Yahoo! April 14, 2000
Elian on Video: an Ethical Quandary
By TED ANTHONY, AP National Writer
MIAMI (AP) - The home video from inside the Little Havana house was one of the most compelling images yet: little Elian Gonzalez, sitting on a bed and looking into a camera, telling his father in no uncertain terms that he doesn't want to go back to Cuba.
It made for astonishing television - and an unusual ethical quandary that brought the Miami relatives some of their heaviest criticism yet.
One out-of-town newspaper likened it to a prisoner-of-war video. In south Florida, an editorial in The Miami Herald called it ``media tactics.'' And Doris Meissner, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, denounced it as ``deeply disturbing.''
The questions reverberated: Can a 6-year-old boy make a valid decision to speak his mind on television? Or was he being manipulated by his relatives for political ends?
``Papa, I don't want to go to Cuba. If you want, stay here. I'm not going to Cuba,'' national television audiences saw Elian saying Thursday. In a red shirt and striped shorts, he was animated and fidgety, sitting in front of the wooden headboard of a bed.
The video was obtained by the Spanish-language Univision network. It was shown on ABC's ``Good Morning America,'' which had been alerted by Univision shortly before it went on the air that the tape was available.
It was quickly rebroadcast on cable networks, producing vehement protests by the lawyer for Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. Attorney Gregory Craig implored the media to stay away from the child, saying he ``has been exploited enough.''
``Mr. Gonzalez - and only Mr. Gonzalez - has the legal and moral right to speak for Elian Gonzalez,'' Craig said. ``Mr. Gonzalez has not given his permission or approval for any journalist to interview, photograph, film or broadcast his son.''
Spencer Eig, an attorney for the Miami relatives, said Elian's plea was genuine and warranted. ``How is that exploiting him? He's only trying to save himself,'' Eig said this morning on NBC's ``Today.''
``This is what Elian has said every day for the five months he's been to America,'' Eig said. ``Was it a good idea to put a camera in the room and to document it? Well, this family was tired, they were frightened, they were exhausted because of the constant deadlines and the constant threats.''
Even in an age of instantaneous transmission, when TV is not only a source of information but a conduit for partisan messages, the implications were extraordinary. While the relatives had long said Elian wanted to stay, hearing it from the child's mouth on the very day the government had ordered
him turned over was something else entirely.
``It's unconscionable that they would use that child that way,'' Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, said on ``Today.'' She said Elian had been ``brainwashed.''
``Speaking to his father in that manner, no 6-year-old child would initiate that on his own,'' Waters said. ``They put those words in that young boy's mouth, and that is the worst kind of exploitation of a child that you could ever see.''
While many called the video itself propaganda, ABC decided to use it in the context of demonstrating how the propaganda war was escalating, said Paul Friedman, the network's executive vice president and managing editor of news coverage. ABC already had been criticized for Diane Sawyer's recent
interview with Elian Gonzalez, the first time he had been made available to speak to TV journalists.
Outside the great-uncle's house this morning, one demonstrator said she was pleased the video finally allowed Elian himself to be heard in the din.
``A lot of people think it's orchestrated by the family. I don't,'' said Maria Cancio, 26. ``I think those were the kid's true feelings. The only voice that matters is his, and it's the only voice that's not being heard.''
Bob Steele, director of the ethics program at the Poynter Institute, a journalism education center, agreed that the motives of Elian's Miami relatives in releasing the tape should be questioned. But he said everyone else's, including the media's, should as well.
``It's inescapable that Elian's voice and his 6-year-old desires are part of the story,'' Steele said. ``I remain deeply troubled by how we use him as the centerpiece over and over in this very ugly game of ideological chess.''
Ruling in Elian Case Obscured
By BOB EGELKO, Associated Press Writer
The judge whose order means that Elian Gonzalez will remain in the United States for a while longer left a major question unanswered: What was his reasoning for agreeing that the boy's great-uncle had raised a ``serious legal question'' about Elian's proposed return to Cuba?
