Yahoo! April 20, 2000
Cuba Accuses Czech Diplomats
By John Rice, Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA, 20 (AP) - Cuban officials have accused Czech diplomats of taking money from anti-Castro groups and the United States to aid dissidents in Cuba - and they called Czech President Vaclav Havel a ``fabricated dissident.''
The Wednesday night attack came in response to a Czech resolution approved Tuesday by the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
The resolution criticized Cuba's human rights record, and it follows a government-organized protest march past the Czech embassy on Tuesday. Cuban news media said 200,000 people attended - up from the 100,000 that were predicted.
In Prague, a Czech Foreign Ministry spokesman called the Cuban allegations ``total nonsense.''
``We firmly dismiss the Cuban allegations,'' Czech Foreign Ministry spokesman Ales Pospisil told The Associated Press. ``Neither the Czech charge d'affaires nor his deputy are doing any subversive action.
``The Cuban allegations are an obvious reaction to the Czech-sponsored U.N. resolution, which, however, was an offer for a dialogue from our side. It wasn't an act of hostility.''
With President Fidel Castro in the audience, Cuban state television broadcast officials and reporters of official news media denouncing Czech officials as ``lackeys'' of the United States.
Manuel Hevia, identified as a legal expert, read summaries of security dossiers on Czech diplomats in Cuba since 1989, when the European country threw off its communist government.
Repeatedly citing names and dates, Hevia described meetings between Czech diplomats and Cuban dissidents, accusing the diplomats of passing cash, computers, propaganda and other supplies to ``anti-revolutionary ringleaders'' on behalf of anti-Castro activists in Florida.
He claimed some Czech diplomats apparently were paid by anti-Castro groups in Florida and said one made more than 20 visits to Miami.
Some diplomats ``converted themselves into paid mercenaries,'' Hevia said, describing it as ``a deliberate work of espionage.''
``Those paid agents have betrayed the interests of their own country,'' he said.
Cuba apparently did not expel any of the Czech diplomats, though it has twice rejected proposed Czech ambassadors. The embassy in Havana is run by a lower ranking charge d'affaires.
The television program accused the Czech Republic of harboring Nazi-like skinheads and of demolishing social programs created during decades of communist rule when Czechoslovakia was part of the Soviet bloc and a Cuban ally.
It aimed as well at Havel, a dissident writer widely respected in the West before the ``Velvet Revolution'' ended communist rule..
Pedro de la Hoz, a writer for the Communist Party newspaper Granma, said the Western buildup of Havel's reputation showed ``how a dissident is fabricated.''
``They fabricated Vaclav Havel in a very similar way to how they try to fabricate dissidents in other countries, such as our own, where people with no talent, with absolutely great intellectual mediocrity, try to pass as poets,'' he said.
Pospisil expressed regret that Cuban officials had chosen to denounce Havel ``in such a coarse, unscrupulous way.''
The Cuban commentators accused Czech officials of being ``marionettes'' for the United States at the U.N. Human Rights Commission. The U.N. resolution expressed concern about the continuing repression and detention of opposition activists in Cuba and accused the Cuban government of continued
``violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms.''
Cuba Alleges Anti-Communist Plot
By John Rice, Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA, 20 (AP) - Cuba claimed Wednesday that anti-communist groups planned to use force to prevent federal officials from taking Elian Gonzalez from the Miami house where he is staying.
Fernando Remirez, head of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, said that men armed with shotguns are stationed permanently at a house close to that of Lazaro Gonzalez, the great-uncle who has custody of the boy, according to a text of his remarks read on Cuban television.
``Their objective is to block U.S. authorities from taking Elian from the house.''
Police said they have not seen any armed men around the house. ``Otherwise, decisive action would have been taken,'' said Miami police spokesman Delrish Moss.
He said police had been in contact with neighbors and found no problems.
Reporters outside the house also said they haven't seen anyone armed.
Cuban journalist Lazaro Barredo said the text of Remirez's statement had been sent to the U.S. State Department, as a show of concern for the life of the 6-year-old boy at the center of a custody battle that has become a battleground between friends and foes of Cuban President Fidel Castro.
