By Ben Fenton in Miami. The Electronic Telegraph. Thursday 13 April 2000
THE father of Elian Gonzalez said last night that he was tired of negotiating for the return of the six-year-old castaway from Cuba and just wanted the American authorities to order his relatives in Florida to hand him over.
Juan Miguel Gonzalez spoke out after his great-uncle Lazaro, who has temporary custody of the boy, decided to cancel a meeting at the Vatican mission in Washington yesterday. It was to have been the first time that father and son would have met in more than four months.
Mr Gonzalez, who is staying in Washington while he waits to take his son home to Cuba, told a representative of the National Council of Churches who had been to see him that he considered negotiations over Elian's future to be at an end.
The Rev Joan Brown Campbell said: "He is going to simply ask now that the Attorney-General [Janet Reno] issue a court order and that the boy be returned immediately to him." Miss Reno and her Department of Justice officials have been waiting with exactly such an order as wrangling
continued between lawyers for the two sides of the family over custody of the boy.
It was expected that if a meeting with Miss Reno failed to resolve the issue, Lazaro Gonzalez would be given a letter ordering him to take Elian to Opa Locka airport near Miami today. The elder Mr Gonzalez is unlikely to comply, leading to a confrontation with federal officials that Miss Reno
has been desperate to avoid.
After the meeting with his father was cancelled at the last minute, Elian spent the day in Miami with his guardian and his great-uncle's 21-year-old daughter, Marisleysis, who has become a substitute for the mother he lost when the refugee boat carrying them from Cuba sank last November. He was
rescued from the Florida Strait after floating on an inner tube for 50 hours.
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2000 |