Hints of Judge J.L. Edmonson's reasoning can be gleaned from successful arguments filed with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals by a lawyer for Elian's Miami relatives.
The lawyer claimed the boy would be psychologically abused in Cuba, and that sending him back now would end the case prematurely.
``Once outside the borders of the United States and firmly within the clutches of Cuba's totalitarian government, any appellate treatment of this case will become an illusion,'' attorney Kendall Coffey wrote.
He said Elian would be indoctrinated, exploited and forced to hear government denunciations of his mother, who drowned while trying to bring him to the United States last November.
Citing the case of Walter Polovchak, the 12-year-old Soviet defector who defied his parents and won the right to stay in the United States two decades ago, Coffey said a child of any age who wants to stay in this country is entitled to a hearing.
The stay issued Thursday by Edmonson, a 1986 appointee of President Reagan, will remain in effect until a three-judge panel of the appeals court can review the case.
Injunctions, which preserve the status quo while a case is on appeal, are normally considered initially by three-judge appellate panels. A single judge, however, can issue a brief stay in an emergency.
Requirements for injunctions vary among courts.
Edmonson said he primarily considered two factors: whether the suit had a likelihood of ultimate success, and whether Elian would suffer ``irreparable injury'' by being taken out of the country before the case ended.
To issue a temporary injunction, Edmonson said, he did not have to be convinced of the suit's probable success, only that ``a serious legal question is involved and ... that the balance of equities weighs heavily in favor of granting the stay.''
By that standard, Elian, represented by his great-uncle, ``probably has demonstrated that he is entitled'' to the injunction, wrote Edmonson.
The losing side in the case could seek a rehearing before the full 12-member appeals court, which covers Florida, Georgia and Alabama. A final appeal could be made to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The suit was filed by Lazaro Gonzalez, Elian's great-uncle, claiming to represent the boy's interests and seeking an asylum hearing for him.
Last month, U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore upheld the decision to return the boy to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, citing the federal government's power over immigration.
The appeals court scheduled a hearing May 11 to review Moore's ruling. But with the U.S. government pressing for Elian to return immediately to his father's custody, Lazaro Gonzalez asked the court to keep the boy in the United States until the court case ended.
U.S. Wants Court to Require Elian's Handover
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department said it asked a federal appeals court on Friday to require the Miami relatives of Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez to turn the 6-year-old over.
Department spokeswoman Carole Florman told reporters department lawyers also asked a U.S. appeals court in Atlanta to reject a request by the boy's relatives for an injunction preventing his return to Cuba with his father while the court considers the case.
Florman added that if the appeals court orders that Elian be turned over, the Justice Department has agreed to then issue a ''departure control order'' that would prevent Elian from leaving the country while the court hears the case early next month and rules on it. Florman said Elian's father
has accepted this arrangement.
She said Lazaro Gonzalez, the great-uncle with whom Elian has been staying, was already in violation of the government order demanding he turn over the boy on Thursday.
Elian has lived with his Miami relatives since he was rescued off the coast of Florida on Nov. 25, 1999, floating on an inner tube. His mother, who was divorced from his father, died along with 10 others during the tragic migrant voyage from Cuba.
Court Asked to Protect Elian Rights
By LAURIE ASSEO, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawyers for Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives asked a federal court today to bar him from leaving the country unless U.S. officials can certify that Cuba won't violate the 6-year-old boy's human rights.
Without such an order, ``Elian Gonzalez will suffer imminent, irreparable injury,'' court briefs filed by Lazaro Gonzalez's lawyers said.
The human rights arguments represent another tack in the relatives' legal battle to prevent Elian from returning to Cuba with his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. Their request is based on U.S. participation in agreements including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention
Against Torture.
The motion says that if returned to Cuba, ``Elian would face the risk of being persecuted for having sought asylum in the United States. He would be politically indoctrinated to a much larger extent than others.''
It also contends that Elian would be compelled to believe that his mother and her boyfriend, who died in the Thanksgiving Day boat wreck, and his Miami relatives ``were traitors to the revolution. Accordingly, a return to Cuba under such circumstances would be detrimental to Elian,'' the motion
said.
