Yahoo! April 24, 2000
Castro Praises Janet Reno
By John Rice, Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA, 23 (AP) - Fidel Castro praised U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno on Sunday for ``just'' action in returning 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez to his father and denounced U.S. presidential candidates as unethical for resisting the child's return to Cuba.
When federal agents stormed the house of Elian's relatives in Miami to remove him and reunite him with his father Saturday, Castro called ``a truce'' with the United States for the day.
The Cuban leader said Sunday that it would not have ``seemed elegant'' to attack the U.S. government that day, ``because they had done something just'' and because Reno already was being criticized by anti-Castro forces in the United States for the action.
``If I were going to complain,'' he said, it would be that Reno ``did too much'' in pursuing negotiations to try to avert the need for the raid.
``Really, at that extreme point she wanted a negotiated and peaceful settlement at all costs,'' he told reporters at a polling station after voting in Cuba's municipal elections Sunday.
Castro said the Miami relatives - led by Elian's great-uncle - had wanted the father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, to stay with them during a handover period - a proposal he said the father rejected as interfering with his right to the child.
The father has said repeatedly that he wants to take the child back home to Cuba, although he must stay in the United States until a court rules on an appeal for political asylum lodged on the child's behalf by the Miami relatives.
The raid led to violent protests in Miami by anti-Castro demonstrators who claimed it was a victory for the Cuban leader. Castro has led a five-month campaign for the return of the child rescued in late November off the coast of Florida after a shipwreck killed his mother and other would-be
immigrants to the United States.
Castro repeatedly insisted that he was not celebrating victory and noted that Cuban state television and radio urged Cubans to avoid open celebrations of the child's return to his father.
Castro said he could understand that claims he had won a victory ``could cause worry'' for the U.S. government.
Castro also denounced the two main U.S. candidates for president, Al Gore (news - web sites) and George W. Bush (news - web sites), for supporting a delay of the boy's return to Cuba ``out of pure demagoguery.''
``The candidates, almost without exception, have a terrible position, bad, without any ethics.''
``The principal reason is the myth that the (anti-Castro) mafia decides the voting in Florida,'' Castro said.
Gore said after the raid that the issue of Elian's custody ``should have been handled through a family court and with the family coming together.'' Bush was directly critical of the raid, saying the government should not have resorted to ``the terror of middle of the night raids.''
White House Blames Miami Relatives
By Will Lester, Associated Press Writer -.
WASHINGTON, 24 (AP) - The White House today blamed Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives for forcing the government into the armed seizure of the boy, asserting that ``none of this had to happen'' if they had respected the law and allowed him to be reunited with his father.
The administration also said it was proper for federal agents to carry weapons when they stormed the house. ``There was information that there might be guns in the house, out in the crowd,'' presidential spokesman Joe Lockhart said.
President Clinton felt the raid was ``the right thing to do and was the only alternative remaining,'' Lockhart said. ``All of this could have been avoided. None of this had to happen. This happened because the family did not respect the legal process here that dictated the father should be
reunited with the young boy.''
Earlier today, Attorney General Janet Reno refused to second-guess the government's actions. ``I have no regrets whatsoever,'' she said.
``I tried my level best to make sure we avoided this situation and if I bent over backward, so be it,'' she said on NBC's ``Today.'' ``I'm satisfied with the result.''
Armed agents broke into the Miami home of the boy's relatives early Saturday only after negotiations with the family there produced mixed signals, Reno said. ``We were told we would have a deal if we did certain things and we did it and it evaporated.''
The White House accused Republicans - in particular House Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas - of playing politics with the case and making ``wildly inaccurate statements.''
``Tom DeLay went on television yesterday and said there was no warrant in this case, that they didn't get a search warrant,'' Lockhart said. ``It's factually not true, and easily knowable, if you're not trying to play politics.''
The federal government worked hard to make sure the young Cuban refugee was reunited with his father in a peaceful and voluntary way, Reno said. ``We tried and tried.'' In the end, ``We did what we had to do and we now need to move forward and to give this little boy and his father a chance to
heal.''
A longtime friend of Reno, Aaron Podhurst, was brought into the negotiations with the Miami relatives on Thursday and was on the phone with the attorney general just before the raid was carried out. ``I believe a deal was within minutes or an hour away,'' he told NBC. ``I was shocked, I was
disappointed, I couldn't believe what I was looking at on TV.''
Podhurst said he talked to Reno shortly afterward and told her of his disappointment. ``She was as sad as I've ever seen her,'' he said.
Elian and his father are staying at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, where some of their Cuban relatives are demanding a meeting. The custody battle that has made headlines around the world is also getting renewed attention from members of Congress while the family awaits the next
court action on the case.
But on Easter Sunday, the boy's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, tried to create a hometown aura at the Air Force base.
They shared a meal of black beans and rice, walked on the grounds of the base with Elian's stepmother and half brother, even got a visit from the base's Easter Bunny.
