Yahoo! April 19, 2000
Cuban Mission Attack Probed
By George Gedda, Associated Press Writer.
WASHINGTON (AP) - District police said Tuesday they have launched a criminal investigation into allegations that some 15 people from the Cuban diplomatic mission here assaulted Cuban-American protesters who were demanding that 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez remain in the United States.
Some of the protesters suffered minor injuries in the fracas just before nightfall last Friday and were treated at local hospitals.
The disclosure came as the State Department summoned a top Cuban diplomat here to express ``extreme concern'' over the beatings. The diplomat, asked for an explanation, did not comment on the allegations but said he hoped to obtain an explanation later, said a department official, who spoke on
condition of anonymity.
Sgt. Joe Gentile, a Metropolitan Police Department spokesman, said the incident is being investigated as a simple assault. He would not comment further.
If Cuban diplomats were involved, they would not be subject to prosecution because of diplomatic immunity. But officials said that would not prevent an investigation from being carried out.
Several protesters, speaking at a midday news conference Tuesday in front of the Cuban mission, said an all-male group emerged from the Cuban mission building and started pummeling the demonstrators, believed to number about 14.
``I was punched twice in the face,'' said Mauricio Claver Carone, a college student. ``I have bruises on my chest.''
Estrella Carie Noda, a U.S. government employee, said she suffered black and blue marks on her arms and legs.
Brigida Benitez, a lawyer who was not at the news conference, said in a telephone interview that she was grabbed by the arms and thrown into the street. Her husband, Jorge, said that after suffering a blow to the head, he experienced fogginess and was diagnosed at a hospital as having a minor
head trauma. He also suffered a contusion on his head.
Others required hospitalization but it was not clear how many.
Luis Fernandez, a spokesman for the Cuban mission, would not comment on the allegations. However, he said people hostile to Cuba and to Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, ``have been performing provocative actions against the integrity and dignity of our diplomatic mission, disrupting its
normal functions.''
The protesters insulted women and children at the mission and also passed objects through the fence, Fernandez said.
Miami Mayor Joe Carollo, who was among those who spoke to reporters, said Attorney General Janet Reno told him Monday she planned to investigate the incident. Later, Reno said she had asked Carollo to make sure he reported the occurrence to the local police and said she would follow if the
complainants had trouble in getting the assistance they needed.
News media camera crews had been deployed at the interest section most of the day Friday but left before the incident took place.
Witnesses said two agents from the Secret Service, which has responsibility for protecting diplomatic missions, struck the assailants with batons to induce them to stop. When reinforcements were summoned, the assailants retreated back onto the mission grounds, the witnesses said.
The episode added yet another bizarre twist to the saga of Elian Gonzalez, who has been at the center of a custody fight between his Cuban father and Cuban-American relatives since he was rescued from the ocean south of Florida last November. His father has been here since April 6, trying to
recover custody of his son.
The news conference took place under a steady rain across the street from the three-story sand-colored structure that houses the Cuban mission. An official with a videocamera could be seen taping the proceedings from a second story window.
Despite U.N. Censure, Cuba 'Proud' on Rights
By Andrew Cawthorne
HAVANA, 19 (Reuters) - Cuba defiantly proclaimed on Wednesday it was ``proud'' of its human rights record despite a United Nations censure that enraged President Fidel Castro's communist government but pleased local dissidents.
The main U.N. human rights forum adopted a resolution Tuesday -- tabled by the Czech Republic and Poland and co- sponsored by nations including the United States -- denouncing Cuba for repressing political dissent and religious groups.
That brought a torrent of condemnation from Cuban authorities, on top of a 100,000-strong march outside the Czech Embassy at the exact time the vote was taking place in Geneva.
``Cuba is proud of its history in human rights, of its people's elevated values, of its solid unity, of its capacity for resistance, of its dedication to work, of its spirit of solidarity, of its definitive decision to defend the Revolution which gave it independence, social justice and national
dignity,'' said Communist Party daily Granma.