It asks the court for a temporary restraining order barring the government from deporting Elian or holding deportation proceedings unless the State Department can certify that:
-Cuba is in compliance with human rights provisions of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights.
-The country is ``no longer engaged in 'systematic, gross violations of human rights.'''
-Elian ``may return to Cuba with the assurance that his human rights will be respected, as well as the human rights of his father so that he may freely determine the best interest of his child''
The motion said there was ``credible evidence'' that Juan Miguel Gonzalez was under pressure from the Cuban government to demand Elian's return. ``Juan Miguel's true preference, however, remains a mystery in light of almost certain retaliation against him by the Cuban government should he state
publicly a preference that Elian remain in the United States,'' it argued.
Cuba Denounces 'Maneuvers' Over Elian Return
HAVANA, 14 (Reuters) - Cuba attacked Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives and their Cuban exile backers on Thursday for what it called their desperate maneuvers to delay the boy's return from the United States.
President Fidel Castro's government was reacting to the failure of Elian's Miami relatives to hand him over for a planned reunion with his father from Cuba, and to an emergency U.S. court order barring the child's removal from the country -- at least until Friday.
``We are seeing a new maneuver by the Miami Mafia,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez told reporters in Havana, although he declined to elaborate.
Havana has routinely criticized Elian's Miami relatives and their anti-communist Cuban exile backers as a ``Mafia.''
Elian was rescued at sea last November after a boat full of illegal Cuban migrants capsized, killing his mother and 10 others. The ensuing family feud over his future quickly escalated into a full-scale political battle between the Castro government and its foes in the large and vehemently anti-
Communist Cuban American community.
Gonzalez said there had been ``great expectation'' in Cuba over the possibility of six-year-old Elian being handed over on Thursday by his Miami relatives for a reunion with his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who has been in the United States since last week.
``The position of the father and of our people is well known,'' Gonzalez said.
A Cuban state TV presenter later read a statement which condemned ``delays, injustice, ignominy and lies'' surrounding the Elian case. The statement followed a live round-table debate on the latest developments in the United States.
``A father's feelings of love continue to be trampled,'' the communique said, asking: ``Where is justice and morality?''
Speaking on the program from Washington, Fernando Remirez de Estenoz, the head of Cuba's Interests Section in the United States, attacked what he called ``maneuvers'' by the Miami relatives and ``counter-revolutionary organizations''.
He described them as ``acts of desperation trying to avoid what we all hope happens as soon as possible ... the return of Elian to Cuba''.
As a potentially messy finale to the 4 1/2-month-old battle over Elian's future loomed earlier on Thursday, Cuban officials said his eventual return should be kept well out of media eyes both for his own well-being and to mark a difference with his U.S. relatives' high-profile publicity.
``We have absolutely no information on when he might come back ... and there is no provision up to now for any sort of coverage at the airport if he does come back,'' a Foreign Ministry official told Reuters.
Castro, following the Elian case as he hosts heads of state from Africa, Asia and Latin America for the Group of 77 Summit in Havana, has said publicly Havana would handle Elian's possible return with total discretion.
Although Cuban officials have said Elian should eventually return to his provincial hometown of Cardenas, there is speculation in Havana that the boy, his father and other close relatives may be encouraged to stay at least temporarily at a secret location away from public eyes.
Cuba's demand for Elian's immediate return has received overwhelming backing from this week's gathering of heads of state and ministers from the 133 Third World nations in the G77 group.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed his support for Elian's return in a speech at Havana University attended by Castro. The Cuban leader left the event early to attend the latest of daily, televised round-tables on the Elian case.
All the delegations stood up and applauded in support of Havana's stance over Elian during Tuesday's summit session.
Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe, also wholeheartedly backed Cuba.
``My son is my son and should never be someone else's,'' he said. ``To use a son like that for political purposes is the greatest harm you can do to him. ... It is not permissible; it is just barbaric.''