A State Department duty officer said he had heard nothing about the letter.
Also Wednesday, Cubans expressed disappointment with a court ruling in Atlanta that said Elian should stay in the United States while an argument about a possible asylum request is resolved.
``The problem is Clinton. Clinton is guilty,'' insisted 59-year-old parking lot attendant Francisco Hernandez, referring to the U.S. president.
Elian ``should return because he is Cuban,'' Hernandez said.
In Cuba's first official reaction to the court ruling, Remirez and Parliament President Ricardo Alarcon said the judgment ``ignored the opinions of judges, psychologists and pediatricians'' about the boy's welfare.
In a joint statement read over television, they said that the U.S. government should have settled the case administratively by turning Elian over to his father four months ago.
``The U.S. government knows... of the dangers the boy runs and is responsible for his security,'' their statement said.
Cuban state television has broadcast almost daily reaction and commentary on the case since Elian was found off the coast of Florida in late November following a shipwreck that killed his mother. His father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, has gone to the United States to reclaim the boy, saying he wants
to bring him back to Cuba.
While news of the ruling had not reached the streets of Havana earlier in the day, Cubans told of it by a foreign reporter expressed support for the child's return to Cuba.
``This has to end,'' said Nancy Andino Diaz, 38, a cook. ``He has to return because his father speaks for him. How is it that this has lasted four months?''
``It's a crime that he is there,'' said Norka Mena, 66. She said the case should be settled because it has caused ``so much bitterness'' for Elian's family.
``It's an abuse what they are doing with that boy,'' said her sister Dinora Mena, 63. ``I'd kill for my granddaughter,'' she said.
Cuba Says Anti-Castro Gunmen Watching Elian
By Andrew Cawthorne
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba Wednesday accused its opponents in Miami of deploying armed men to block any attempt to remove 6-year-old shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez from the custody of his anti-Castro relatives and reunite him with his father.
Havana also slammed a U.S. court order issued Wednesday that Elian must stay in the United States while an appeal over his custody is heard, saying the court helped perpetuate the boy's ''kidnapping.''
State TV said Cuba's senior diplomat in the United States, Fernando Remirez, delivered a formal note earlier Wednesday to the State Department spelling out the arms allegations.
``From various sources, we have discovered that among the demonstrators opposite the house where Elian Gonzalez is held kidnapped, there is a permanent presence of armed men who respond to the most recalcitrant counter-revolutionary groups,'' the note said.
Cuban legislator and prominent state journalist Lazaro Barredo read the note on television, saying it was evidence of a ``grave risk'' to Elian's life. The note said the armed men ''intend to try and prevent U.S. authorities from taking Elian out of the house'' and gave an address where rifles
were allegedly being kept by ``counter-revolutionary'' groups.
The note gave various names of men whom it said had proven links to terrorist activities against Cuba.
A State Department official could not immediately confirm that the note had been received.
U.S. law enforcement officials have been keeping a close eye on the crowds thronging the streets around the Miami home where Elian has been staying since he was rescued off the coast of Florida in November.
One U.S. official expressed skepticism about the Havana report, saying it was unlikely that armed demonstrators would have escaped their notice.
U.S. officials, however, have privately expressed concern about safeguarding the security of the boy's father if he agreed to travel to Miami to try to retrieve his son, but there has never been any suggestion that the demonstrators could be armed.
Charge Comes During Televised Discussion
The accusation from Havana was made during a nearly five-hour televised round-table discussion organized by the ruling Communist Party to denounce and ``unmask'' a censure vote against President Fidel Castro's government at a U.N. human rights' forum in Geneva.
Cuban officials said Tuesday's vote at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights was carried thanks to U.S. pressure on member nations, and was part of a plan to discredit Havana's battle to bring back Elian to the Caribbean island.
``Those who so hypocritically worry about the human rights of a people who suffer a genocidal blockade and pitiless economic war are the same who allow the continued violation of the sacred right of a father to have custody of his son,'' said a government statement read at the end of the
round-table.