A separate statement carried by state media slammed Havana's former communist ally Prague for playing ``the sad role of lackey to Yankee imperialism by lending its name to this anti-Cuban maneuver.'' It added: ``The world knows who it was pressuring sovereign nations to change their decision,
who it was twisting wills to ensure this stunt was passed.''
The vote in the U.N. Commission on Human Rights was 21 countries in favor, 18 against and 14 abstentions, handing Cuba a second consecutive defeat in the annual vote in Geneva.
Those voting against Cuba mainly cited the government's continued tough treatment and jailing of political dissidents. Havana, however, insists those opponents are U.S.-backed ''counter-revolutionary'' mercenaries, and claims its internationally-recognized health, education and other social
policies give it one of the best rights records in the world.
Cuba's small dissident movement reacted differently to the Geneva vote, with various messages of thanks and congratulations to the nations who backed the censure.
One leading dissident, Elizardo Sanchez, said the U.N. vote was justified by the continuing arrests and harassment of dissidents opposed to Castro's one-party political system. His Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation estimates a total 350 political prisoners at present,
with hundreds more the victims of temporary detentions or other forms of state repression in recent months.
Cuba said the vote was politically-motivated and formed part of four decades of U.S. aggression since the 1959 Cuban Revolution that brought Castro, now 73, to power.
``In the face of this latest dirty trick, our people, firmer and more united than ever, rise up indignantly to reaffirm our sovereignty, our independence and our right to continue freely building Socialism in our Fatherland,'' its statement ended.
Particularly aiming fire at the Czech Republic -- whose President Vaclav Havel is himself a former anti-communist dissident -- Cuba announced a televised round-table for later Wednesday aimed at ``unmasking'' the Czech role in the U.N. vote.
Another 100,000-strong rally was also announced for Thursday in front of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana, to keep up the pressure on Washington over the case of shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez.
Havana says the retention of Elian, 6, in Miami against the wishes of his Cuban father, is an internationally-condemned abuse of human rights, under the eyes of Washington, which shows the hypocrisy of its accusations against other nations.
Dissident Sanchez argued that Havana was trying to take advantage of large international and domestic support in the custody dispute over Elian to also garner backing on other areas like human rights.
``The government is trying to present this consensus over Elian as support for all its policies, which is in my opinion a manipulation,'' he said. ``There is a visible rise in triumphalism in Cuban government circles. They've succeeded in hoisting the sails.''
Adding to the militant mood in Cuba was Wednesday's anniversary of its 1961 victory over a CIA-backed invasion of Cuba by an army of mainly Cuban-American troops opposed to Castro's then two-year-old rule. ``The mercenaries at the service of U.S. imperialism were defeated in just 72 hours,''
Granma reminded its readers. NewsMax.com: Castro's Daughter Warns Elian Faces Harm
Company Press Release. SOURCE: NewsMax.com
NewsMax.com: Castro's Daughter Warns Elian Faces Harm
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., April 18 /PRNewswire/ -- In an exclusive interview with NewsMax.com, Fidel Castro's daughter says she does not favor Elian Gonzalez's return to Cuba, and warns that the boy will likely suffer harm and be taken from his father.
The estranged daughter, Alina Fernandez, said the boy is not being returned to the custody of his father, but to the regime of her father, Fidel Castro.
She is sure the boy will be sent to a state institution, without his father's consent, to be deprogrammed of his "capitalism experience.''
Fernandez has been estranged from Castro since she defected from Cuba in 1993 disguised as a Spanish tourist. She now lives in Spain.
Fernandez suggests upon his return Elian may be hailed as a hero, but more likely will ``disappear somewhere.''
Fernandez quoted one of her father's recent speeches in which he said that the Cuban government ``will have to take care of [Elian's] mental condition once back.''
She explained that the Cuban government will fear that the child will spread criticism of the Cuban government or relate to other children his experiences in the United States.
Get the full interview. Go to NewsMax.com -- America's news page.
Contact person at www.NewsMax.com: Sandy Frazier, 516-326-0337
SOURCE: NewsMax.com
Cuba Protests UN Rights Resolution
By Vivian Sequera, Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA (AP) - Cuba called 100,000 people into the streets Tuesday to denounce a U.N. Human Rights Commission resolution criticizing the communist island, accusing its Czech sponsors of being U.S. lackeys.