``We're trying to re-establish a more normal routine, a less tumultuous atmosphere,'' Gregory Craig, lawyer for Elian's father, told The Associated Press on Sunday. ``The relatives have got to respect that.''
Miami relatives pleaded Sunday to see the boy they virtually adopted after his rescue from an inner tube in the Atlantic last Thanksgiving. His mother drowned when the boat carrying them from Cuba sank off the coast of Florida.
``I will not leave until I see this boy,'' a tearful Marisleysis Gonzalez, a 21-year-old cousin from Miami who has been caring for Elian, told a Washington news conference. ``I know he's not OK.''
The little boy with the ready smile became a political, almost religious, icon for the Cuban-American community over the last five months. And when federal agents snatched him in the pre-dawn hours Saturday, Miami's Little Havana erupted into near riots that finally calmed on Sunday.
Craig questioned the tactics of the Miami relatives, saying he had thought they would ``establish a channel of communication'' with the father rather than hold news conferences and make public demands.
``I think it's unfortunately been something of a disruptive cloud,'' he said.
Juan Miguel Gonzalez and his immediate family are considering where to move while they await resolution of their appeal now pending before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. But Craig said they have not made a final decision. He said they will stay in this country through the appeals,
bound both by the father's word and numerous legal restraints.
Craig is still exploring the possibility of bringing some of Elian's classmates and their parents to this country to wait with the boy and his family. Craig said the request is still before the State Department, which he said has been a bit more receptive to the idea.
As the father was trying to calm the family atmosphere around Elian, the political climate on Capitol Hill heated up Sunday, with many lawmakers questioning the federal raid.
In a national CNN-Gallup poll taken after the seizure, nearly six in 10 respondents supported the government's actions to reunite Elian with his father. They were split on whether the government used too much force.
Miami fell quiet for the Easter celebration, but was still a city under tight police control with smaller scale demonstrations. Sergio Perez, a Miami neighbor of the family who had cared for Elian, said simply:
``We will celebrate in tears.''
Associated Press writers Brendan Farrington in Miami and Cal Woodward and Brigitte Greenberg in Washington contributed to this story.
Castro Sees No Warming in U.S. Ties After Elian
By Pascal Fletcher
HAVANA, 24(Reuters) - Cuba's President Fidel Castro on Sunday dismissed hopes that the reunion of Elian Gonzalez with his father might improve troubled U.S.-Cuban ties, saying he did not expect the United States to cease ``attacking us.''
Asked by reporters in Havana what impact he expected on U.S.-Cuban ties from the Elian case, Castro replied: ``The normal life of 41 years ... of them attacking us.''
The 73-year-old Cuban leader spoke after casting his vote in local government elections on the Caribbean island, which offered a choice of candidates to sit on municipal assemblies but no alternatives to one-party communist rule.
Castro said Saturday's move by the U.S. authorities to snatch Elian from his Miami relatives and reunite him with his Cuban father Juan Miguel Gonzalez had been a ``relief.''
Since Elian was rescued off Florida and taken in by his Miami relatives after a surviving a shipwreck in November that killed his mother, the Cuban leader has waged a five-month patriotic crusade to being the boy back to Cuba.
By backing Juan Miguel Gonzalez' custody claim over his son, Castro clashed with his fiercely anti-communist Cuban exile foes in Miami who campaigned for Elian to stay there.
The Cuban leader made clear he was treating Saturday's action on Elian ordered by U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno with the backing of President Clinton as a rare one-off case in which the desires of the Cuban and U.S. governments had actually coincided.
He explained it was this which had led him, in a mass rally in western Cuba Saturday, to declare a single day of ``truce'' in which he had avoided verbal attacks against Washington.
As an example of continuing U.S. government hostility despite developments in the Elian case, he cited a censure resolution against Cuba approved last week at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
Castro said the U.S. government had promoted what he called an ``infamous'' motion at the U.N. rights forum criticizing Havana for repressing political dissidents and religious groups. The motion was presented by the Czech Republic and Poland and passed with U.S., European and Latin American
votes.
Referring to his ongoing battle to bring Elian home to Cuba, he said: ``The problem is still not totally resolved.''
He recalled that the boy and his father still had to stay in the United States pending the decision of a U.S. appeals court in May.
Nevertheless, Cuba's National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon, speaking to reporters later Sunday, described Elian's reunion with his father as ``a victory'' as far as Juan Miguel Gonzalez' ongoing custody claim over the boy was concerned.
``I am sure that this is a battle won from the point of view of political and public opinion,'' said Alarcon, who has been advising Elian's father throughout the five-month saga, said. ''And that public support will be even greater now that it sees a boy happy with his father''.
But he warned it could not be viewed yet as ``definitive.''
Castro also described the father-son reunion as a ``positive step'' but he expressed concern that the whole Gonzalez family -- - Elian, father, stepmother and little brother -- now ran the risk of being ``kidnapped'' in the United States.
``It could be that, after a while, depending on what happens, we might have to fight a battle for the family, because of it being held kidnap up there,'' he said.