Ex-Sen.: Elian Dad Offered $2M
BETHESDA, Md. 14 (AP) - Juan Miguel Gonzalez told a visitor he was offered $2 million, a house and a job by his Miami relatives if he agreed to remain in the United States with son Elian.
Gonzalez refused, according to former Sen. Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, who met with him Thursday night. ``I have only one objective, my son,'' DeConcini quoted him as saying. ``I have no price on my son.''
Speaking to reporters, DeConcinci said he asked Gonzalez if he was offered any incentives to remain in this country rather than return to Cuba with Elian, the 6-year-old shipwreck victim who is the subject of an international custody battle.
DeConcini said the father replied that Lazaro Gonzalez, Elian's great-uncle, offered him $2 million, a house, a car and a job. Juan Miguel Gonzalez felt that the money was coming from sources other than the uncle, DeConcini said.
Elian Miami Relatives Defy Order, Win Reprieve
By Frances Kerry
MIAMI (Reuters) - The Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez hung on to him for at least another night on Thursday after defying a federal order to hand him over for reunion with his father and then winning time through a court order blocking efforts to sending the child to Cuba pending further legal
appeals.
The saga of the Cuban shipwreck survivor at the center of a highly politicized 4 1/2 month custody feud had looked headed for a collision course on Thursday morning as the Miami relatives battling to keep him in the United States said they would defy the Justice Department order to hand the
child over at a Miami-area airport.
But by evening, the family, backed by an extraordinary display of Cuban American solidarity and hundreds of flag and banner-waving protesters outside their small Little Havana home, had let the 2 p.m. deadline for the handover at Opa-Locka Airport come and go, and they still had Elian.
Attorney General Janet Reno said she would not move immediately to send in federal agents to take the 6-year-old away and an Atlanta appeals court gave the family a temporary reprieve.
Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, was left to fume in frustration in Washington, where he has stayed at the home of a Cuban diplomat since arriving in the United States a week ago to take custody of the son he has not seen since November.
Lawyer Says Family Breaking Law
The father's U.S. lawyer, Gregory Craig, accused the Miami relatives of breaking state and federal law, holding Elian unlawfully and exploiting him.
In Havana, President Fidel Castro's government denounced a ''new maneuver'' to keep Elian with the child's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez and his family.
Elian was rescued at sea off Florida in November after surviving a migrant voyage from Cuba in which his mother and 10 other people died. His case rapidly exploded into a fierce custody battle, pitting the Miami relatives who believed he should not be sent back to grow up under communism against
his father, who called for his return.
Castro's foes among south Florida's 800,000-strong Cuban community used the Elian saga to open up a new front in their ideological battle with the veteran communist leader. President Bill Clinton's administration, which believes the boy belongs with his father, sided uneasily with Washington's
longtime political foe.
The administration, which ordered the custody handover after Reno failed to secure an agreement for a voluntary custody transfer during talks with the Miami family on Wednesday, was left fumbling on Thursday evening.
A mood of anxiety at the Lazaro Gonzalez house changed to celebration during the afternoon as news came that U.S. Judge J.L. Edmondson of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta has issued a temporary order blocking any attempt to take the boy out of the United States pending further legal
moves.
Such decisions are usually made by a three-judge panel. Edmondson's order, which stays in effect only until the panel can review it, delayed any attempt to take Elian back to Cuba until that panel can consider the relative's request to prevent his removal pending his appeal.
Edmondson gave the Justice Department until 9:30 a.m. (1330 GMT) on Friday to file briefs on the request.
A federal judge in Miami last month dismissed a lawsuit by the relatives demanding a political asylum hearing for Elian and upholding an Immigration and Naturalization Service ruling that his father was his proper guardian, regardless of Cuba's political system.
Family Challenge
Defiant even after the father turned up in the United States, Lazaro Gonzalez made clear after his family's meeting with Reno that he would not hand over Elian voluntarily. That challenged the Attorney General to send federal agents past a sea of supporters to get the child from his house.