A sea of Cubans marched past the two-story Czech Embassy for about 90 minutes, shouting ``Traitors! Marionettes!'' and a few obscenities.
``This is the seat of the lackeys!'' exclaimed a Cuban state television announcer as the crowd waved small Cuban flags made of paper. The government urged other Cubans to stay away, saying there was not enough room on the narrow streets for more.
While the march took place, the rights commission in Geneva voted 21-18 to censure Cuba for its human rights record. The measure was introduced by the Czech Republic and was cosponsored by Poland, though Cuban officials made no reference to the Polish role.
The censure expressed ``concern about the continued repression of members of the political opposition and about the detention of dissidents'' and accused Cuba of ``continued violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms ... such as freedom of expression, association and assembly.''
Both the government and marchers expressed a sense of betrayal; Czechs were Cuba's close allies before the collapse of the Soviet bloc at the start of the 1990s led to noncommunist governments in both.
``All those countries that were our friends are now betraying us,'' said Daniel Heredia, a 44-year-old mechanic who marched. ``They don't have any right to do that.''
``Those people always helped us and now they are putting themselves on the side of the big countries and not with us ... a small country that needs help,'' said Armando Flores, a 56-year-old university professor.
Swarms of Cuban police kept protesters from the embassy, where a large Czech flag waved beside a towering palm tree.
State television announcers accused the Czechs of oppressing Gypsies and the United States of violating the rights of immigrants and prisoners.
They also accused the United States of violating the rights of Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old at the center of a custody dispute between the boy's Cuban father and his great-uncle in Miami.
``Who are they to make accusations about violations of human rights?'' asked an announcer, his voice quavering with anger.
The government statement announcing the march said the Geneva resolution was ``directed by the United States and seconded by the hypocrisy and racism of Europe with the miserable complicity of lackeys headed by the Czech Republic.'' The statement also called the commission corrupt.
Another mass rally was scheduled for Thursday in front of the U.S. Interests Section, which serves in place of an embassy because Cuba and the United States have no formal diplomatic relations.
A similar resolution censuring Cuba was narrowly approved last year after being defeated in 1998 for the first time since 1991.
In Prague, Czech President Vaclav Havel said in a statement that ``the aim of the U.N. resolution is not to enforce the spirit of confrontation and intolerance. Rather, we want to make clear that the problem of human rights in Cuba can only be solved by cooperation based on a democratic
dialogue.''
Exiles Tie U.N. Vote on Cuban Rights to Elian Case
MIAMI, 18 (Reuters) - U.N. condemnation of Cuba's human rights record bolsters arguments that Cuban castaway Elian Gonzalez should not be returned to the ``tropical gulag,'' Cuban exiles and U.S. conservatives said on Tuesday.
In Geneva, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights adopted on Tuesday a resolution denouncing communist-ruled Cuba as a repressor of political dissent and religious expression. The resolution was submitted by the Czech Republic and Poland and backed by countries that included the United States.
``It is bitterly ironic that the Clinton administration is rushing to send Elian Gonzalez back to a country that has just been singled out by the U.N. for its systematic violation of human rights,'' Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.
The North Carolina Republican said President Fidel Castro's government had unleashed the worst crackdown in Cuba in a decade, arresting 600 dissidents in the last five months.
The Cuban American National Foundation, a prominent Cuban exile group lobbying to keep Elian in the United States, called the U.N. vote a victory over the Castro regime.
``At a time when the U.S. argues for the return of Elian Gonzalez to a nation that enslaves its citizens and attempts to crush their will and hopes, this victory should give pause to all those who yet fail to comprehend or accept the nightmare that is Fidel Castro in the Cuban people's long
dream to live with freedom and human dignity,'' the group said.
Rulings Favor Boy's Return
U.S. immigration officials and courts have ruled that Elian, who survived a shipwreck in which his mother drowned trying to flee Cuba in November, should be returned to his father, who wants to take him back to Cuba.
The Cuban American National Foundation said that the U.N. action supported a lawsuit filed on Elian's behalf last week in a Washington federal court that argued that Elian should not be returned to a country that violated human rights.