Washington has maintained economic sanctions on Cuba for the last four decades in a bid to oust Castro.
Castro, who was present at the televised event, has launched one of the biggest patriotic campaigns of his 41-year-old rule to reunite Elian with his father in Cuba. The boy's fate has been in limbo since he was plucked from an inner tube off the coast of Florida after a boat full of illegal
Cuban migrants sunk, killing his mother and 10 others.
In the United States Wednesday his future became even more uncertain when an Atlanta court ordered that Elian stay in the country until it resolves an appeal over whether he eventually returns to his communist homeland.
That ``new delay,'' Havana said in its statement, played into the hands of Elian's Miami family ``in their desperation, and without reason, to seek to legalize a criminal kidnapping condemned by the majority of American and international public opinion.''
It added that the Atlanta judges, ``consciously or not, have joined forces with ... the rancor and desire for vengeance of those who cannot admit 39 years of (Cuban) triumphs since the overwhelming victory of the Bay of Pigs.''
Wednesday marked the 39th anniversary of the defeat by Castro's troops, in 72 hours, of a CIA-backed invasion of the island by anti-communist Cuban American exiles.
Referring to its denunciation of the armed men outside Elian's home in Miami, Havana warned: ``The U.S. government knows of the dangers facing the boy and is responsible for his security. Any delay means more damage to Elian.''
Keeping up a relentless campaign over Elian, Cuban authorities have announced a protest march for Thursday by 100,000 people opposite the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana.
U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said earlier Wednesday the ruling by the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta did not preclude returning the boy to his father, who is now in Washington, pending a court ruling on the asylum claim.
Critically Endangered Hawksbill Turtles Spared Following Last-Minute Trade Bid by Cuba at CITES 2000
Company Press Release. SOURCE: International Fund for Animal Welfare
NAIROBI, Kenya, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- The following is being released by International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW):
In a secret ballot vote today at the 11th Meeting of CITES, Cuba lost its final attempt at selling off its stockpile of shell from the highly endangered hawksbill turtle.
In a last-minute bid to sell up to 6900kg of shell, or ``becco'' to Japan, Cuba offered an amendment to its proposal, such that, ``trade shall not take place until such a time that control systems in Japan can be verified by the CITES Standing Committee. This procedure should be carried out
within 12 months of the transfer from Appendix I to Appendix II.''
``This vote against the Cuban hawksbill turtle trade proposal is a victory for the conservation efforts of Caribbean nation range states who have been dedicated to protecting this critically endangered species,'' said Karen Steuer, IFAW Director of Commercial Exploitation and Trade. ``Their
efforts should be applauded, not slammed by a stockpile sale, which would have likely resulted in increased illegal hunting and trade of hawksbills.''
The Cuban proposal was opposed by Kenya and Costa Rica, who as range states, stated their opposition to action which would have affected their local populations.
Of the 108 delegations casting their vote, 67 voted in support, while 41 voted against, failing to carry the required two-thirds majority.
SOURCE: International Fund for Animal Welfare
Elian's Father Awaits Son's Fate
By Deb Riechmann, Associated Press Writer.
WASHINGTON, 19 (AP) - Like his 6-year-old son Elian, Juan Miguel Gonzalez has a boyish, mischievous side. But when he's angry and hurt, he displays indignation like the kind that emerged when he watched his son wag a finger at a television camera and exclaim: ``I do not want to go to Cuba.''
Gonzalez, an overnight hero in his communist homeland who has won the sympathies of Americans wanting to see him reunited with his son, was visibly disturbed. He got up, fought back tears and went off by himself.
``I watched the video of Elian with him,'' said the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, who has spent time with the Gonzalez family, both in America and Cuba. ``It was a terrible moment. His eyes teared up and he just said: `That's not my boy. That's not my son.'''
Gonzalez, 31, a cashier at a Cuban beach resort, came to America two weeks ago to retrieve Elian. The lad was found clinging to an inner tube off the Florida coast on Nov. 25 after a boat sank and killed his mother and 10 others.
