the malicious mafia that (Cuban President) Fidel Castro portrays us to be,'' said Francisca Sanchez, a 22-year-old New Yorker who attends American University in Washington.
``We want him to know that now that he is on free soil, he is free to say what is on his mind'' - which Sanchez said she believed he wasn't doing while at home in Cuba.
A woman from the neighborhood walked her dog, another offered to let reporters use her bathroom, and neighborhood resident Bob Vigerhouse stood in the middle of the street ``to see what's going on.''
``I'm torn on this,'' said Vigerhouse. ``I think the child should be with his parent, but I believe if he goes back to Cuba they're going to bring him up to be a communist.''
A police motorcade brought Gonzalez, his wife and baby from Dulles International Airport in Virginia Thursday morning to the neatly kept suburban neighborhood where Cuban diplomat Fernando Remirez lives and Gonzalez is staying.
Seen off from Havana by Fidel Castro and a crowd of supporters, Gonzalez hours later was in the mass of American commuters making their daily trek into or around the capital.
His entourage moved along without much problem - observed mile after mile by media helicopter cameras.
Police blocked off several streets around Remirez's split-level home, providing a raised stage to accommodate the media as the group grew from 40 in the morning to 80 by midday. After nightfall, several dozen anti-Castro protesters carrying candles, singing and praying gathered in an area set
off by police barricades.
Kitty Strauss, another neighbor of Remirez's in Bethesda, said she was finding it difficult to get around her secured street but trying to keep the problem in perspective.
``I wish I had a secret way to get into my house, but I'm not the victim,'' she said. ``The boy is the victim and that's what I feel bad about.''
Activists Warn of Assault on Endangered Species
By Kieran Murray
NAIROBI, Kenya 7 (Reuters) - Conservation groups said on Friday the world's elephants, whales and smallest marine turtles would come under attack at an international conference on endangered species next week.
Four southern African nations with healthy elephant herds are requesting permission to sell off part of their stocks of ivory tusks to raise money for conservation efforts.
Japan and Norway are proposing that a total ban on the trade of gray and minke whales be eased, saying stocks in specific oceans are healthy enough to withstand commercial exploitation. And Cuba wants permission to sell 15,180 pounds of rare hawksbill turtle shells from its stocks to Japan.
The hawksbill is the smallest of six species of marine turtle. Conservationists say its global numbers have dropped by up to 80 percent since the 1940s.
All the proposals will come up at a meeting of world governments joined in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) starting in Nairobi Monday.
Delegates from CITES' 150 member states will look at the status of dozens of the world's most endangered species.
While most of the proposals are aimed at tightening protection measures, environmentalists are campaigning against those which affect elephants, whales and hawksbill turtles.
The nations proposing that trade bans be relaxed all say the move would not harm populations and should even help them in the long-term, but most environmental groups oppose each proposal.
Environmentalists said any easing of trade bans, even if sales are tightly controlled, would spark a surge in illegal trade and hunting.
Some Warn Of Catastrophe
``If the legal trade is encouraged, the effect could be catastrophic,'' Iain Douglas-Hamilton, a prominent campaigner from Save the Elephants, told a news conference in Nairobi.
After an all-out poachers' assault on the African elephant in the 1980s, CITES was credited with saving the species from extinction by imposing a total ban on the ivory trade in 1989.
Numbers began to recover, but three southern African nations were last year allowed to hold ``one off'' auctions of ivory to Japan. They now want permission to sell more of their stocks and have been joined by South Africa.
Environmentalists warn it is almost impossible to maintain proper checks and controls on the legal ivory trade. They say the illegal trade has already been revived and poaching is again on the rise in central, eastern and southern Africa.
``If the incentive to poach is restored by expansion of the ivory trade there would likely be another elephant holocaust, worse than that of the 70s and 80s,'' Douglas-Hamilton said.
Similar arguments are being put forward to oppose efforts by Japan and Norway to open up commercial trade in whales.
The two countries argue that specific populations of gray whales in the Eastern Pacific and minke whales in the North Atlantic and West Pacific are strong enough to allow trade through a system of permits.
But environmentalists insist the scientific arguments put forward by Japan and Norway are flawed.
Once a legal market for whale meat exists, it would be impossible to prevent quotas being violated, other states joining the trade or other species being targeted, they said.
Cuba's request for permission to sell its stock of hawksbill turtle shells and be given an annual quota of 500 more has drawn similar criticism.
Cuba says its hawksbill turtle population is healthy and the fishing of them is strictly regulated.
Opponents say the species has been classified as ''critically endangered'' and a reduction of the population in Cuba's waters could have a devastating impact on populations elsewhere in the Caribbean.
``If the market opens up again, the illegal trade will increase and some of the populations will disappear,'' said Juan Carlos Cantu of the environmental group Greenpeace.
Bush: Let Elian Stay. ABCnews.com.
Friday April 07 11:30 AM EDT
GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush weighed in on the Elian Gonzalez custody battle today, reiterating that he’d support passage of legislation that would make the young Cuban boy a U.S. citizen.
"The mother was coming here for freedom," Bush said at a campaign stop in Sacramento, Calif. "The mother was bringing her child to America because she wanted him to grow up in a free world. That’s what this is about. You subscribe politics to it. I subscribe freedom to it."
Vice President Al Gore shocked many Democrats last week by taking the same position. Gore and Bush also agree that a family court — not the INS — should decide whether 6-year-old Elian, who was found shipwrecked in the Florida Straits last fall, should be allowed to return to Cuba with
his father. Though their positions are similar, Bush — as he has in the past — challenged Gore to show what kind of clout he has in the White House on the position.