He said the dangers and pressures threatening the Gonzalez family could come from harassment from the media and from continuing attempts by the Miami relatives and their Cuban exile supporters to keep Elian in the United States.
Alarcon echoed these fears: ``These people are going to try to delay and prolong any solution.''
But he added, referring to the pending court case: ``We have to see now who would dare to take a son from his father''.
Gonzalez, a 31-year-old tourism worker, traveled with his immediate family to the United States more than two weeks ago to seek custody of Elian, prior to bringing him home.
Reno Says No Regrets on Elian Seizure
By Jim Wolf
WASHINGTON, 23 (Reuters) - Attorney General Janet Reno said on Monday she has ``no regrets whatsoever'' about ordering the predawn raid by helmeted, gun-toting agents that reunited 6-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez with his father.
Reno described the action as a necessary show of force designed to prevent injuries as the government ended a five-month standoff in a wrenching international custody battle.
Overcome with emotion, Reno wept after ordering the boy's removal from the home of his Miami relatives in a raid that took less than three minutes on Saturday, her deputy said on Monday.
Elian had lived in the house with his great-uncle and other relatives since being rescued at sea on Nov. 25 after the child's mother and 10 other people in the group drowned en route from Cuba.
Senate Republican leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois and Texas Gov. George W. Bush (news - web sites), the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, criticized the White House for sending federal agents, automatic weapons at the ready, to seize Elian
as negotiations on his possible handover were continuing.
But President Clinton is convinced the operation ``was the right thing to do and was the only alternative remaining to us to reunite the boy with his father,'' White House spokesman Joe Lockhart told reporters.
``There simply was no movement on the most crucial issue which was would the Miami relatives respect the INS rulings and the court rulings that the father had custody of the young boy,'' he said.
Legal Battle Far From Over
Republicans in Congress said they would hold hearings into the raid, which several key members likened to ``storm trooper'' tactics at odds with U.S. ideals, even though the administration had obtained a search warrant from a federal judge.
Elian has been secluded in the custody of his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, a Cuban tourism worker, since Saturday at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington in suburban Maryland.
Gonzalez arrived in Washington from Cuba on April 6 to reclaim his son.
The Miami relatives who flew to Washington on Saturday afternoon have been pressing in vain for access to the boy and his father.
The legal battle over Elian is far from over. Next up is a May 11 hearing before a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Atlanta to decide whether Elian is entitled to an asylum hearing. The boy quickly became the poster child of Cuban Americans opposed to the Communist rule of Cuban
President Fidel Castro.
Reno, in an interview on the NBC ``Today'' program, said ''force was not used,'' despite the fact that agents used a battering ram to knock down the front door of the Miami home.
``It was a show of force that prevented people from getting hurt, and it's something that we tried to do consistent with the best law enforcement practice,'' she said.
Fear That Guns Were In House
Reno said she had done everything possible to avoid sending in armed federal agents. She said once the decision was taken, the agents needed to be in clear command.
``And they have got to have the appearance and the capacity to take charge of a situation,'' she said.
``It is not a pleasant undertaking in any sense. And I tried to avoid it with all my heart and soul. But once having determined that we should go forward with it, it should be done in the best most professional way possible.
``I have no regrets whatsoever,'' Reno added. ``I have tried my level best to make sure that we avoided this situation.
Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder disclosed Reno's emotional post-raid reaction. He said he closed the door to a room where they had been negotiating through a go-between, ''held the attorney general in my arms, and she wept.''
``She did not want this to happen,'' Holder said on the ABC program ``Good Morning America.''
Aaron Podhurst, an old Reno friend who was serving as the middleman in last-minute negotiations with the Miami relatives, said on Monday that the government, not the family, had changed its position.
``We could have arranged a peaceful solution. We were not very far away,'' he said on the ABC program.
Reno said she kept getting ``mixed signals,'' notably over where Elian might be reunited with his father.
Podhurst called back at about 4:21 a.m., Reno said, ``and he said 'could I have just five minutes?' And I said five minutes.''
``And he said, 'that means 4:26'. And I said, 'that's right'. He continued to keep me on the phone, and I kept on the phone because I wanted to try to do everything I could.
``But we did not feel like we could delay any longer because the action was carefully timed. And if it did not go forward at this time, it would be very difficult from the future to effect a safe extrication of the little boy,'' Reno said.
FRC's Donovan Denounces Reno's Holy Saturday Assault on a Christian Home
'Parental Rights Have Been Grossly Abused During the Clinton Years. Why Now the Tender Concern?' Donovan Says.
Company Press Release
SOURCE: Family Research Council
WASHINGTON, April 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Family Research Council's executive vice president Charles A. Donovan expressed outrage at Janet Reno's pre-dawn assault Saturday on the Miami home where Elian Gonzalez has been sheltered since he was rescued from the sea last Thanksgiving Day. Government
agents rammed through a chain link fence and bashed down the door of the modest family home in Miami's Little Havana.