Reno, speaking before the 2 p.m. deadline, tried to calm passions by saying U.S. marshals would not be sent in as soon as the deadline passed. But she said: ``I am prepared to enforce the law. But I want to be clear, if we are compelled to enforce our order, we intend to do so in a reasonable,
measured way.''
Latin pop diva Gloria Estefan, flanked by the relatives, Miami city officials and Cuban American celebrities including film star Andy Garcia, told the crowd when the deadline came: ''We want it clarified to us why this family who has been guarding this boy is being compelled to hand him over on
a silver platter. We want to know exactly why.''
Jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, who defected a decade ago, played the Cuban and American national anthems.
Elian Speaks In Controversial Video
The family issued a home video of Elian on Thursday morning in which, gesturing firmly as he sat on a bed, he addressed his father and said he did not want to go back to Cuba. It was not clear who was in the room with him or whether he was coached.
Critical commentators said the child should not be exposed to such pressure, and added a boy this young should not in any case decide where he might live. But supporters of the Miami relatives said the film gave Elian a chance to speak out.
``Not only have these relatives broken the law, they have emotionally damaged and exploited this most wonderful little boy,'' Juan Miguel Gonzalez's lawyer Craig charged later.
As Thursday's drama unfolded around him, Elian ate pastry, chewed gum, swung on a backyard swing and ran through the house barefoot, according to pool information furnished by a Miami Herald reporter allowed inside the family home.
In Havana, the Cuban government reacted angrily to the latest stalemate.
``We are seeing a new maneuver by the Miami mafia,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Alejandro Gonzalez told reporters in Havana, although he declined to elaborate further.
Hearing Becomes Stage For Elian
By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON, 13 (AP) - A Capital Hill hearing to uncover the truth about children's rights in Cuba Thursday turned into hours of speeches by congressmen and pro- and anti-Castro witnesses - mostly trying to prove whether Elian Gonzalez should stay or go.
Seven witnesses invited to testify before the House subcommittee on international operations and human rights didn't get a chance to speak for nearly the first hour and a half of the hearing, as committee members took turns making statements.
``Indoctrination, torture, forced labor, combat training, murder,'' said Republican Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. ``These are but a microcosm of the gross violations of children's rights committed by the Castro regime - the very same Communist totalitarian dictatorship which calls for
Elian's return to Cuba.''
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, also spoke. She's not on the committee, but is among representatives who have visited Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, at the suburban Washington home where he waits to get back his son.
``This is all we ask - that Elian and his father be reunited.''
Witnesses included author Ileana Fuentes, a survivor of ``Operation Pedro Pan,'' in which 14,000 unaccompanied children were sent out of Cuba in the early 1960s by their parents.
Fearing their children would be indoctrinated into Fidel Castro's communist system or dispatched to the countryside to teach illiterate peasants how to read and write, desperate parents obtained quick exit visa waivers to send their children to the United States.
``When a child is born in Cuba, he joins a family living in state-sponsored poverty,'' Fuentes told the committee. ``A child born in Cuba is born in a society where his fundamental human rights ... are denied by all existing legal institutions - the Cuban constitution, child and youth code and
penal code.''
A different view came from the Rev. Lucius Walker, who said his Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization, has worked in Cuba for decades and delivered tons of humanitarian aid there.
``I have never seen an unhealthy child in Cuba,'' Walker said. ``Children in Cuba are a wonderful combination of self-awareness, self-esteem, respect for adults, love of country, knowledge of the culture ..., which I wish were equally true in every part of the world.''
Committee chairman Christopher Smith, a New Jersey Republican, interrupted Walker to say witnesses were allowed to speak for 10 minutes each and that he'd already gone over by 3 minutes.
"Mr. Chairman,'' protested Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, ``You selected six of the witnesses. ... I got to pick one ... I would like him to have his say.''
Cuban Exiles Support Elian in N.J.
By Amy Westfeldt, Associated Press Writer.
UNION CITY, N.J. 13 (AP) - The Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez should keep fighting to keep him in the United States, say residents of the nation's second largest Cuban community.
