The Washinton Post, April 26, 2000
U.S. to Let Friends From Cuba Visit Elian
By Karen DeYoung. Washington Post Staff Writer. Wednesday, April 26, 2000; Page A01
Elian Gonzalez and his family moved yesterday to a private home at the 1,100-acre Wye River Conference Center, 70 miles from Washington on Maryland's Eastern Shore. The State Department said it will allow at least four of his playmates from Cuba to come to visit him.
Traveling in a caravan under guard by U.S. marshals, the family left Andrews Air Force Base, where it has stayed since Elian arrived from Miami Saturday, just before 1 p.m. Its new home is at Carmichael Farm, a residence along the Wye River described as comfortable but not opulent, located at
the edge of the secluded conference center property.
The conference center is part of the Aspen Institute. The Gonzalez family, including Elian's father, stepmother and infant half-brother, is believed to be staying in one of the farm's guest cottages, where it is expected to remain until the end of legal challenges to Elian's return to Cuba.
Before leaving Andrews, Elian spent 2 1/2 hours, alone and with his father, with Paulina Kernberg, a Spanish-speaking psychiatrist and professor at Cornell University. Kernberg, one of the three mental health experts originally asked by the government to advise it regarding transfer of Elian
from his Miami relatives to his father, will report her findings today to Immigration and Naturalization Commissioner Doris M. Meissner. But officials said that "all indications are [Elian] is doing very well."
In response to a request Monday night by his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, the State Department said it will "expedite" U.S. visas for four of Elian's playmates, each to be accompanied by an adult family member. Spokesman James P. Rubin said that the visas will be valid for
approximately two weeks and that both the adults and children must apply through the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.
The Cuban government made an earlier request for 22 people, including children, psychologists, teachers and other health personnel, to travel to the United States to take care of Elian. Although officials said those requests are being reviewed, they indicated it was extremely unlikely that any
adults--other than those approved as playmates' parents--would be granted visas.
As political controversy over the predawn raid by INS agents continued, Vice President Gore said he would have handled the situation in Miami "differently." Gore, who broke with the Clinton administration over whether the government should order Elian returned to his Cuban father, told
National Public Radio, "I would try to bring the family together, and barring that, try to handle it in family court."
President Clinton yesterday said the INS's seizure of Elian "after five months . . . was long overdue." At the beginning of a White House ceremony to renew his call for expanding the federal law against hate crimes, Clinton said he wanted to "commend the attorney general and
Deputy Attorney General [Eric H.] Holder, law enforcement and the INS. They had a very, very difficult job to do, with no easy choices." Law enforcement officials present applauded Holder and Attorney General Janet Reno, both of whom were present.
Clinton called for "all of us, including the media and those of us in public life," to give Elian and his immediate family "space," and "to work to lessen the pressure on them as the matter goes forward in the courts."
That appeared unlikely, however, as Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) announced plans for Judiciary Committee hearings on the raid as early as next Tuesday. His announcement followed a 90-minute, closed-door meeting during which Reno defended her handling of the case before 13 senators
of both parties, satisfying her supporters but failing to assuage the concerns of her critics.
"I felt a number of questions were not adequately answered," especially why the Justice Department moved when it did to break off negotiations and seize Elian by force, Lott said in explaining his rationale for hearings.
Lott said he anticipated testimony by Reno and other officials involved in the case and possibly by members of Elian's family. Asked whether senators might call Elian's father as a witness, Lott responded, "He would be a very interesting witness, to say the least."
Democrats did not like the idea of hearings, especially while Elian's status is being litigated in federal court, but are powerless to stop them. "We're in a Congress that much prefers to investigate than to legislate, so we can just assume there will be investigations and probably
investigations of the investigations," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
Senators came out of the meeting divided over whether Reno's explanations were adequate, splitting largely along lines they had already staked out on the issue--whether negotiations to resolve the dispute had been likely to bear fruit and whether the show of force was justified by reports that a
violent confrontation was possible.
