By Lizette Alvarez. The New York Times. April 16, 2000.
MIAMI, April 15 -- For four months now, Lázaro González, the great-uncle of Elián González, has zigzagged his way through a phalanx of lawyers and government officials, Cuban-American leaders and politicians, calling the shots as he sees fit, day in and day out.
He lurches from defiance to conciliation, relying on his instincts to guide him, friends say, not on any coherent legal strategy. When he wants to send a warning shot Washington's way, he inflames the army of people that stands only steps outside his home in Little Havana, then allows others to
calm the crowd with exhortations of prayer and patience.
"Lázaro! Lázaro!" one woman in the crowd shouted again and again the other day as he strode toward the hundreds of well-wishers pressing in on the metal barricades. "You are our hero," the woman shouted. "The community is with you. Stay strong."
Mr. González, a no-nonsense 49-year-old Cuban refugee, appears to have single-handedly confounded Attorney General Janet Reno again and again, to the point that an exasperated Justice Department seems poised to take action and force him to hand Elián over to his father.
"I would say that Lázaro González has been the leader in all of this," said Spencer Eig, one of Mr. González's lawyers.
"He has been the true paterfamilias. He is the decision maker."
Outside of Miami's Cuban-American community, Mr. González is viewed harshly, often with derision, as a villain who is shamelessly exploiting a young child to score political points, without concern for the boy's well-being.
But here, in his front yard, a haven of sorts for many Cuban-Americans, he is hailed as a hero, a humble car repairman who sacrificed privacy and normalcy to save a little boy from the clutches of Communism and now from the grip of a father the Miami relatives accuse of being unfit.
Friends and lawyers of Mr. González paint a picture of a man who inside his own home is beset by conflict, emotionally spent and haunted by one idea: that Elián will someday blame him -- not for keeping him from his father, but for turning him over without a tough enough fight.
"He has two different sets of loyalties," said José García-Pedrosa, the lawyer who is closest to Mr. González, "a loyalty to the law and a loyalty to the boy."
"This is a man who is having trouble reconciling the fact that fate and the I.N.S. gave him this boy," Mr. García-Pedrosa said. "He formed a bond of trust with him. Now he is being demanded, under the threat of prosecution and persecution, to breach that trust."
In the past two weeks, Mr. González has slept little, preferring to sit on the back porch, smoking cigarettes and, on occasion, praying, said Armando Gutiérrez, the family's round-the-clock spokesman. His nerves are frayed, Mr. Gutiérrez said. "He's afraid any night
they will come through the window."
Outside, the crowd tries to buck him up, but few would want to trade places. "I wouldn't want to be in his shoes," said Silvia Iriondo, the director of Mothers Against Repression.
Before Elián was picked up at sea on Thanksgiving, Mr. González fixed dented cars for a living and rarely gave politics a passing thought. His brother Delfín -- "el cangrejo" or "the crab" -- worked in the Florida Keys as a fisherman, tending lobster
traps. Lázaro González's daughter, Marisleysis, 21, processed loans at a bank, and his wife, Ángela, drove to her factory job every morning, as she still does on occasion despite the hubbub around them.
In many ways, Mr. González plays to the stereotype of the Latin macho man. Gruff and rash, he is known to have drunk too much at times; twice he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol. He has clung steadfastly to traditional roles both at home and outside. But Elián's
arrival shook up his world.
He argued with one brother, Manuel González, over what to do with Elián. Manuel wanted Lázaro González to let the boy go home. Mr. González disagreed, and the two have not spoken since.
Within days of Elián's arrival, Mr. González found himself surrounded by powerful politicians and a legion of lawyers, all of them advising him on what course of action to take.
"Everyone and his uncle in Miami thinks they know how to handle the case better themselves," said José Basulto, the leader of Brothers to the Rescue, a Cuban-American organization. Lawyers involve Mr. González in every decision, distilling the legal work to the minimum so
he can see his way though the thicket of laws. Advisers counsel him on how to deal with the crowd. Sometimes he listens; sometimes he doesn't.
In fact, it has been Mr. González, in consultation with Marisleysis and Delfín, who has made some of the most controversial decisions. Early on, his lawyers say, it was Mr. González who decided not to publicly accuse Elián's father, Juan Miguel González, of
being an unfit parent and husband, something Mr. González has said he learned from Elián. He and his family even praised Juan Miguel for being a good father. Then, when the federal government adopted a tougher stance, Mr. González took a different approach. Now his lawyers, who
say they respected his decision, say it is more difficult for people to believe him, since the accusations come so late.
Juan Miguel González, who arrived from Cuba nine days ago and is staying at the home of a Cuban diplomat in Bethesda, Md., has said the accusations are false and has characterized them as a desperate ploy by his Miami relatives to keep the boy.
Just this week, after Ms. Reno flew to Miami to try to persuade Lázaro González to back down, he decided instead to dig in deeper. He appeared abruptly in front of the television cameras late in the night and said he would not turn Elián over to the authorities. Soon after,
he allowed Elián to be videotaped on his bed, defiantly telling his father he did not want to go back to Cuba. The videotape was broadcast across the nation. It was a last-ditch attempt by Lázaro González to try to show people that Elián was speaking truthfully, and from
the heart, about his wishes, lawyers and relatives said.
"They thought it was imminent, that the marshals were going to come," Jorge Mas Santos, the leader of the influential Cuban-American National Foundation, said. "It was done out of their frustration that they were not being heard."
It was also the most recent glaring example of the gap between the Cuban-American community and the rest of the country. In Miami, the videotape was viewed by many as an affirmation of Elián's legitimate feelings, and people wondered why the family did not make the tape sooner. Elsewhere,
it served only to bolster arguments that they boy was being coached and turned against his father. According to surveys, most Americans believe Lázaro González is breaking the law and exposing Elián to further emotional damage by possibly spurring a confrontation with federal
marshals.
Through it all, Lázaro González has let Elián's wishes guide his course of action, lawyers and friends say. "Psychologists have told him that it would be better for Elián if they came here, and Lázaro handed him over, than for Lázaro to put him on a
plane," Mr. Gutiérrez said. "It would be like putting him on a raft again."
The two -- great-uncle and boy -- have formed a close bond, the lawyers and friends say. Not a day goes by, they say, that Elián does not remind his great-uncle that he does not want to return to Cuba and that he is afraid of his father. Mr. González believes the boy, they say, and
feels obligated to protect him, a view with which the Justice Department, and most of the country, disagrees.
"Janet Reno seems to think that a person would have to be brainwashed to prefer not to live in Cuba," Mr. Eig said. "His mother told him to feel that way. She obviously felt that way. I think he learned it a long time before he came to Little Havana. Most people in Cuba feel that
way. That's why the traffic on the Florida Straits is all one-way."
For a long time, people crowded around Mr. González's block to get a glimpse of Elián and say a prayer for him. Now they are also coming, some of them for the first time, to honor Mr. González in his time of need.
"He has behaved magnificently," said Milagros Bauza, 58, who added that she and her husband came for the first time in solidarity with Mr. González, whom they described as "a simple man of the people."
"Look at this, there is no privacy," Ms. Bauza said, waving toward the house. "They have been mocked. Their lives are in danger. He could go to jail. To me, he is a hero. He's acting out of good conscience, and nothing else."
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company |