For four decades and through the terms of nine U.S. presidents, Americans' view of Cuba focused on Fidel Castro, the revolutionary who took over the island nation in 1959. Now, they're seeing a young father who is loyal to Castro yet has created an outpouring of compassion from Americans.
In America, he goes to church and gets a standing ovation. Reporters are staked out in front of the Bethesda, Md., home of Cuban diplomat Fernando Remirez, where Gonzalez is staying with his wife, Nersy, and their baby boy.
In his hometown of Cardenas, about two hours east of Havana, Gonzalez lives in a working-class neighborhood in a small stucco house that Campbell calls ``sparkly clean.''
In America, he waits. He eats dinners of salad, rice, beans and pork cooked Cuban-style and watches television to catch news clips of Elian and updates about the custody struggle.
He shows visitors a home video of Elian's fifth birthday party in Cuba that features a clown and children watching the boy blow out candles on his cake.
``This is a loving father,'' says Albert Fox, president of the Alliance for Responsible Cuba Policy, a group opposed to the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.
When Gonzalez emerges, he wears spiffy, donated duds to meet with lawyers, members of Congress and Cuban diplomats.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service has ruled that Elian should be returned to his father. The boy's relatives in Miami want him to stay in America. They have challenged the INS decision in federal court and have accused Gonzalez of being an unfit father.
In this story of boy, father and dictator, fact and fiction clash.
Last weekend, Orlando Rodriguez, a Miami man who knew Gonzalez and his late ex-wife Elisabeth back in Cuba, signed an affidavit that said Gonzalez is abusive.
``I know of my own personal knowledge that Juan ... emotionally and physically mistreated Elisabeth, hitting her to the point that she went to the hospital for treatment for injuries,'' Rodriguez said. ``Juan Miguel is of a violent nature, impulsive nature and out of control - all of which
traits I saw him inflict on his own son, Elian.''
Gonzalez emphatically denied these charges. In an interview with CBS's ''60 Minutes,'' he said it's his Miami relatives who are abusing the boy.
``This is child abuse and mistreatment, what they're doing do this boy,'' he said, referring to the videotape of Elian. ``It is something that has been induced because these aren't the boy's true feelings.''
His attorney, Gregory Craig, says Gonzalez and Elian's mother were friends since their teens and continued their relationship after their divorce. A State Department official said Elian was conceived after the breakup, following several miscarriages.
Campbell, who was general secretary of the National Council of Churches when the Cuban Council of Churches asked for its help in December, said she doesn't understand the allegations of abuse. She said Gonzalez was very angry when he learned his telephone conversation with Elian was recorded.
``He has a temper, but I don't want to feed into an image of someone out of control,'' she said. ``It's very appropriate to be angry and to say angry words when you find out that what you thought was a private conversation with your son was taped.''
He's very attentive to his 6-month-old son, she said. ``The baby is extremely comfortable with him, he doesn't keep wanting to go to his mother even though she's nursing him. When he carries the baby around the house, he's always smooching him.''
But Frank Calzon, director of the Center for a Free Cuba, contends that Americans who argue about the father's parental rights don't understand that parents in Cuba don't have the right to make decisions for their children.
If Elian is sent back to Cuba with his father, he will become part of a young communists organization. ``In a very famous speech about 10 years ago, on national TV, Castro said to the Cubans: `Fidel is the daddy of all Cubans.'''
EDITOR's NOTE - Associated Press editorial assistants Sandy Martinez and Rebecca Sinderbrand contributed to this report.
Reno Center Stage in Elian Saga
By ALAN CLENDENNING, Associated Press Writer
MIAMI (AP) - Faced with a court ruling criticizing the government's actions, Attorney General Janet Reno canceled her visit today to a Montana Indian reservation to return to Washington and work on the Elian Gonzalez case. Meanwhile, the boy's relatives continued to spar through their lawyers
over whether, and where, they might arrange a meeting.
In the latest victory for Miami relatives of the 6-year-old boy, a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Elian must remain in the United States until the court decides whether he should get an asylum hearing.