``Parental rights are vital, but this Administration has shown a curiously skewed solicitude in the case of Elian,'' Donovan said. ``This Administration has contemptuously opposed even modest legislation to prevent minors from being taken across state lines for abortions that would be illegal in
their home states. Parental rights have been grossly abused during the Clinton years. Why now the tender concern?''
Donovan noted that the armed assault on the Gonzalez home terrified the child. Agents burst in yelling obscenities -- ``Where's the (expletive) kid?'' Reno's troopers knocked over a religious statue in the simple home on a day millions of Americans regard as Holy Saturday. The assault came at a
time when negotiations were still taking place for Elian's custody.
``This is a day of shame,'' Donovan said. ``Americans will never forget, the world will long remember the dark day when armed men brutalized a child. Our beloved country, this sweet land of liberty, has been traduced. We pray for Elian, for his father and his extended family, for the patriotic
Cuban- Americans of Miami, and for those who were ordered to commit this monstrous deed.
``An investigation of the pre-dawn raid in Miami is in order, but the future matters more. Congress should act immediately to grant permanent resident status to the Gonzalez family so that the issues raised in this tragedy can be addressed in family court and under conditions that maximize the
opportunity for the entire Gonzalez family to taste the freedom denied them in Castro's Cuba. Finally, Attorney General Reno has demonstrated once and for all her impatience with the process of justice and her limited view of its scope, fatal flaws in a government official of her rank. She must
resign now.''
SOURCE: Family Research Council
Elian's Dad Seeking Normalcy
By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer -
WASHINGTON, 23 (AP) - Juan Miguel Gonzalez sought to create a haven of normalcy and, finally, a return to family life for his 6-year-old son Elian as a political and custody whirlwind raged around them.
Miami relatives demanded to see the boy, Republicans threatened congressional hearings on his seizure, furious Cuban-Americans protested and Elian's immediate family still faced lengthy court appeals.
But on Easter Sunday, the Cuban father tried to create an aura of hometown family life at their temporary quarters at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland.
They shared a meal of black beans and rice, walked on the grounds of the base with Elian's stepmother and half brother, even got a visit from the base's Easter Bunny.
``We're trying to re-establish a more normal routine, a less tumultuous atmosphere,'' Gregory Craig, lawyer for Elian's father, told The Associated Press on Sunday. ``The relatives have got to respect that.''
Miami relatives pleaded Sunday to see the boy they virtually adopted after his rescue from an inner tube in the Atlantic last Thanksgiving. His mother drowned when the boat carrying them from Cuba sank off the coast of Florida.
``I will not leave until I see this boy,'' a tearful Marisleysis Gonzalez, a 21-year-old cousin from Miami who acted as Elian's surrogate mother, told a Washington news conference. ``I know he's not OK.''
The little boy with the ready smile became a political, almost religious, icon for the Cuban-American community over the last five months. And when federal agents snatched him in the pre-dawn hours Saturday, Miami's Little Havana erupted into near riots that finally calmed on Sunday.
Craig questioned the tactics of the Miami relatives, saying he had thought they would ``establish a channel of communication'' with the father rather than hold news conferences and make public demands.
``I think it's unfortunately been something of a disruptive cloud,'' he said.
Juan Miguel Gonzalez and his immediate family are considering where to move while they await resolution of their appeal now pending before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta. But Craig said they have not made a final decision. He said they will stay in this country through the appeals,
bound both by the father's word and numerous legal restraints.
``They will remain here until the appeals process is exhausted and the stay or injunction is lifted,'' Craig said. ``That's why we want to bring some familiarity and normality - both for the boy and for Juan Miguel.''
Craig is still exploring the possibility of bringing some of Elian's classmates and their parents to this country to wait with the boy and his family. Craig said the request is still before the State Department, which he said has been a bit more receptive to the idea.
As the father was trying to calm the family atmosphere around Elian, the political climate on Capitol Hill heated up Sunday, with many lawmakers questioning the federal raid.
``This is a frightening event, that American citizens now can expect that the executive branch on their own can decide on whether to raid a home,'' said House Republican whip Tom DeLay of Texas. Republicans talked of congressional hearings on the raid and inviting Attorney General Janet Reno
this week to discuss the case.
The Justice Department's second-ranking official said the only regret was that authorities waited as long as they did.
``We were forced into the action we took by the intransigence of that family'' in Miami, said Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder. ``We probably should have taken a decisive action sooner.''
In a national CNN-Gallup poll taken after the seizure, nearly six in 10 respondents supported the government's actions to reunite Elian with his father. They were split on whether the government used too much force. Miami fell quiet for the Easter celebration, but was still a city under tight
police control with smaller scale demonstrations. Sergio Perez, a Miami neighbor of the family who had cared for Elian, said simply:
``We will celebrate in tears.''
EDITOR'S NOTE - Associated Press writers Brendan Farrington in Miami and Cal Woodward and Brigitte Greenberg in Washington contributed to this story.