Sergio Alonzo compared the government's plan to take Elian from Miami to the capture of Anne Frank by the Nazis.
``He would not be killed immediately, but he would be subjected to brainwashing'' once he is returned to Cuba, he said.
Alonzo and other Cuban-Americans were in the Union City Cafeteria watching Spanish-language television coverage of the case.
Some called Attorney General Janet Reno ``a monster'' and ``a sick woman'' for ordering Elian's uncle to turn the boy over to his father, who wants to return with him to Cuba.
One sign posted on the street called President Clinton a traitor for his administration's handling of the case. Another showed a picture of Elian and the message ``Castro was able to kill my mother but not me. I want to live in freedom.''
Twelve-year-old Manny Hernandez said he thought Elian and his father should both stay in the United States. If that can't happen, he said, ``They should fight as long as possible to keep him.''
More than 1,200 miles north of Miami, the fate of the 6-year-old Cuban boy is evoking the same emotions.
``The community here is as united and as militant,'' vowed Remberto Perez, the regional director of the Cuban American National Foundation.
He said Cuban exiles in New Jersey would have supported Elian as forcefully as the Miami protesters, who have threatened to put their bodies between the boy and Cuba.
Abel Hernandez Jr., 35, wasn't so sure, saying the Cuban population in New Jersey is older, more spread out and has fewer stories of treacherous trips to America.
``We don't have that power, that feeling,'' said Hernandez, from North Bergen. ``There's some people (in Miami) who have gone on rafts and stuff like that.''
An estimated 150,000 Cuban-Americans - less than one-third of Miami's Cuban population - live in Hudson County, especially in Union City, West New York, and North Bergen, gritty, working-class cities lined up side by side across the Hudson River from midtown Manhattan.
Manuel Rodriguez is credited with creating the community, becoming the first Cuban immigrant to arrive in the late 1940s from Fomento, Cuba, after he met an Italian-American in Miami and followed him to North Bergen.
Cubans began to dominate towns that had once provided blue-collar manufacturing jobs for Germans and Italians, he said, taking jobs in northern New Jersey's embroidery industry, opening restaurants and clothing stores.
Their numbers have diminished in the cities over the years, however, as many moved to outer suburbs. Union City now has a 25 percent Cuban population, but it remains the political and cultural center of the community.
Divisions Showing at G77 Third World Summit
By Jason Webb
HAVANA, 13 (Reuters) - Third World leaders from the Group of 77 debated on Thursday how to negotiate better export and debt deals with rich countries but divisions quickly became apparent at one of the poor world's biggest summits.
Heads of state from the G77's 133 member nations held closed door sessions before a second full assembly on Thursday, the fourth day of the five-day meeting which has been overshadowed here by the situation of 6-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez, the center of a custody fight
between anti-Castro relatives in Miami and his Cuban father.
Cuban President Fidel Castro took a tough stand on Wednesday, calling for a ``Nuremberg'' trial for international financiers in his opening speech. But it was not universally well received.
``I've had several presidents come up to me and say how annoyed they are at these attacks on the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund,'' said a senior U.N. diplomat, who asked not to be named.
The G77 is holding its first presidential summit as poor countries try to unify to seek what they describe as a fair deal in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and on debt relief.
Forty-two presidents or prime ministers from the G77 are attending, including South Africa's President, Thabo Mbeki, Nigeria's President, Olusegun Obasanjo, and Pakistan's military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Poor countries' success in blocking agreements at last year's chaotic WTO meeting in Seattle has shown them the practical benefits to be had by using their strength in global institutions like the United Nations.
But Indonesia's President, Abdurrahman Wahid, told Wednesday's session that he feared quarreling between nations like his own, which favors constant dialogue with international institutions, and firebrands like Cuba and Malaysia.
Many bigger G77 nations, like Indonesia, Nigeria and South Africa, have argued for a joint front in the World Trade Organization to push rich nations to allow them to sell agricultural products and textiles to the developed world.