Elian's Miami relatives made two more attempts yesterday to gain access to him and his father at Andrews but were turned away. "He is arrested; I don't know what is the problem, but we haven't been able to see him, we haven't been able to talk to him," said Georgina Cid, a family
member who traveled here from Miami on Saturday with two of Elian's great-uncles, Lazaro and Delfin Gonzalez, and Lazaro's 21-year-old daughter, Marisleysis Gonzalez.
Juan Miguel Gonzalez, Elian's father, has initiated no contact with the relatives. His attorney, Gregory B. Craig, who several times in weekend television interviews invited them to telephone him if they wanted to request a meeting, said yesterday he had received no calls from them.
But the relatives continued court action in the case yesterday, obtaining a new temporary injunction prohibiting Elian from going anywhere in the United States "that . . . may be entitled to diplomatic immunity."
The emergency injunction was issued by one judge of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez has challenged a previous federal court ruling upholding the INS's refusal to consider two political asylum petitions he filed for Elian, and another with Elian's
signature.
The appeals court already had enjoined Elian from leaving the country until the appeal is decided. Yesterday's order--which the court asked the government to respond to by this afternoon and which is in effect until the issue can be addressed by a three-judge panel--came in response to a motion
filed by Lazaro Gonzalez.
The 22-page motion said the INS had removed Elian by force from "his American family." "Almost assuredly," it said, "the INS, Juan Gonzalez and Cuban government functionaries are working on a devastated, displaced and isolated child to secure a repudiation of his asylum
claim." It asked for "safeguards . . . preventing contact with any agents of the Cuban government while he is in the United States, including Cuban government officers, diplomats and particularly Cuban physicians and psychiatrists with instructions to re-indoctrinate him."
In addition to preventing him from going anywhere under Cuban diplomatic jurisdiction, the motion also asked for immediate access to Elian for the relatives and their own psychologist and attorneys, and for the appointment of an independent judicial official to deal with these issues on Elian's
behalf.
Staff writers Ceci Connolly, Helen Dewar, Hamil R. Harris, Eric Pianin and Jamie Stockwell contributed to this report.
Cuba Bids Again To Send Elian A Support Team
By John Ward Anderson. Washington Post Foreign Service. Wednesday, April 26, 2000; Page A04
HAVANA, April 25 –– Cuban officials are relaunching their offensive to send a large psychological support team to Washington, saying its mission would be to comfort Elian Gonzalez during his potentially long custody battle and help heal any emotional wounds inflicted by the loss of his
mother and the five-month frenzy he has been subjected to.
President Fidel Castro first proposed the idea several weeks ago, but it has gathered new momentum here since Elian was reunited with his father Saturday.
Elian's relatives and their supporters in southern Florida have criticized Havana's plan, saying it would be the beginning of Elian's Communist "reprogramming." In Washington, officials said there was little chance that so many Cubans would be allowed to join Elian and that no
psychologists would be permitted, but, technically, the Cuban proposal remains under review.
Under the plan, a group of more than 20 people--including psychologists and psychiatrists, pediatricians, additional family members, 12 first-grade classmates and two teachers--would travel immediately to the Washington area to create a little piece of Cuba at the Wye River Plantation on
Maryland's Eastern Shore, where Elian is staying.
The Cuban government originally sought 31 visas for the group but dropped that number to 28. Six were granted, including those used by Elian's father and stepmother and their baby to fly to the United States on April 6. Visas for three others--a cousin, a teacher and a pediatrician--were not
used but remain valid.
The U.S. Interests Section here said the other 22 visa requests are under review at the State Department. In the meantime, the department announced today that it will grant a request from Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, for visas for up to four playmates to visit the boy, accompanied by
one adult family member each. There was no word on visas for the psychologists or other adults.
