Yahoo! April 17, 2000
Elian Case Reveals Gap in Miami
By Ian James, Associated Press Writer.
MIAMI, 16 (AP) - Shining shoes on a downtown street corner, Lazaro Hernandez hears the opinions of a city divided over whether a 6-year-old boy should be returned to his father in Cuba.
And he is convinced many non-Cubans just don't understand why he feels so strongly that Elian Gonzalez should stay in the United States.
``I've been at this corner for seven years, and the only ones who don't understand the problem of Cuba, the only ones who don't understand it - or who don't want to understand it - are the Anglos, the Americans,'' he said. ``Why? Because they've never lived in a communist system.''
When Miami looks at Elian, part of the city sees a boy whose freedom is at stake, and another part sees a boy wrongfully kept from his father.
For many Cuban-Americans, the rest of the city simply doesn't understand. Despite years of living and working together, the others don't grasp their passion, their pain or what happened to their island and their people.
Signs of this gap are abundant. Recent polling shows that most Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade County say the boy should remain in Florida with his relatives. Other Hispanics are more evenly split, but a large majority of the area's white and black non-Hispanics say the boy should be returned to
his father in Cuba.
Decrying ``those ignorant Anglos'' who don't understand Elian's case or Cuba's history, popular radio commentator Armando Perez-Roura of the Spanish-language station Radio Mambi took aim at his opponents last week.
In the crowd keeping vigil outside the home of Elian's relatives, some people swore that news of the case was being reported differently on Spanish- and English-language TV channels.
``Many Anglos are in favor of them sending that kid back there to Cuba, without understanding what is happening in Cuba,'' said Hernandez, pausing from his work. He said the boy would not be free if returned to ``that hell'' - the island Hernandez left in the Mariel boat lift of 1980.
In nearby South Beach, where tourists outnumber Cubans, there is no sign of the flag-waving fervor that has gripped the neighborhood of Little Havana.
Reanee Jones, visiting the beach with her husband Alphonso and two small children, said she believes the boy should be reunited with his father. But at her insurance office job, she doesn't discuss it with her Cuban-American co-workers.
``I think in my office some people are afraid to speak their views,'' said Jones, who was born in North Carolina. ``You don't want to step on any toes, so sometimes you keep your thoughts to yourself, just to keep the peace.''
The story is similar at Lil' Anthony's Downtown Pizzeria. Valerie Drummond, who owns a share of the restaurant, said she thinks the boy should be with his father. But she doesn't bring up the subject with her Cuban-American friends.
``I know a lot of people have different views, and I don't want to offend anybody,'' she said.
Some other non-Hispanic whites say they hold similar views but are unwilling to share them publicly for fear of offending friends or facing retribution from Cuban-Americans who hold powerful positions in the community.
Elian has been under the temporary custody of a great-uncle in Miami since his rescue at sea in November after his mother and 10 others died when their boat sank off the Florida coast. The boy's father, visiting the United States, has been waiting in Bethesda, Md., since April 6 to reclaim his
son.
People who don't stand up for keeping Elian in the United States sadden Jennifer Guerra, an 18-year-old demonstrator who missed college classes this week to keep watch outside the home of Elian's relatives.
``American people, they don't understand,'' said Guerra, who was born in the United States to a Cuban father and an Ecuadorian mother.
``These people would have to go inside my heart to feel the pain that I and my family feel,'' she said, her eyes wet with tears. Guerra said two of her cousins died on a raft trying to reach the United States, and she has a 23-year-old half-sister in Cuba she never met.
``I wish my breath was so long that I could scream and say what all those people are feeling,'' she said, motioning to the crowd standing outside the house, ``so everyone would know what we're going through. Because they don't know.''
U.S. Ready to 'Enforce the Law' to Get Elian
By Peter Szekely
WASHINGTON, 16 (Reuters) - A top White House official said on Sunday the government was ready to ``enforce the law'' to reunite Elian Gonzalez with his Cuban father, but a lawyer for the 6-year-old's Miami relatives said there was no such law.
The war of words over the fate of the shipwreck survivor's custody continued on Sunday morning television as the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta considered the Miami relatives' last-ditch request for an order to prevent the boy's transfer to his father's care and his return to Cuba.
``Once the 11th Circuit has ruled, I think the government is prepared to effectuate a return of Elian to the custody of his father where he belongs,'' White House Chief of Staff John Podesta said on NBC's ``Meet the Press'' program.
Podesta stressed that the Clinton administration prefers a peaceful end to the standoff with the boy's Miami relatives, including his great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, whose Little Havana house has become a gathering point for Miami Cuban exiles who want Elian to stay in the United States.
``But the attorney general, the president and the entire federal government are prepared to enforce the law,'' he said. ''We live under the rule of law in this country and that's what needs to happen.''