``This is at the very core of the debate surrounding his fate and why it is morally reprehensible that this boy should be returned to Cuba while being deprived of his basic rights,'' the foundation said.
``Today's victory serves to bolster the case of the 6-year-old child, highlighting the Cuban American community's concern that if returned, Elian would be sacrificed to a future of servitude as a pawn of the state in violation of his most fundamental human rights,'' it said.
Helms said that ``sending the boy back to Castro's tropical gulag cuts the heart out of our political asylum laws.''
U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Miami Republican who co-sponsored a bill to make Elian a U.S. citizen and sent the boy's father a thinly veiled invitation to defect to the United States, praised the governments that supported the U.N. resolution.
``Each and every government that stood today in Geneva with the Cuban people's right to live in freedom and dignity has earned the gratitude of freedom-loving people everywhere,'' he said.
Feds May Use Force To Get Cuban Boy
By Meg Richards, Associated Press Writer.
MIAMI (AP) - U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno made clear today she is considering using force to reunite Elian Gonzalez with his father, but is trying to avoid violence.
``There may come a time when there is no other alternative. But we've got to do it in a careful, thoughtful way,'' Reno told reporters in Washington today. She refused to give any timetable on any action, but said the government was waiting for a crucial federal court ruling.
She said she didn't regret traveling to Miami to try to work out an agreement, which failed when the boy's great-uncle defied her demand to return the boy. Since then, there has been a stalemate in the case as the federal appeals panel considers whether the government can remove the boy from the
country.
``If the criticism of me is that I'm trying to avoid violence, if the criticism of me is that I'm trying to avoid that little boy being hurt ... I plead guilty,'' she said.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has had written arguments from government attorneys and those for the boy's Miami relatives since Friday night.
At the Little Havana home where Elian lives with his relatives, emotions spilled over Tuesday night as a man was hustled off in a police car after angering the crowd. More than 100 people pushed and shoved him away from the home before police intervened.
``I was holding a sign that said `Send Elian Home,''' the man said before he was taken away shouting, ``Let the kid go back to his father!'' Cuban-American leaders called the man a pro-Castro instigator.
Later, a second man was escorted off the block by police after he yelled, ``The child should go back to his father,'' police and witnesses said.
``These are people who come to fight with us,'' said Esteban Nunes, a 60-year-old construction worker, said of the counter-protester. ``He doesn't have the right to do it here. He can do it away from here. This is a sacred place for the child.''
Earlier Tuesday, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., urged the crowd to remain peaceful: ``Violence is not an option. Whoever threatens violence is an enemy, an enemy of this child.''
Elian has captured headlines here and in Cuba ever since fishermen found him clinging to an inner tube off the Florida Coast in November. His mother and 10 others drowned in an attempt to flee Cuba.
Lazaro Gonzalez was awarded temporary custody and the boy has stayed at his great-uncle's home since then. The Miami relatives say Elian will be better off living with them, and their bid for an asylum hearing is also before the appeals court, with oral arguments scheduled for May 11.
The Clinton administration, however, has pressed for the reunion of Elian with his father, saying only he can speak for the boy on immigration matters. Last week, federal officials revoked the temporary custody arrangement made with Lazaro Gonzalez.
The boy's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, flew to Washington on April 6 and has been waiting to meet his son and take him back to Cuba. The government has said he is willing to wait in the United States for the asylum issue to be settled - if he has custody of Elian.
Outside the home Tuesday night, Rose Roque was tired after a long day at work. But the fiftysomething secretary said: ``I have to be here.''
Not far away, Orlando Garcia was finishing up a day of selling small Cuban and American flags. He figured he had sold 20 or 30 of the little banners at $5 apiece - a so-so day.
``It has to end soon,'' Garcia said of the custody dispute. ``By next week, it will be over. It has to be.''
Cuba Loses Bid to Relax Ban on Turtle Trade
By Kieran Murray
NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) - Cuba's bid to relax a 25-year-old ban on the trade in marine turtles narrowly failed Tuesday when a U.N. conference refused to let it sell its stocks of rare hawksbill turtle shells.