The order, however, would not prevent the government from reuniting Elian with his father in the United States. The father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, has been waiting in Washington since April 6.
Reno, in Oklahoma City for the dedication of a memorial to the victims of the 1995 federal building bombing, said she would abide by Wednesday's court order.
``But it does not disagree with my determination, it does not say that the boy cannot be reunited with his father,'' she said. ``I believe Elian should be reunited with his father and I said that all along.'' Lawyers for the Miami relatives today repeated their offer to bring the boy to a
meeting with his father. They said it could be anywhere in the country, but also said the boy was reluctant to get on an airplane.
``It's time that the family got together to deal with this as a family - no preconditons, no government, no lawyers,'' family attorney Kendall Coffey told ABC's ``Good Morning America.'' He said the family still preferred to meet within close driving distance of Miami because Elian is frightened
about being returned to Cuba.
``Rather than insist that the boy go to Washington to see the father, why can't a grownup get on a plane and come down to south Florida. ... Maybe he should come down this Easter? It's time that the family got together to deal with this as a family - no preconditons, no government, no lawyers.''
But Gregory Craig, an attorney for the father, said any meeting must begin with Juan Miguel being given custody of the boy. ``It is long past time for this boy to be reunited with his father,'' Craig told NBC's ``Today'' show.
``The only meeting that we really care about is the reunion with the son.'' After that occurs, the family can talk, he said.
The boy's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, decided to offer to bring the boy to a meeting with his father after being assured by the court ruling that the boy could stay in the country, attorney Linda Osberg-Braun said Wednesday. Previously, the Miami relatives had said they would meet the father
only if it was without the boy.
In their decision issued Wednesday, the federal appeals court judges had harsh words for the government's handling of Lazaro Gonzalez's effort to win an asylum hearing for the boy. The Immigration and Naturalization Service had argued that Elian was too young to speak for himself and that only
his father, as the sole surviving parent, could request asylum.
``According to the record, plaintiff - although a young child - has expressed a wish that he not be returned to Cuba,'' the judges wrote.
``It appears that never have INS officials attempted to interview plaintiff about his own wishes,'' the ruling said. ``It is not clear that the INS, in finding plaintiff's father to be the only proper representative, considered all of the relevant factors - particularly the child's separate and
independent interests in seeking asylum.''
The panel cited a landmark 1985 case involving a minor seeking asylum - that of Walter Polovchak, who fought being returned to the Soviet Union. In that case, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court ruled that a 12-year-old was ``presumably near the lower end of an age range'' of maturity to assert rights
separate from his parents.
While Reno canceled her trip to Montana today, Miami police spokesman Delrish Moss said federal officials have not given any indication that they are going to do anything in the ``next few days or the next few seconds.''
Several options are open to Reno. The government could seek to have the stay lifted by the full circuit court or by a U.S. Supreme Court justice. Or it could wait until a May 11 hearing before the appeals court on the family's asylum request.
Yet another option would be mediation, an avenue the three judges encouraged the parties to follow.
Reno and the Justice Department still could forcibly remove the boy from the home and return him to his father, who has said he would remain in the United States while court action is pending.
``We call upon the United States government to take immediate action. It is unconscionable to wait one day longer. To do so will only cause more harm to Elian,'' Craig said earlier.
The boy was rescued by two fishermen while clinging to an inner tube off the Florida coast on Thanksgiving Day. He and two others survived, but his mother and 10 others fleeing Cuba drowned when their boat sank.
Lazaro Gonzalez was awarded temporary custody and the boy's Miami relatives have cared for him ever since. They insist Elian will be better off living with them, and argue that the boy would be psychologically harmed and face persecution if he is returned to Cuba.
Since January, Reno and the government have repeatedly extended the deadline for Lazaro Gonzalez to surrender the boy. Last week, they revoked the great-uncle's custody of the boy when he ignored a deadline.
On the Net:
Immigration and Naturalization Service: http://www.ins.usdoj.gov
Miami relatives: http://libertyforelian.org
Gonzalez Family Makes Ends Meet
By Rachel La Corte, Associated Press Writer.