Lawyers for the relatives, however, insisted that their clients had not violated any law by failing to bring Elian to a Miami airport by a Thursday deadline to be reunited with his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who has been staying at the home of the head of the Cuban diplomatic mission in
Washington.
``The truth of the matter is that there is no law that says that this child has to be with his father to be returned to Cuba, and there is no court ruling to that effect,'' said Jose Garcia-Pedrosa, an attorney for Lazaro Gonzalez.
Citing allegations the relatives made in their legal arguments that Juan Miguel Gonzalez had been abusive to Elian's mother, Garcia-Pedrosa said the relatives are insisting that Elian undergo a psychological evaluation before any attempt is made to reunite him with his father.
``This boy is afraid,'' he said. ``We think he should be evaluated.''
In an interview with CBS's ``60 Minutes'' that aired on Sunday night, Juan Miguel Gonzalez denied that he beat his former wife, who drowned along with 10 others when a boat capsized while bringing her and Elian from Cuba to the United States.
The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell of the National Council of Churches, a close adviser to the father, told reporters that Gonzalez's former mother-in-law also supported Elian's reunification with his father and never mentioned any abuse.
``I have to say, I think that if there were some kind of abuse she would have some reaction to that,'' she said, noting that Juan Miguel and his wife lived at the mother-in-law's house in Cuba before they divorced.
In the CBS interview, Juan Miguel Gonzalez accused his relatives of trying to manipulate Elian and turn him against his father, citing the example of a home video of the boy telling his father he did not want to return to Cuba, which the Miami relatives released to the media last Thursday.
``This is child abuse and mistreatment --- what they're doing to his boy. These are not the boy's true feelings,'' Gonzalez told CBS.
A Miami Herald reporter, invited by the family to witness a telephone conversation between the boy and his father on Saturday -- only their third since the father arrived in the United States -- said the two spoke for about 20 minutes.
At the end, Elian blew kisses into the phone and then went into his room, where relatives said he was crying, the Herald reported in Sunday editions.
Podesta questioned the sincerity of the Miami relatives and their advisers, accusing them of ``changing the bar'' by setting new conditions for Elian's reunification with his father.
During the 4 1/2-month saga, the relatives first insisted that the father come to the United States to get his son.
When the father came to Washington, they wanted assurances that he would not take the boy to Cuba while the legal process over Elian's custody was still pending. They later insisted on a face-to-face meeting with Juan Miguel Gonzalez before any transfer would occur, but backed off of that demand
after arrangements for such a meeting were made.
Elian has been at the center of an international tug-of-war since shortly after he was found clinging to an inner tube in the sea off the Florida coast on Nov. 25. His mother was one of 11 people drowned after their boat from Cuba capsized.
On Saturday, President Clinton said sooner or later the Miami relatives would have to abide by government orders. Clinton and Podesta have given their public backing to Attorney General Janet Reno over her handling of the matter.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which Reno oversees, warned the relatives on Friday that they were illegally detaining the boy without his father's consent.
``Absent an order from the 11th Circuit enjoining Elian's transfer to his father, you have no legal basis to continue to exercise control over Elian,'' a top INS official told the relatives in a letter.
Justice Department lawyers have urged the Atlanta appeals court to reject the Miami relatives' request for an injunction preventing the boy's transfer to his father's care.
If the appeals court rejects the request, the government would be free to send in federal agents to remove Elian from Lazaro Gonzalez's home and reunite him with his father.
Reporter Observes Elian Phone Call
MIAMI (AP) - Young Elian Gonzalez was seemingly reluctant when he took a telephone call from his father and fidgeted during the conversation, but then blew kisses into the telephone when ending the call, a newspaper reported Sunday.
The Miami family keeping 6-year-old Elian from the federal government and his father invited a reporter from The Miami Herald into their home Saturday to observe Elian's reaction when his father called, the Herald said.
The invitation was apparently made to support the family's claim that no one is keeping Elian from speaking to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who flew from Havana to Washington last week demanding that he be reunited with his son.
According to the Herald:
The family expected the call at 2 p.m., but someone from the Cuban Interests Section in Washington called at that time to say the father's call would be at 4 p.m.
It came at 5:40 p.m. Elian made a facial expression that seemed to indicate reluctance, with his eyebrows raised and mouth curled.
His cousin and caregiver, Marisleysis Gonzalez, said, ``It's your daddy,'' and he repeated the expression. Then he took the cordless phone and talked to his father for about 20 minutes. He spoke softly and could be heard saying ``yes'' repeatedly in Spanish.
During the call, he paced, walked in circles, and fidgeted. At the end, he blew kisses into the phone. Then he went into his room.
His relatives told the reporter he was crying.
Lazaro Gonzalez, the uncle who is leading the effort to keep Elian from going back to Cuba, told the reporter, ``I'm doing this because I want you to see we're not liars.''