On the Net:
Immigration and Naturalization Service: http://www.ins.usdoj.gov
Miami relatives: http://libertyforelian.org
Cubans Vote For City Councils
By John Rice, Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA (AP) - With a reported turnout of more than 95 percent, Cubans elected city councils across the island on Sunday in voting that officials argue is more democratic than that in most other countries.
Nearly 8 million Cubans aged 16 and over were registered, and the vast majority voted well before midday, choosing between two or more candidates in each district. At stake were 14,686 seats.
In the past three local elections since 1992, more than 97 percent of eligible voters came to the polls. Justice Minister Roberto Diaz Sotolongo told Cuban television Sunday night that the turnout this year was ``greater than 95 percent.''
After voting in the Vedado area of Havana, President Fidel Castro charged that in the United States, ``democracy consists simply of who has more money for publicity, for the campaign.''
Campaigns are virtually banned in Cuba. ``No candidate has a program or makes promises,'' said Justice Minister Roberto Diaz Sotolongo, head of the National Electoral Commission. Ballots make no reference to party affiliation.
The only information about each candidate is posted at the doors of polling places: a single-page biography listing their job history and activities in organizations such as the Communist Party or labor groups.
There are no parties listed on the ballot and nonmembers of the Communist Party can run, though most of the 31,000 candidates seem to be party members.
``The Communist Party is the party that directs the Cuban people, that directs our society,'' Diaz Sotolongo said.
Candidates are chosen in neighborhood meetings open to all.
Dissent rarely rears its head in the process: Cubans are more likely to express private complaints or emigrate, though officials argue that much of that emigration is for economic reasons. People from about 15 percent of the island's households have applied for visas to emigrate to the United
States.
Diaz Sotolongo said that under electoral rules, government opponents could become candidates.
``Why doesn't that happen? Because the counterrevolution does not have a majority in the country.''
Voting is secret and anyone, including foreign visitors, can watch votes being counted.
Critics claim that Cubans are afraid to nominate opposition figures or not vote for fear it might count against them in a country where the overwhelming majority of jobs are in state organizations. Even private companies hire from lists vetted by the Communist Party.
Diaz Sotolongo insisted that ``there is no discriminatory treatment of any kind for not voting ... There is no mechanism of punishment either.''
While advocating abstention can be considered a crime, none of numerous Cubans interviewed about the elections have said they know anyone who suffered for not voting, although few knew of any who had abstained. A few admitted concern about it.
``There's no pressure to vote; it's not obligatory,'' said Jose Antonio Lescaille, 29, who said he was ``proud of my country.'' But he said the party's neighborhood committees might take note of not voting ``as something else you've done.''
But another voter, Julia Garcia, 50, said ``there is no kind of repression'' of those who do not vote.
Little Havana Calm As Easter Dawns
By Martha Irvine, Associated Press Writer.
MIAMI, 23 (AP) - Easter - one of the holiest of days in Little Havana and the rest of the Christian world - found Marta Rodriguez praying for a little boy she knows only from a distance but, like many, calls by his first name.
``Pobre Elian,'' the 71-year-old Cuban immigrant said after Mass at St. John Bosco Church, where Elian's great-uncle and cousins have attended services.
``He should never have been treated this way,'' she said in a grandmotherly tone. ``My heart is broken.''
So it was for many Miami Cubans beginning life without the 6-year-old boy reunited with his father in Washington after a swift and stunning pre-dawn Saturday raid by federal agents. For the first time in five months, Elian was gone from Miami. And it was mostly quiet in Little Havana for the
first time in days.
But scattered demonstrations erupted around Miami late Sunday night, with hundreds of cars moving slowly along normally busy thoroughfares and small groups of pedestrians waving flags and shouting.
Police made a handful of arrests, but there was little violence. There were similar demonstrations Saturday night.
Earlier in the day, at the home of the boy's Miami relatives, a place once so overrun with journalists and protesters that it was dubbed Camp Elian, bystanders dressed in their Sunday best stopped briefly to look.
There was a brief skirmish Sunday afternoon when two young women carried signs supporting Attorney Janet Reno's order to raid.
``Not here! Not here!'' the protesters yelled, trying to hit one of the women and pulling her hair as she was escorted away by security guards. By evening, as many as 200 people gathered to sing, pray and leave red roses, carnations and other flowers woven in a chain-link fence surrounding the
Gonzalez home.
An emotional Mass was said for Elian Gonzalez at Our Lady of Charity Catholic Church Sunday evening. More than 400 people packed the small sanctuary, and many more stood outside.
The congregation waved Cuban flags, cheered and wept. At one point, the people sang the Cuban national anthem.
Members of the Gonzalez family sat in the front row, including Elian's great-aunt, Caridad Gonzalez, who was met with a standing ovation.
Outside the church, Robert Vento, 45, said he hopes the boy's father will decide to stay in the United States with his son.
``If he defects ... Castro will be unmasked,'' Vento said.
Ileana Dopico, 45, a secretary who was among the protestors outside the house when the federal authorities moved in Saturday, was in tears, but remained optimistic.