MIAMI, 20 (AP) - With their modest stucco home turned into a fishbowl, surrounded by hundreds of supporters and the media, the daily task of making a living has come to a virtual standstill for the Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez.
It is unclear is how much help the family receives or whether anti-Castro groups are pitching in as the custody fight dominates headlines at home and in Cuba.
But if those close to the family are correct, the Gonzalezes are turning down offers for money. Last Christmas, they even gave away gifts intended for the little boy.
Family spokesman Armando Gutierrez said the Gonzalezes are relying on relatives for help, but neither he nor anyone else will discuss details of the family's finances.
Rent alone for the small two-bedroom home in Little Havana with the big-screen TV is $600.
``They are as tight as they can get,'' Gutierrez said of the finances.
Lazaro Gonzalez, Elian's great-uncle, has recently stopped working as a mechanic.
His daughter, Marisleysis, often described as the 6-year-old boy's surrogate mother, is on leave from her job as a bank loan processor.
Angela, Lazaro's wife, works as a seamstress at a factory, bringing in some money, though she has not been at work recently.
Elian, meanwhile, is being kept out of school and is being taught at home by a teacher.
Lombardo Perez Sr., who owns the Ford dealership where Lazaro Gonzalez works, said he stills gives some money to the man he hired just three months ago. Perez estimates that Gonzalez could earn $45,000 annually, but he is not receiving his regular salary.
``I help him personally,'' said Perez, who also is an executive board member of the Cuban American National Foundation. ``I do it as a Christian and a Cuban.''
Foundation spokeswoman Ninoska Perez said the Cuban exile group arranged two trips for family members to Washington, D.C. Other than that, the foundation has not given money to the family.
``We offered to help them ... they said no,'' she said.
Elian was rescued by two fishermen while clinging to an inner tube off the Florida Coast on Thanksgiving Day. His mother and 10 others fleeing Cuba drowned when their boat sank.
Gutierrez said the family has turned down offers for donated food and money and also has rejected offers for book and movie deals.
``They're not here to make money,'' he said.
A legal fund for the Gonzalezes has collected more than $200,000. Family attorneys are working pro bono - the money has been used for legal expenses including lawyers' trips, phone calls and court costs, not for personal expenses, trustee Dulce Cuetara said.
``Most contributions are $10, $5, $30, $20, we even have contributions for a dollar,'' Cuetara said. ``We have hundreds of people.''
Elian's relatives aren't the only ones carrying the financial burden of the custody struggle: The cost to taxpayers has hit at least $1 million, not including expenses for federal agencies.
Pay to Miami police - the city's biggest single expense - reached nearly $800,000 in overtime and compensatory time as of Wednesday, said Lt. William Schwartz.
Experts Surprised by Elian Ruling
By David Crary, Ap National Writer.
AP, 19 - Experts in child law were surprised, and in some cases dismayed, by a federal court order in the Elian Gonzalez case that chided U.S. immigration officials for not giving more weight to the 6-year-old boy's own wishes.
In most child custody disputes, asylum cases and other legal proceedings, an adult guardian would speak for a child of that age, lawyers said.
``It's unheard of - a 6-year-old being able to exercise judgment on such an important decision in his life,'' said Sue Burrell, a lawyer with the Youth Law Center in San Francisco.
``Whoever he's sitting with at the moment, he's probably going to try to please,'' she said. ``The whole idea of asking a 6-year-old what should be done is absolutely ridiculous.''
Burrell was reacting to Wednesday's order from a three-judge federal appeals panel, which said Elian must remain in the United States pending arguments in the custody dispute.
The panel suggested the Immigration and Naturalization Service had been remiss in not interviewing Elian about his ``separate and independent interests'' in seeking asylum rather than returning with his father to Cuba.
John O'Toole, director of the National Center for Youth Law in Oakland, Calif., said he was surprised by the ruling. ``A decision about whether to apply for political asylum is not normally left to a 6-year-old,'' he said.