"I would hope the current administration would listen. And we’ll see how effective the vice president is within the administration," Bush said.
Gore won’t be able to avoid the Gonzalez case Friday as he travels to South Florida just as the custody battle peaks.
The vice president begins the day at a Democratic National Committee meeting about the party’s platform in Fort Lauderdale, just 20 miles from where the boy is holed up with Miami relatives.
The event was intended as a forum for Democrats to showcase Gore and the Democratic platform, but the youngster’s plight is certain to dominate questions at the event as Juan Miguel Gonzalez, his father, visits Washington determined to head home with his boy.
Cuban Boy's Father Meets U.S. Justice Chief
By Sue Pleming
WASHINGTON, 7 (Reuters) - U.S. authorities said on Friday that Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez could be reunited with his father as early as Wednesday in a custody war that his pitted the boy's surviving parent against his Cuban-American relatives in Miami.
The boy's father, who came to the United States on Thursday to reclaim his son, began talks with U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno early Friday to discuss how he would be reunited with his oldest son.
Justice Department sources said a letter would be sent on Friday to the Miami relatives looking after Elian, telling them to transfer the boy to his father as early as Wednesday.
The father, who arrived at the Justice Department with his second wife, their infant son and U.S. lawyer Gregory Craig, smiled and said hello to waiting Justice Department employees before being taken away to Reno's fifth-floor office.
Reno, who comes from Florida, has said repeatedly she wants to see the father reunited with his son, asserting that the sacred bond between parent and child should not be broken.
Elian has not seen his father since last November when he was rescued off Florida's coast, floating on an inner tube for 50 hours after surviving a disastrous migrant voyage in which his mother, who was divorced from his father, drowned.
Talks broke down on Thursday between Elian's Miami relatives and U.S. immigration officials over the fate of the boy, whom the Miami relatives say should not return to Cuba and grow up under communism.
A Justice Department source said that after receiving the first letter, the relatives would be told in a few days how, when and where the handover of the child should take place.
If the Miami relatives refuse to comply, the source said the Justice Department could go to federal court to get an order compelling the transfer or could send in U.S. Marshals to get the boy, a step officials have wanted to avoid.
Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said the talks with Reno would focus on how a transfer of the child could take place with minimum disruption to the boy.
``We want it to be peaceful and orderly,'' Holder told NBC's ''Today'' show.
He said he could understand that Elian's father, who has been scathing in his criticism of the Miami relatives for refusing to return his son, would be anxious and upset.
``I am the father of a six-year-old myself. I am sure he thinks to himself 'I have been separated from my son for no reason of my own.'''
Holder added: ``We think we are at the beginning of the stage where we will be reuniting him relatively shortly with his son.''
Asked if the government had drawn up a plan to remove Elian from his great uncle's home in Little Havana neighborhood in Miami, Holder said it was his sincere hope that strong measures would not be necessary.
A lawyer for the Miami relatives, Linda Osberg-Braun, told CNN the family wanted to meet with Elian's father and would go to Washington ``in a heartbeat'' if he agreed to such a meeting.
She said any transfer of the boy should take place in a gradual manner and be done with care and not speed.
She told CNN the family would not break the law but said the boy's great-uncle faced a ``moral dilemma,'' because if he handed the child back he might be returned to communist Cuba.
``They hope that Juan Miguel will stay here ... hopefully forever to live in freedom,'' she said.
In a last-minute attempt to keep the boy, the Miami family sent out several psychologists who told reporters that transferring the boy to his father's care would be psychologically damaging.
Miami psychologist Alina Lopez-Gottardi told ABC's ``Good Morning America'' program said she felt obliged from a ``moral standpoint'' to speak up about the child whom she said was anxious and very stressed.
She said the boy had stated consistently that he did not want to return to Cuba and that he was afraid of his father.
Deputy Attorney General Holder said psychologists engaged by his department had told him it was in the child's best interests to reunite him with his father.
``We are not cold bureaucrats. We are trying to be as sensitive as we can be,'' he said.
In Miami, a Cuban exile group that opposes Elian's return to his homeland urged protesters to block traffic at Miami International Airport. Democracy Movement leader Ramon Saul Sanchez urged motorists to drape their cars with Cuban and American flags and ``massively drive through Miami's
International Airport at the minimum speed limit'' at 4 p.m. on Friday.
``The campaign is designed to advocate for the government to give assurances that it will respect the legal proceedings standing in U.S. Courts in favor of Elian Gonzalez,'' Saul Sanchez said.
Arafat to visit Cuba for Third World's G77 summit
HAVANA, April 7 (Reuters) - Palestinian President Yasser Arafat will visit Cuba next week for the Group of 77 summit of Third World nations, diplomatic sources said on Friday.
``He's coming for the summit, but we're not sure exactly when, possibly Monday,'' a source at the Palestinian Embassy in Havana told Reuters.
The April 10-14 meeting in Havana is expected to bring together more than 60 heads of state from the Group of 77, which has expanded over the years to include 133 nations from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Communist-ruled Cuba, hosting the G77 group for the first time, broke diplomatic ties with Israel in the early 1970s, and President Fidel Castro has long backed the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in the Middle East dispute.
Arafat has visited Cuba twice before, for the Nonaligned Movement's summit in 1979 and a brief stopover in 1980 on his way to Nicaragua, said the Palestinian Embassy source.
The G77's ``South Summit'' in Havana is the first time heads of state of the group have met since its founding in 1964, according to host nation Cuba.
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