``I think God will work out a miracle so the child won't go back to Cuba,'' Dopico said.
During protests that lasted into Sunday morning, police clad in riot gear arrested more than 350 people and cleared away thousands more demonstrators from Little Havana. Protesters set more than 200 fires, burning mostly tires and trash, but there were few serious injuries.
At St. Michael the Archangel Church, another Roman Catholic church in Little Havana, parishioners held radios to their ears as Spanish-language radio buzzed with talk of a strike Tuesday. If the idea catches on - there are 800,000 Cuban Americans in the area - it could shut down much of Miami.
Postal worker Nick Perez Caurel listened to the announcements from his home a few miles away and vowed to take part.
``I haven't missed a day of work in six years. But in my own peaceful way, I will show my feelings,'' said Perez Caurel, whose parents sent him from Cuba to the United States in 1962 when he was 12 years old.
The former Boy Scout and Vietnam veteran also showed his displeasure Saturday when he came home from work, pulled an American flag from his hallway closet and hung it upside down in his front yard with a black scarf pinned to it.
``We've always hung that flag proudly - on the Fourth of July, days like that,'' said his wife, Rosi Perez Caurel.
Now, Rosi - also a Cuban immigrant - says she's not feeling particularly American.
``There is a saying in Spanish, 'Te mastican pero no te tragan' - they chew you, but they don't swallow,'' she said. ``That's how it feels.''
Neighborhood residents have photocopied and circulated an Associated Press photograph of an armed federal agent with his hand extended to grab a crying Elian. Some versions replaced the faces of federal agents with those of Attorney General Janet Reno, who gave the go-ahead for the raid, and
Cuban President Fidel Castro.
A poster-sized reproduction attached to the Gonzalez family's front door included this label: ``Federal Child Abuse.''
Not everyone in Little Havana was upset.
``I'm in agreement that his father is his only family,'' said 77-year-old Virginia Escalona, pausing before adding, ``Well, his grandmothers, too.''
As she stood outside on her apartment stairwell, her husband came out to try to quiet his wife, one of a few people becoming braver about a view that had been all but squelched in the neighborhood.
``Are you crazy?'' Escalona's husband said. ``You don't have to talk to the whole world.''
She shooed him away.
``I say what I like,'' she said. ``This is America, no?''
EDITOR'S NOTE - AP Writer Mildrade Cherfils contributed to this report.
Quiet Descends on Elian Case
By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Elian Gonzalez spent a secluded Easter with his father and got a visit from the Easter Bunny, insulated from the clatter in two nation's capitals and a shaken Miami over the armed raid used to take him away. ``Finally,'' said his father's lawyer, ``some silence around them.''
The 6-year-old castaway played on the grass with his father, gave a playful kiss to a tall white Easter bunny with a black nose, and ate a lunch of black beans and rice.
``They had a very quiet day, a family day,'' lawyer Greg Craig told The Associated Press. He represents Juan Miguel Gonzalez, Elian's father.
But away from their hideaway at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland, criticism mounted over the government's tactics, with congressional Republicans calling the actions akin to those of the communist regime that the Cuban boy had fled with his mother.
``This is a frightening event, that American citizens now can expect that the executive branch on their own can decide on whether to raid a home,'' said House Republican whip Tom DeLay of Texas.
A top Justice official said the only regret was that authorities waited as long as they did.
``We were forced into the action we took by the intransigence of that family,'' Eric Holder, deputy attorney general, said of the boy's Miami relatives. ``We probably should have taken a decisive action sooner.''
After a day of raw anger, street fires and violence in the Little Havana neighborhood, Miami fell quiet for Easter celebration but was still a city under tight police control after more than 350 arrests Saturday.
``We will celebrate in tears,'' said Sergio Perez, a Miami neighbor of the relatives who kept Elian for five months until federal agents brandishing guns burst through their door before dawn Saturday and seized him.
In Washington, near the heavily secured air base where the 6-year-old boy is staying, DeLay said he was ``sickened'' by the use of force and said hearings were certain on Capitol Hill.
``There was no court order that gave them permission to raid the private home of American citizen,'' DeLay said, appearing on NBC's ``Meet the Press. ``This has been a bungled mess.''
Countering assertions that it acted without legal authority, the Justice Department late Sunday released a copy of a search warrant obtained Friday night by the Immigration and Naturalization Service from a U.S. magistrate in Miami authorizing agents to search the home for Elian and ``to seize
same.''
George W. Bush (news - web sites), the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, attacked the government's course earlier and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi said he thought ``this could only happen in Castro's Cuba.''
Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat, said President Clinton personally assured him three weeks ago that Elian would not be taken in the night.
``There was an insensitivity, a crudeness to this, to do this one of the most deeply religious periods of the year, to do it at a time when families are reflecting on spiritual values, to do it in the middle of the night,'' he said of the raid, which happened at about 5 a.m. He spoke on ABC's
``This Week.''
Holder, on NBC, said a previous court ruling upholding the government's general actions in the case, combined with an order from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, sufficed as legal grounds for moving in.