Scott Altman, a professor of family law at the University of Southern California Law School, said most judges hearing family-related cases are interested in the preferences of 10- or 12-year-olds, but view younger children differently.
``Many judges are reticent to talk to a 5- or 6-year-old about their preferences,'' Altman said. ``They fear that just asking could traumatize the child, and they worry that children that age are not able to form sound judgments.''
With Elian, he said, ``We are asking a child to choose loyalties in a way that could be very traumatic. It's not obvious that a child could have well-informed judgments about a matter of asylum.''
Tom Lyon, another USC law professor specializing in child abuse and neglect, agreed with the federal judges that the INS should interview Elian, but said the boy's comments should be assessed cautiously in the context of other information.
``The real question is whether he's getting a realistic picture of life in the United States,'' Lyon said.
Burrell said Elian, if allowed to choose to split with his father, might regret the choice later on.
``There are many kids who've been taken by the state from their biological parent, but years later, that's who they want to be with,'' she said. ``Your parent is your parent.''
Excerpts from Elian Court Order
By The Associated Press, April 20, 2000
Excerpts from Wednesday's federal appeals court order in the Elian Gonzalez case:
On balancing the equities - which party has the greater right - of the case:
The equities, in this case, weigh heavily in favor of issuing an injunction pending appeal. Apart from concerns about what might happen to this child if he is returned to Cuba (which we do not address), if plaintiff leaves the United States during the pendency of his appeal, his case will likely
become moot.
Our failure to issue an injunction pending appeal, therefore, could strip the court of jurisdiction over this case and deprive plaintiff forever of something of great value: his day in a court of law. That circumstance alone presents a significant risk of irreparable harm to plaintiff.
On the Immigration and Naturalization Service's arguments that courts have no part in the boy's immigration case:
... we fail to see how an injunction in this case infringes upon the congressional power; after all, the heart of plaintiff's appeal is that the INS - by refusing to consider plaintiff's asylum application - has disregarded the command of Congress. And we doubt that protecting a party's day in
court, when he has an appeal of arguable merit, is contrary to the public interest.
On the merits of the boy's case:
The statute in this case seems pretty clear.... 'Any alien ... may apply for asylum.' plaintiff appears to come within the meaning of 'any alien.' ... We, therefore, question the proposition that, as a matter of law, plaintiff (unless his father consents) cannot exercise the statutory right to
apply for asylum. ... If Congress had meant to include only some aliens, perhaps Congress would not have used the words 'any alien.'
... Moreover, the regulations contemplate that a minor, under some circumstances, may seek asylum against the express wishes of his parents.
(In a footnote, the court said: To some people, the idea that a 6-year-old child may file for asylum in the United States, contrary to the express wishes of his parents, may seem a strange or even foolish policy. But this court does not make immigration policy, and we cannot review the wisdom of
statutes duly enacted by Congress. If Congress intended ... that a school-age child (such as plaintiff) be able to file personally an application for asylum, this court and the INS are bound to honor the policy decision made by Congress.)
In discussing INS ``Guidelines for Children's Asylum Claims,'' the court said:
Not only does it appear that plaintiff might be entitled to apply personally for asylum, it appears that he did so. According to the record, plaintiff - although a young child - has expressed a wish that he not be returned to Cuba. He personally signed an application for asylum.
In concluding, the court wrote:
By its nature, this order sets out more questions than answers. We have not attempted to address every point advanced by both sides, but we have attempted to explain our decision to grant the injunction. No one should feel confident in predicting the eventual result in this case.
Reno: Nothing in Ruling Prevents Elian's Transfer
WASHINGTON, 19 (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said Wednesday that nothing in a federal appeals court ruling would prevent her transferring shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez to his Cuban father as long as the 6-year-old stays in the United States.
``The court order does not preclude me from placing Elian in his father's care while he is in the United States,'' Reno said in Oklahoma City in commenting on the next possible moves in the international custody battle.
``We are going to take and consider all our options, and take the course of action that we deem appropriate under the circumstances,'' Reno said, leaving open the possibility that the boy will be taken from his Miami relatives while the case is on appeal.