``To get united is the only way for developing countries to enhance our position in the north-south dialogue, effectively participate in economic decision making and safeguard our own interests to the maximum in the course of globalization,'' Chinese Vice Premier Li Lanqing told the assembly on
Thursday.
In contrast to the calls for reform of institutions urged by the larger nations, Castro on Wednesday had called for the IMF to be ``demolished.''
Third World leaders believe that rich countries want to use the WTO to free trade in services and technology but also continue to shield sectors like agriculture with tariffs and subsidies.
A coalition of U.S. environmentalists and trade unions fearing competition from low wage countries managed to disrupt the Seattle WTO meeting. But Third World countries say that banning their exports because they cannot afford Western wages or pollution standards will condemn them to stay poor.
Nigeria has cautiously raised the issue of democracy -- a touchy subject in an organization whose members include Cuba, Libya and military-ruled Pakistan -- arguing that good government would encourage creditor nations to cancel debts.
The big Latin American G77 nations, Brazil and Argentina, have economies much more advanced than those of many of the group's members. They did not even bother to send top-ranking officials to the summit. These days they are more interested in negotiating trade matters directly with the big
powers.
Despite the difference of emphasis between hard-liners and moderates, Third World officials say they hope the summit will mark a shift to a period of practical action and end a long tradition of doing little but complaining about injustice.
And the meeting is likely to go some way toward unifying positions in the WTO, the U.N. official said. ``It's a fraternal debate,'' he said.
There was common ground among countries like China and Zimbabwe on the issue of perceived Western interference in their internal affairs on human rights and other issues. Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe, hit out at Britain for its support for minority white farmers threatened with land
seizures.
But support staff, many journalists and even Cuban officials were paying more attention to the fate of the six-year-old boy, Gonzalez. Crowds at the conference center clustered around televisions showing CNN in Spanish -- a channel generally only made available to foreign residents or senior
officials.
Cuban Exile Heads Join Elian Vigil
MIAMI, 13 (AP) - Elian Gonzalez's relatives and a group of Cuban exile leaders clustered around the big-screen TV in their small living room Thursday, waiting for updates in the drama that featured them in starring roles.
And the 6-year-old star of it all? Elian walked around barefoot, his feet blackened from playing in the backyard dirt all morning.
Oblivious to the tumult around him, he hovered around his cousin, Marisleysis, sitting in her lap and playfully putting his finger in her ear while she sat on a leather love seat.
The scene was described by a pool reporter allowed into the modest home on what figured to be an extraordinary day - when the family defied a federal order to relinquish custody of Elian at 2 p.m. and dared the government to remove the boy by force.
Before a federal appeals court issued a stay blocking anyone from taking the boy out of the country, nearly everyone had tears in their eyes.
The smell of cumin filled the air as Elian's great-aunt Angela baked chicken, cooked rice and fried a pan of meat on the stove.
Jose Basulto of the Cuban exile group Brothers to the Rescue spent most of his time talking to reporters on the phone. Donaldo Dalrymple, one of the fishermen who rescued Elian, showed up, along with several priests and pastors. Actor Andy Garcia came by with his wife.
Just about everyone had a cell phone and was using it.
Elian - wearing a red T-shirt, jeans and sneakers - chewed gum, ran around and played on the swing outside.
When Attorney General Janet Reno came on TV, the living room went silent. Great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez occasionally lifted his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. Marisleysis jeered when Reno mentioned her name.
When Elian's home video was played, showing him telling his father he didn't want to return to Cuba, everyone clapped and cheered. Elian stood in the center and smiled, watching himself on the giant screen.
There was Elian paraphernalia around the house - and lots of it: framed newspaper articles, a stuffed toy dolphin, artwork people have given him, a card from his Miami classmates.
Tensions eased when Reno said nothing would happen immediately after the deadline. But not until the court stay was announced did the room break into celebration, with hugs and handshakes.
A minister high-fived Lazaro, and exclaimed, "I love you!'' When a woman congratulated him, he responded: ``Justice must prevail.''
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