He acknowledged concern by the administration that Elian may be used by Cuban President Fidel Castro as a political trophy.
``That is Fidel Castro's history,'' Holder said. ``He has shown that he has always tried to use whatever he can for his own political advantage.''
Indeed, Castro called Saturday ``a day of glory for our people'' as some 400,000 Cubans summoned to a rally celebrated the father-and-son reunion.
Praising U.S. officials for their forceful action, the communist leader declared a ``truce'' in his enduring Cold War-era struggle with the United States, but added: ``Tomorrow the battle continues.''
Elian, for once, was out of earshot of all the fuss. He joined his father, stepmother and baby half-brother Saturday in private quarters at Andrews Air Force Base, the home base of Air Force One.
``They had a very quiet day, a family day - I don't think they had many visitors,'' Craig said.
He said the family went for a walk and got a visit from the base's Easter Bunny.
Elian's Miami relatives, flying to Washington soon after Elian was taken from their arms, were rebuffed again Sunday in trying to get on to the base to see him.
Elian was rescued at sea on Thanksgiving Day after a boat carrying him and other Cuban refugees sank. His mother drowned.
``I will not leave until I see this boy,'' Marisleysis Gonzalez, the 21-year-old cousin who acted as Elian's surrogate mother, told a Washington news conference. ``I know he's not OK.''
With Juan Miguel Gonzalez holed up with his two sons and second wife at Andrews, the only accounts of Elian's state of mind since the reunion came from Craig and another supporter, Rev. Joan Brown Campbell.
She said on ``This Week'' that Elian acted like a ``very happy, mischievous, normal little boy'' when she visited Saturday.
Craig released two photos after the reunion, showing Elian smiling in his father's embrace and playing with his baby brother. The Miami relatives contended the images were manipulated, but Craig countered that they were taken with a ``disposable, Kodak camera'' given to him by the father.
Immigration agents who accompanied Elian on the flight to Andrews reported that when they left him with his father at the base, he was ``happily playing on the floor,'' said Maria Cardona, speaking for the INS.
Wailing as he was carried off in Miami, Elian was calm on the plane, she said, napping on an immigration officer's lap, coloring and, at one point, crying a bit.
In a national CNN-Gallup poll taken after the seizure, six in 10 respondents supported the government's actions to reunite Elian with his father. They were split on whether the government used too much force.
That question percolated through Washington.
``I was sickened,'' DeLay said. ``There was no danger to Elian. ... There was no danger to anyone. In fact, the government put these people in danger by invading their house.''
Attorney General Janet Reno, whose decision to use force was supported by President Clinton, said authorities had heard guns might be in the house or in the hands of crowds keeping vigil outside.
Holder said the government had no firm evidence about guns but given the possibility, ``we had to make sure that our people were protected.''
EDITOR'S NOTE - Associated Press writers Brendan Farrington in Miami and Brigitte Greenberg in Washington contributed to this story.
Family, Politicians Plot Next Move in Elian Saga
By Maggie Fox
WASHINGTON, 23 (Reuters) - Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old Cuban castaway at the center of an emotional custody battle, was kept sequestered with his father on Sunday while politicians, officials and relatives who had been caring for the boy jostled over whether the government was right to use
armed force to seize him.
Justice Department and Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) officials defended the three-minute raid on the Little Havana home of Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, in which armed agents charged in and grabbed the boy.
But several members of Congress denounced the operation as illegal and vowed to look into the matter. ``You bet there will be congressional hearings,'' House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, told NBC.
There will be plenty of time. An appeals court in Miami will begin hearings on May 11 on the Miami relatives' petition for Elian to be granted a political asylum hearing. A federal judge in Miami ruled last month that only Elian's father could speak for him and dismissed the petition.
The appeals court has blocked Elian from leaving the United States until the appeal is heard, and he is expected to stay with his father until then.
``I believe that the 11th Circuit will continue to act expeditiously ... and so I believe that we'll have an opinion or a judgement by the end of May or early June,'' Gregory Craig, lawyer for Juan Miguel Gonzalez, told CNN.
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said he did not think Elian would be speaking for himself. ``It seems to me that a 6-year-old is way too young to make those kinds of life-altering decisions by himself,'' he told ABC.
INS Commissioner Doris Meissner agreed. ``His father speaks for him. He is with his father,'' she said.
Meissner said the raid was completely legal and that the INS agents who seized the boy had a warrant to enter the house duly issued the night before.
``We had a search warrant, which we got from a federal judge around 6 o'clock that evening. It was a perfectly legal, properly carried out operation,'' she told CBS.
The first polls suggested U.S. public opinion supported the raid. A poll broadcast on CNN showed 57 percent of Americans supported the way in which Elian was seized, while 37 percent opposed it, with more men than women backing the raid.
Opinion ran strongly against the Miami relatives, the poll suggested, with 59 disapproving of the way they handled the boy's case and 31 percent approving. The poll had a margin of error of four percentage points.