Delegates at a 150-nation conference of the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) voted down a proposal allowing Cuba to sell 15,200 pounds of hawksbill shells to Japan in a one-off auction.
Cuba needed a two-thirds majority but fell short with 66 nations voting in favor and 38 against. Fifteen abstained.
Cuba had also requested the right to catch and trade up to 500 hawksbill specimens a year from its waters, but it withdrew that proposal in the face of broad opposition.
It is possible, however, that Cuba will try reviving the auction proposal at the CITES conference Wednesday or Thursday.
Conference sources said the European Union may offer a compromise deal under which there would be no sales for now but Cuba's population would be placed in a separate category, making it easier for the approval of one-off sales in the future.
Hawksbills can weigh up to 132 pounds in weight and their shells are elaborately patterned with streaks of amber, yellow and brown, making them the most sought after of the world's seven species of marine turtle.
Shells Used For Jewelry
The shell, known as ``bekko'' in Japan, is used for intricate jewelry and ornaments. Hawksbill hides are cured to make leather boots.
Cuba said its sales would be tightly regulated and would not endanger hawksbill populations either in Cuba or elsewhere in the Caribbean.
``The shell stockpiles are rigorously controlled through a system that prevents poached shells from entering into the stockpile,'' Cuban delegate Silvia Alvarez told the CITES meeting in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
Conservationists agree Cuba has a strong system of managing its harvest but they warn the hawksbill is a critically endangered species and any legal trade would stimulate demand and so lead to a surge in poaching elsewhere.
``As soon as you allow trade in one species, it creates an enforcement nightmare,'' said Ginette Hemley of the World Wildlife Fund conservation group. ``By opening trade, you stimulate demand and the Japanese market is insatiable. You put at risk turtle populations everywhere.''
The U.S. government also opposed Cuba's proposals, saying a large proportion of the hawksbills that forage in Cuban waters actually nest in other areas of the Caribbean.
Washington's opposition prompted some suggestions that Cold War politics had entered the work of CITES but U.S. delegates insisted their stance was based entirely on science.
Cuba already harvests up to 500 hawksbills a year but the shells are placed into national stocks while the meat and eggs go to local populations for food.
Turtles have lived in the oceans for over 400 million years but their numbers have fallen dramatically in recent decades.
CITES imposed a global ban on trade in most marine turtles -- including the hawksbill -- in 1975 and added the remaining species to its list by 1981.
Hawksbills provide the finest turtle shells but other species are killed for their meat. Their eggs are very nutritious and in many countries are regarded as an aphrodisiac.
U.N. Condemns Fidel Castro
SOURCE: Cuban American National Foundation
Victory in Geneva Could Bolster Elian Gonzalez's Bid For Freedom
MIAMI, April 18 /PRNewswire/ -- In the wake of the Cuban government's unabated wave of repression against the dissident and independent press movements on the island -- a reality the Castro regime has attempted to divert media attention from by using the Elian Gonzalez affair -- the 56th Session
of the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC), meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, today passed a resolution condemning Fidel Castro's dictatorship for human rights abuses against the people of Cuba.
The initiative, spearheaded by the Czech Republic and Poland, was passed by a vote of 21 nations in favor, 18 against, with 14 abstentions. This resounding victory for the human rights movement marks the ninth year that the U.N. body has censured the Cuban government's abysmal human rights
record. Since 1991, the same forum has passed similar condemnations, with the only exception of 1998 when some nations opted to give the dictator benefit of the doubt following the visit by Pope John Paul II to the island. Most notable in today's vote, for the first time, Mexico abstained.
Co-sponsored by the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, United Kingdom, Hungary, Latvia, Albania, Finland and Nicaragua, the resolution, and its passage, mark a strong and important reversal for the rogue Castro dictatorship whose notorious and customary strong-arm
tactics and threats of reprisals against nations voting for condemnation did not succeed before an international community determined to take the tyrant to task for the continued campaign of terror unleashed against the Cuban population over recent months, and largely ignored by international media
that has focused narrowly on the plight of young asylum seeker Elian Gonzalez.