The Herald reported that the family had earlier rejected a CBS request to let a ''60 Minutes'' crew tape Elian talking to his father while CBS anchor Dan Rather was with the father. The relatives said they were advised against the ''60 Minutes'' request by their priest and a psychologist, the
paper said.
CBS on Sunday denied the report. The family had offered to let the crew tape the boy talking by phone with his father and the network rejected it, spokesman Kevin Tedesco said.
Gregory Craig, attorney for Juan Miguel Gonzalez, confirmed his client spoke with Elian on Saturday and said he thought it was the third conversation between father and son since his client arrived in the United States.
The attorney said the last time Juan Miguel Gonzalez spoke with his son was a week ago.
``He's been trying regularly, more than once a day,'' Craig said.
Roger Bernstein, an attorney for Elian's Miami relatives, said the relatives have not interfered with attempts by the boy's father to speak with his son.
``There have been times when there has been difficulty with phone conversations,'' Bernstein said Sunday on NBC's ``Today'' show. ``Sometimes Elian doesn't want to speak with his father but we have encouraged an open dialogue.''
Elian's Father Denies Abuse Charges
By James Pierpoint
MIAMI, 16 (Reuters) - Juan Miguel Gonzalez dismissed on Saturday as lies a claim by a former Cuban neighbor that he was a wife-beating child abuser and appealed for the return of his six-year-old son, Elian, the focus of an international custody battle.
``What's happening is that they're trying by any means possible ... (to) characterize me as an aggressive person,'' he said in an interview to be aired Sunday on the CBS program ``60 Minutes.'' ``Give me back my son.''
In a court filing on Friday, Nivaldo Vladimir Fernandez, who along with his girlfriend and Elian were the only survivors of an ill-fated escape by sea from Cuba, alleged that Juan Miguel Gonzalez abused both his wife, Elisabeth Brotons, who drowned on the voyage, and Elian, their only son.
Vladimir Fernandez claimed the father hit his former wife to the degree that she needed hospitalization and said Juan Miguel Gonzalez was of a ``violent'' and ``impulsive'' nature.
Juan Miguel, who flew to the United States last week in the hope of being quickly reunited with Elian, said this account was ``lies, totally'' and that he had never mistreated Elian or his late wife.
``In fact you can even ask my current wife if I've ever hit her or something and she'll tell you. It's not my way, not my style,'' he told correspondent Dan Rather in the interview taped in Washington. CBS News released a partial transcript.
Hundreds of foes of returning Elian to Cuba maintained a vigil in the heart of Miami's Little Havana on Saturday awaiting word on whether a U.S. federal appeals court would order the boy returned to his father.
As Elian played under the watchful eyes of a throng of supporters and television cameras in the yard of his great-uncle's modest home, his Miami relatives continued to defy a federal order to return him to his father.
``We will not attack anyone, but they are going to have to walk over us to take the child out of the house. We will not break the law. The exile community has always respected the laws of the United States and will continue to do so,'' said Rolando Carmenates, a 44-year-old Cuban exile.
Federal officials have vowed to move quickly to reunite the father and son if the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta rejects a plea he remain in Miami while the court weighs their appeal for an asylum hearing.
Regardless of the court decision, Elian's Miami relatives, who have cared for him since he was rescued from the sea in November, appear unwilling to abide by an Immigration and Naturalization Service order to relinquish the boy.
Miami Mayor Joe Carollo on Saturday openly questioned whether the boy's father, who has said he would eventually return with his son to Cuba, would renege on a promise made through his attorney to remain in the United States while the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals weighs the case.
``What is that order in place going to mean to a lawless government like Cuba's government? ... We all know there is no guarantee that they will not have that boy in a car, sneak him out of the (Cuban diplomatic residence in Washington), put him in a plane and bring him back to Cuba,'' Carollo
said on NBC's Today show.
In Washington, a Justice Department spokeswoman dismissed allegations raised in court papers that Juan Miguel was abusive.
``They (the Miami family) have made these allegations before. We do not feel that they have established any sufficient reason to believe that Juan Miguel was not a fit and loving father,'' she said, adding that the family has failed to provide any concrete evidence of the alleged abuse.
Juan Miguel Gonzalez left the home of a Cuban diplomat near Washington on Saturday to visit the offices of his lawyer.
Elian has been at the center of an international tug-of-war since shortly after he was found clinging to an inner tube in the seas off the Florida coast on Nov. 25. Elian's mother was one of 11 people drowned after the boat carrying them from Cuba capsized.
Elian quickly became a symbol for Miami's Cuban-American community, which argues the boy would have a better future in the United States than in Communist Cuba, and the focus of a national crusade by Cuban leader Fidel Castro to return him to his homeland.
President Clinton, touring the Sequoia National Forest in California, said he supported efforts by U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, a Miami native and former Dade County prosecutor, to return Elian peacefully to his father.