The Miami relatives had temporary custody of Elian since he was found floating on an inner-tube off the coast of Florida last November, one of three survivors of a boatload of Cuban refugees who drowned. His mother was among those who perished.
The relatives want to keep Elian in the United States rather than have him return to Communist Cuba with his father.
The federal raid was seen by many anguished members of the Cuban exile community in Miami as a step toward that move.
``Elian became a Cold War trophy,'' civil rights leader Jesse Jackson told Fox News Sunday. ``The issue really is about (Cuban President Fidel) Castro.''
For his part, Castro called the reunion of father and son a ''relief'' but said he did not expect U.S.-Cuban relations to improve because of it.
The relatives, including Lazaro Gonzalez and Elian's 21-year-old cousin Marisleysis Gonzalez, who had taken the role of surrogate mother to Elian, held a long and emotional news conference at which they berated the INS and Justice Department for what they saw as an overly violent raid.
Marisleysis tearfully brandished the now-famous photograph showing a gun-toting agent reaching for Elian as fisherman Donato Dalrymple, who had rescued the boy at sea, clutched him in a closet. ``That is the face of fear,'' she said.
Meissner and Holder defended the use of force.
``We had intelligence reports that indicated that there were perhaps weapons in the house,'' Holder said. ``We had the safety of a young boy to keep in mind. We had the safety of our agents to keep in mind. That raid was done professionally and it was done appropriately.''
Florida Democratic Senator Bob Graham questioned this.
``There was a mammoth failure of law enforcement intelligence,'' he told ABC. They knew that it was not necessary to come with machine guns and scare children and tear-gas innocent citizens. It was a gross, excessive use of force.''
Just about the only people not standing up to air their views were Elian himself and his father, who were at an apartment on Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington for their reunion after a five-month separation.
``Seeing those two together yesterday ... this was a father who had very, very close ties with this son,'' Craig told NBC. ''The boy was totally at ease and immediately happy in his father's arms.''
He later released five snapshots showing a beaming Elian, eating, playing ball and cuddling with his father.
He said there were no immediate plans for the relatives to meet with Elian and his father. After the news conference the relatives traveled to Andrews to try to see Elian but were turned away at the gate and soon left for Easter services at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
``In good time, everything is possible,'' Craig told CNN. ''But to rush up here and transport the soap opera of Miami and try to introduce that same soap opera in Washington, D.C., I think that's a terrible mistake.''
An INS official said the agency was ready to facilitate a meeting with the Miami relatives, but said the timing would be up to the father: ``It's something that needs to be done at the right time, and we need to take the lead from Juan Miguel.'' Craig said it was possible father and son would
move to the Wye Plantation on Maryland's Chesapeake Bay -- a rustic park where Israeli and Palestinian leaders met for peace talks in 1998. INS officials said the plans were still being finalized.
In the meantime, he said friends or relatives from Cuba might be flown in to be with the boy.
Craig rejected Marisleysis Gonzalez's suggestion that a photograph released on Saturday showing a smiling Elian with his father, stepmother and half-brother was doctored.
So did the Reverend Joan Brown Campbell, former general secretary of the National Council of Churches and an adviser to Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who saw Elian and his father together on Saturday and said the boy was clearly not traumatized.
``He had his arms around his father. There was real affection there that cannot be manufactured. It was affection born of many, many years of caring and his love affair with his little brother is wonderful to watch,'' she told ABC TV.
In Miami, streets were quiet after a day of unrest in which police in riot gear sprayed tear gas to disperse demonstrators and arrested about 270 people as bonfires of tires and trash burned in Little Havana's streets.
A few curious people and demonstrators remained outside Lazaro Gonzalez's Little Havana home -- site of a months-long vigil. Across the front was a blown-up poster of the photograph showing the armed federal agent reaching for Elian.
Results From Elian Gonzalez Poll
By The Associated Press,
AP, 23 - Some results from a CNN-Gallup poll taken Saturday after the seizure of Elian Gonzalez by federal marshals so he could be reunited with his father. When results don't total 100 percent, the remainder either didn't know or refused to answer.
As you may know, federal agents physically removed Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives early (Saturday) morning and have taken him to Washington, D.C. to reunite him with his father. Do you approve or disapprove of that action?
-Approve, 57 percent
-Disapprove, 37 percent
(Two-thirds of men and just under half of women approved of the action)
Which of the following solutions do you think would be in the best interests of the boy - for him to remain in the U.S. to live with relatives who have requested he stay here, or for him to live with his father in Cuba, as his father has requested?
-Live with father in Cuba, 59 percent
-Live with relatives in U.S., 27 percent
From what you know about (Saturday's) actions, do you think the government agents involved used too much force or about the right amount of force in removing Elian Gonzalez from the Miami home?
-Too much, 40 percent
-Right amount, 36 percent
Do you agree or disagree that the federal government did all it could to settle the situation without using force?
-Agree, 54 percent
-Disagree, 38 percent
The telephone poll of 613 adults was taken Saturday and has an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
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