Today's victory serves to bolster the case of the six-year-old child, highlighting the Cuban American community's concern that, if returned, Elian would be sacrificed to a future of servitude as a pawn of the state in violation of his most fundamental human rights as enshrined in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, the cornerstone of a lawsuit filed last week in Federal Court in Washington, D.C. Cuban government officials have stated repeatedly that Elian will be subjected to 'reprogramming', a regime catch phrase assuring that the child refugee will be subjected to harsh
indoctrination and psychological torture in order that he be reintegrated into Cuban society and prevent any further embarrassment to Fidel Castro.
The vote follows the Cuban government's continued intransigence towards any modicum of democratic reforms. In February 1999, the regime's enactment of a Draconian decree, known as Law No. 88, dashed any hopes for change on the island as the regime moved to impose even harsher punitive and
repressive measures aimed at stamping out the Cuban human rights movement. Countless political prisoners continue to serve long-term incarceration, while embattled dissident leaders have been subjected to fierce crackdowns marked by relentless waves of arrests, beatings, and kangaroo courts.
Over recent months, the CANF engaged in a diplomatic offensive in support of passage of the Czech government's resolution. Mr. Luis Zuniga, CANF Board Member, and director of its human rights efforts, spoke before the U.N. assembly under the auspices of the Republic of Nicaragua and worked with
delegations of UNHRC member nations to secure passage.
``At a time when the U.S. argues for the return of Elian Gonzalez to a nation that enslaves its citizens and attempts to crush their will and hopes, this victory should give pause to all those who yet fail to comprehend or accept the nightmare that is Fidel Castro in the Cuban people's long
dream to live with freedom and human dignity. The people of Cuba, and all those the world over who cherish the values of liberty and democracy, owe a debt of gratitude to President Vaclav Havel and the people of the Czech Republic for their bold and determined leadership in assuring that Mr. Castro
will not be allowed to trample over the rights of the Cuban people with impunity,'' said Jorge Mas, Chairman of the CANF, ``This victory, again, would not have been possible without the leadership of President Arnoldo Aleman who has given voice to the Cuban nation before the international community,
and to Poland whose own scars from years of communism remain fresh on the hearts and minds of that nation.''
``That Fidel Castro should orchestrate a pathetic spectacle in front of the Czech Embassy in Havana today on the eve of this vote, underscores a rotund defeat for his discredited rule. Today, justice has prevailed, and the aged despot is shown before the eyes of the civilized world as the pariah
that he is, and that we will not allow him to fool public opinion while he continues to oppress and victimize the people of Cuba. We hope that this triumph will help to further educate the public, whose eyes are today upon young Elian Gonzalez, as this is what is at the very core of the debate
surrounding his fate, and why it is morally reprehensible that this boy should be returned to Cuba while being deprived of his basic rights. The time has come for all people of conscience and goodwill to at last demand an end to Castro's dictatorship and all the evils that he represents, so there
will be no more Elians, and that the aspirations of all Cubans for a new age of freedom can at last become reality,'' concluded Mr. Mas.
Today's United Nations vote breakdown in favor of the Czech Republic's resolution condemning the Cuban government's human rights record is as follows:
IN FAVOR (21): Argentina, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, El Salvador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Luxembourg, Morocco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Korea, Romania, Spain, United Kingdom, United States.
AGAINST (18): Bhutan, Burundi, China, Congo, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Liberia, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Russia, Sudan, Tunisia, Venezuela, Zambia.
ABSTENTIONS (14): Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mauritius, Mexico, Botswana, Nepal, Philippines, Qatar, Rwanda, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Swaziland.
SOURCE: Cuban American National Foundation
Doctor Urges Government to 'Rescue' Elian
By Frances Kerry
MIAMI, 18 (Reuters) - A pediatrician advising the government on the Elian Gonzalez custody battle pressed authorities on Tuesday to focus on the Cuban castaway's well-being and ''rescue'' the child from the home of Miami relatives who have battled to keep him in the United States.
But the Miami relatives and some of their supporters among the Cuban exile community hit back, saying the doctor had never even met 6-year-old Elian or anybody looking after him and questioning whether he was suffering in the home where he has stayed for nearly five months.