``I strongly support her effort,'' Clinton said. ``We have to let the court cases be decided. But I think the main thing is I hope all the people who came to the United States because we have freedom and rule of law will observe the rule of law.''
The family's defiance reflects a deep distrust of Fidel Castro in Miami's Little Havana, where crowds of Cuban exiles and supporters have kept vigil outside the modest Gonzalez home, where Elian spends his days playing on a swing, chasing puppies and watching his saga unfold on television.
Newsweek Poll: Top Issues: Elian Gonzalez, Earth Day, Campaign 2000
Company Press Release. SOURCE: Newsweek
NEW YORK, April 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Fifty-three percent of Americans believe Elian Gonzalez should be returned to his father in Cuba, with 30 percent saying he should remain with his Miami relatives, according to a new Newsweek poll. The current findings are identical to those recorded one week
earlier. But, public opinion towards Elian's Miami family is becoming more negative. Fifty-two percent of Americans now believe Elian's relatives have not been cooperative enough with judicial and government efforts to resolve the case, while only 30 percent say they have been. A week earlier,
44-percent said the family had been cooperative enough while 41 percent disagreed.
Still, more than half of Americans (53%) disapprove of the way the Clinton administration and the Justice Department have handled the case, with 28 percent approving of their efforts-down from 33 percent last week.
On another topic, thirty years after the first Earth Day was held, 52 percent of Americans believe only minor progress has been made on environmental problems. Although nearly one in five surveyed (18%) say major progress has occurred, nearly as many (16%) believe environmental conditions have
worsened over the past 30 years. According to the poll, the environment rates as a secondary issue in determining votes for a major political office: less than a third (32%) of registered voters say it is very important. Forty-one percent say it is somewhat important but only 23 percent say it is
not too important or not important at all.
On the presidential campaign front, 44 percent of registered voters favor Texas Gov. George W. Bush vs. 42 percent for Vice President Al Gore, with 14 percent undecided, a statistical dead-heat given the survey's margin of error. Gore narrows the gap with crucial independent voters this week,
edging Bush 40% to 39%. A week earlier Bush received 45% of the Independent vote vs. 39 percent for Gore.
For this Newsweek Poll, Princeton Research Associates interviewed 752 adults aged 18 and older on April 13-14, 2000. The margin of error for the total sample group is plus or minus 4 percentage points. The margin of error for registered voters is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
SOURCE: Newsweek
Cuba Travel Services to Fly Weekly Non-Stop Charter Service From Los Angeles to Havana
Friday April 14, 6:15 pm Eastern Time
Company Press Release
Official Inaugural Flight Set to Take-Off Out of LAX April 15, 2000
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 14, 2000--After months of extensive preparation, Cuba Travel Services will be offering to Cuban Americans and licensed travelers weekly charter service out of Los Angeles International Airport to Havana, beginning Saturday afternoon, April 15, 2000.
Passengers will be checking in at the Taca Airline counter at the Bradley International Terminal.
For the first time, Cuba Travel Services, a minority-owned company based in Inglewood, Calif., will be providing weekly non-stop flights from Los Angeles to Havana, providing over 100,000 Cuban Americans residing in the Western United States easier and cost-effective access to Cuba.
In addition to servicing this large constituency, under the U.S. Treasury general license guidelines, these flights will also provide a more accessible route to journalists, government officials, licensed organizations and universities and individuals that qualify and are issued a specific
license to travel.
On Jan. 5, 1999, President Clinton announced new measures designed to ease the plight of the Cuban people, which included restoring direct passenger flights.
In August of last year, the Clinton Administration authorized the expansion of direct flights from Miami, Los Angeles and New York in a step to foster ``People to People'' contacts, without lifting the economic embargo. Cuba Travel Services will be operating under specific travel guidelines and
criteria established by the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Cuba Travel Services was formed by a group of Los Angeles business professionals to specifically facilitate a better understanding between the U.S. and Cuba in providing convenient and cost-effective travel to a large population who qualify under the current U.S. Treasury regulations.
Of the 100,000 Cuban Americans living in the Western United States, about 80 percent reside in California. The principals of Cuba Travel Services believe these flights will help break down existing barriers between citizens of the U.S. and Cuba, helping to increase a better understanding of the
two cultures.
Cuba Travel Services will be departing at 3:30 p.m. and arriving in Havana at 11:15 p.m.; among the inaugural travelers set to leave this Saturday are State Representative Roderick Wright, the Mount San Antonio Water Polo team from the city of Walnut, Maria Elena Fernandez from the L.A. Times,
and Saul Gonzalez from local Public Broadcasting Station KCET, who will be delivering medicines on behalf of L.A.-based medical relief organization Operation U.S.A.
For information on Cuba Travel Services, visit www.LAtoCUBA.com.
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