Reno said the Justice Department, which has long wanted to reunite Elian with his father, will ``abide by'' the ruling requiring the boy to stay in the United States while the appeal is decided on whether Elian should get an asylum hearing.
The Miami relatives have cared for Elian since he survived a disastrous migrant voyage from Cuba last November in which his mother and 10 other people died.
Cuban Boy's Uncle Gains Fame
By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer
MIAMI (AP) - The stern, chain-smoking great-uncle at the center of the Elian Gonzalez controversy seldom speaks in public. He mostly stays in his back yard, away from the chanting protesters and media camped outside his house.
But last week, a slow, satisfied smile spread across the face of Lazaro Gonzalez as he approached cheering supporters standing behind metal barricades on his street.
After ignoring a deadline to make his 6-year-old relative available to federal authorities, Gonzalez walked a few paces toward the crowd and held up his arms, for all the world like Sylvester Stallone in ``Rocky.''
'Lazaro! Lazaro! The people are with you!'' He smiled as the screams washed over him, hands outstretched to touch him.
Not bad for a 49-year-old immigrant who speaks little English and was unemployed when the custody battle began last fall. Since then, Gonzalez has a new job, a spokesman, lawyers and informal security at the modest, one-story home with a $600 monthly rent.
He won a victory Wednesday when a federal appeals court extended an order keeping Elian in the country and pointedly saying that Lazaro's interests, ``to say the least, are not obviously hostile'' to the interests of the boy.
While Elian is the cause celebre, it is his barrel-chested great-uncle who has emerged as the opponent of Attorney General Janet Reno. Though Cuban-American leaders are constantly at his side with support, legal advice and, some suspect, financial aid, it is Gonzalez who has single-handedly
stared down the government.
Indeed, he is now treated with almost religious respect by the hundreds of protesters who gather daily.
This week, a boy with severe facial birth defects turned up at the barricade in his mother's arms. Gonzalez left his house with a swagger as he walked straight toward her.
As women and children in the crowd wept, Gonzalez lifted the child up and gave him a big hug. Gonzalez, silent, returned the child and turned back to his house. The crowd cheered, chanting ``Viva Lazaro, Viva Lazaro!''
Before Elian arrived in Miami, Gonzalez was well-known in the neighborhood, but he lived an anonymous life among the county's 800,000 residents with Cuban roots.
He was born June 20, 1950, in the coastal town of Cardenas, about two hours from Havana. Fidel Castro took power nine years later, and the government threw his older brother Delfin in prison in 1962 after accusing him of being a traitor.
Gonzalez married his wife, Angela, in 1971, and the couple had two children, 21-year-old Marisleysis - surrogate mother to Elian - and William, 27 and married.
Gonzalez arrived in the United States in 1983 or 1984, and made a living repairing boats and cars.
He did not appear to have been politically involved in the Cuban exile community before November, when Elian was rescued from the sea after his mother drowned in a bid to leave Cuba.
``Not as far as I know,'' said Lombardo Perez Sr., a board member of the Cuban American National Foundation. Perez said he gave Lazaro a job at his car dealership after hearing about the custody battle and estimated Lazaro could earn $45,000 a year.
Though Lazaro hasn't worked since the family holed up at home, Perez said he still gives him some money.
Lazaro seems bewildered by the government's demands. Like many protesters, he refers to a conspiracy-filled world manipulated by Castro.
``Definitely, a deal has been done, but we don't know who got paid for it,'' Lazaro said after Reno demanded he hand over the boy.
``He is a person who speaks his mind,'' Perez said. ``He doesn't have a lot of higher education.''
Family spokesman Armando Gutierrez said Lazaro decides the family's legal and media strategies, in consultation with Delfin, a 62-year-old fisherman, and Marisleysis.
``They meet together and make the final decision on everything,'' said Gutierrez, who - like the lawyers - says he is not being paid for his work.
Despite the attention, Lazaro always appears calm. He smokes Marlboros almost constantly and drinks an occasional beer.
``He is under a lot of pressure,'' Perez said. ``His only focus in life now is this custody battle.''
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