A leading Cuban exile group also welcomed a U.N. condemnation of Cuba's human rights record, saying it was a victory over President Fidel Castro's government and bolstered arguments that the motherless Elian should stay with his relatives in Miami rather than return to live with his father in
his communist-ruled homeland.
The Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) was reacting to the adoption in Geneva by the main United Nations human rights forum of a resolution denouncing Cuba for repressing political dissent and religious groups. The resolution was brought forward by the Czech Republic and Poland and
co-sponsored by countries including the United States.
Dr. Irwin Redlener, president of community pediatrics at Children's Hospital at Montefiore in New York, urged Attorney General Janet Reno to remove Elian from the Miami home of his relatives. In a letter, he said the child was being ''horrendously exploited'' in ``psychologically abusive''
surroundings.
Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, repeated that claim in an interview broadcast on Tuesday night on the CBS television show ``60 Minutes II'' and said he was worried about the boy's mental health.
``That's what worries me most. There's been lots of mistreatment and abuse of him, putting him in front of the cameras, exhibiting him in front of the cameras as though he was some sort of object or thing,'' he said, speaking in Spanish through an English interpreter.
He said CANF officials practically lived at the home of the Miami relatives caring for Elian and accused them of exploiting the boy.
``The only thing they're doing is using him as a political tool,'' he said. ``I am a father trying to claim his son, a father suffering for his son, a child who has lost his mother tragically.... It's cruel what they're doing to my son.''
Court Ruling Awaited
The dispute over Elian's well-being flared as his legal case was at an impasse pending rulings from a federal appeals court in Atlanta. The court is considering a request from the Miami relatives for Elian to stay in the United States pending their appeal for the child to be granted an asylum
hearing, and a government counter-request for the family to be ordered to turn him over.
It was not clear when the court would decide. Juan Miguel Gonzalez has been staying in Washington for nearly two weeks, waiting to take custody of his son.
Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, with the passionate support of many anti-communist Cuban exiles in Miami, took the child into his home and has fought to keep him in the United States since Elian was rescued at sea off Florida last November after a disastrous migrant voyage in which his
mother and 10 other people drowned.
The government, which has accused Lazaro Gonzalez of breaking the law since he defied a deadline for handing the child over last week, has said that once the court rules it is ready to move to retrieve Elian.
In comments to media on Tuesday, Redlener was particularly critical of a home video released by the relatives last week in which Elian told his father he did not want to go back to Cuba, saying it ``looked exactly like we might see in a hostage situation.''
``We think the child should be rescued from there,'' said Redlener, who helped the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) pick a team of mental health experts who last week met Lazaro Gonzalez.
Redlener said Elian is not attending school, is living in a house that is surrounded by a ``chaotic'' environment and has been ``paraded as an object'' by his Miami relatives.
Miami Lawyer Dismisses Comments
A lawyer for the Miami relatives, Jose Garcia-Pedrosa, called Redlener's comments ``absurd,'' adding that the doctor had not met Elian or anyone looking after him.
CANF spokeswoman Ninoska Perez said, ``Redlener is making serious allegations. I thought it was the most unprofessional thing I have ever seen. He has not seen the child. He does not know our culture. He has not spoken alone to anyone.''
Several exile doctors sympathetic to the Miami relatives also denounced Redlener's comments, saying he could not make judgements without having been in contact with the family.
If federal agents have to go to get Elian from the Miami house they will do so past a crowd of supporters of the Miami relatives and rows of media cameras -- the gaze that has fixed on the home since shortly after Elian lost his mother and survived two traumatic days alone at sea on an inner
tube.
A small core of supporters kept their vigil outside the house on Tuesday. Protesters, some of whom view Elian as a ''miracle'' child because of his ocean rescue, have waved placards ranging from denunciations of Reno to one evoking China's suppression of unrest in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Miami Mayor Joe Carollo meanwhile traveled to Washington and accused Cuban diplomats of beating up Cuban American protesters who were keeping vigil outside the Cuban Interests Section in Washington last Friday.
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