By Mildrade Cherfils, The Associated Press.Web-posted: 4:05 a.m. Apr. 7, 2000. Sun-Sentinel
MIAMI -- Demonstrators vowed to clog the roads around Miami International Airport today as they began a campaign of civil disobedience to protest the U.S. government's plans to reunite Elian Gonzalez with his father.
More than 300 Cuban-Americans outside the home of Elian's Miami relatives cheered wildly Thursday as the leader of the anti-Castro Democracy Movement stood on a trash can and urged them to drive slowly on the airport's access roads beginning today.
Ramon Saul Sanchez also told them to put Cuban flags on their cars and turn on their headlights anywhere they drive in South Florida. There may be later protests at the Port of Miami and outside federal buildings, he said.
``The campaign of civil disobedience begins,'' he said. ``When they don't leave you an option, you must choose _ to stand up upon your dignity or live like a slave, humiliated and on your knees for the rest of your life.''
Earlier Thursday, demonstrators streamed into the increasingly tense Little Havana neighborhood, linking arms in a quiet, symbolic human chain to show the government they won't permit the child to be taken. Many vowed to stay around the clock to block any attempt to remove Elian.
``We can't abandon this place because if we do anyone can pick up the boy,'' Sanchez told the crowd. ``We need people here because this could be the night.''
He urged the demonstrators to protest peacefully and to not resist police officers.
``When an authority tells you you are under arrest, put out your hands and let them arrest 100, 200, 300, 500 or 1,000 of us,'' he said.
Cuban truckers, in a now-familiar form of protest, honked and drove their rigs around the area to show support.
Nearly 100 women, many carrying Cuban flags, trooped around the block from behind the police barricade and approached from the other direction, linking arms in front of the house.
``We're forming a human chain of mothers,'' said Gina Breslin of Miami, a Cuban-American protester. ``It's symbolic.''
On the day Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, arrived in the United States vowing to reclaim the 6-year-old boy, the vigil maintained by Cubans who want him to stay took on a more urgent flavor. Supporters realized developments were imminent, though they weren't sure what was ahead.
``I'll shed sweat. I'll shed spit. But I will not shed blood,'' said Thais Cuesta, 16, spending her third consecutive day outside the house of Elian's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez. Even if Elian is turned over to his father, she said, ``we're still going to be fighting for the freedom of
Cuba.''
Psychologists Mitchell Spero and Alina Lopez-Gottardi, who examined Elian for his Miami relatives, said he could suffer irreversible harm if he is returned to his father.
``The most important thing is not to yank him away from the stability and security that is keeping his fragile world intact,'' Spero said Thursday.
Details of the father-son reunion were being negotiated. But talks between the Miami relatives and immigration officials broke down Thursday afternoon. Jose Garcia-Pedrosa, the family's attorney, said the negotiations ended primarily because the government wouldn't promise not to remove
Elian.
``The government will not guarantee that they will not try to take Elian away in the middle of the night,'' Garcia-Pedrosa asserted.
A calm Elian, who relatives say learned of his father's trip hours before it took place, spent Thursday afternoon popping out into the sun-drenched yard, playing on his yellow plastic slide and frolicking with two young girls. Earlier, he ran around playing with a toy gun.
Police have tightened security since demonstrators forced their way through barricades Tuesday to form a human chain around Lazaro Gonzalez's house. Reinforced plastic now bolsters the barricades, and police tape has been deployed. Metal barricades separate media and demonstrators.
Juan Miguel Gonzalez's arrival 900 miles north, and his subsequent comments, didn't go over too well in Miami, where some said he shouldn't be going to Washington but coming here. And Lazaro Gonzalez's family wasn't too happy with the comments.
Speaking outside the Miami federal courthouse where INS officials were meeting with lawyers for Elian's Miami relatives, family spokesman Armando Gutierrez said family members were disturbed by the father's remarks after he arrived.
``Lazaro was almost in tears, because he felt that that is not his nephew. He felt that was not the person he knows,'' Gutierrez said.
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