Elian's Miami relatives and their supporters argue that, on his own, Elian might opt to stay in the United States but that under the influence of his father and a Cuban support team, he would likely be persuaded to return to the island, where following his ordeal and demands for his return have
become national obsessions.
Cuban officials deny political motives and say their first and only concern is helping Elian. The same support team, whether or not it travels to Washington, will stay with him and his family at a seaside villa in Havana if and when the boy returns to Cuba, they said.
"The best interest of the child now is to have a school, have friends, have playmates, have a normal private life, with a little less media attention and a little less political attention," said Ricardo Alarcon, the head of Cuba's National Assembly and the country's point man on the
Elian case.
"He has to remain [in the United States] until the appeals process is finalized," Alarcon said in an interview. "It can take months, and it could turn into years. What will happen to the little boy? Has he been condemned by the court? Is there a sentence against him and against
his father not to have a normal life?"
A Western diplomat in Cuba said the proposal is an astute blend of propaganda, medical treatment and heartstrings-pulling. "Like most things in Cuba, you can see the logic and interpret it as benign and sensible and designed in the kid's best interest by well-meaning psychologists, or you
can see it as blatant theatrics," he said.
Cuban and U.S. doctors have expressed concern that the 6-year-old--who witnessed the drowning of his mother and 10 others during their tragic boat trip from Cuba, then floated alone in an inner tube for two days--has been in an unstable, potentially dangerous and emotionally charged atmosphere
since he was rescued by fishermen on Thanksgiving day off the coast of Florida.
A federal court in Atlanta is scheduled to hear arguments May 11 in a battle between Elian's relatives in Miami and the boy's father. The relatives had cared for the boy for five months until a federal task force returned him to his father Saturday, and they say he should remain with them;
Elian's father says he wants to return with the boy to Cuba. Federal judges have ordered the child to stay in the United States until a final ruling is issued on his immigration status.
Doctors here argue that any young child would be deeply affected by what Elian has gone through--immersed in a foreign culture with a strange language; caught in a bitter family custody dispute; surrounded by dozens of reporters and television cameras; paraded before crowds; exploited by adults
as a political symbol; kept from seeing his father for two weeks; and then yanked snatched from his new family in an early morning raid by heavily armed federal agents.
"This is a child that has been submitted to a situation of great stress," said Aurora Garcia Morey, a child psychologist at the University of Havana who would likely be in any Washington support group and who is helping to design a treatment program for Elian.
"He has been caught between two worlds," that of the Miami relatives and that of his father, she said. He has occasionally displayed evidence of emotional shock, ambivalence and aggression, she said, and has not had time to mourn the death of his mother.
Patricia Ares Muzio, a family psychologist who also is on the team, said she and others are working with children at Elian's school, his family and officials in his home town of Cardenas to reintroduce the child to a normal life.
"We're working with the rest of the family in getting out of his head that he's a myth, the fame he's got, the religious stuff," she said, referring to his depiction in the Miami area as a religious figure because of his nearly miraculous survival. "All of this generates a
distortion in his self-perception."
Both doctors said the important thing is not where the treatment occurs, but when. And while they praised the work of U.S. doctors, it would be better if people familiar with "the characteristics and idiosyncrasies of Cuba" were caring for Elian, Garcia said. "He requires
professional attention, and we think the sooner we begin to work with him, the easier and better his recovery will be," she said. "We laugh when we hear people say that we're going to brainwash him, indoctrinate the child and manage him like a puppet. Nothing is further from our
intentions."
Alarcon said the group would be prepared to stay in the Washington area for several weeks to more than a year, depending on how long the appeals process takes. He expressed hope that, if it were drawn out, the first-graders' parents would be allowed to visit them in the United States and the
children would be allowed to go home during their summer break from school.
Interviewed last week, before Elian was reunited with his father, two of the students chosen to travel to Washington said they were excited at the prospect of touring the U.S. capital, but their main concern was seeing Elian. In his classroom, a huge banner dating from Dec. 6 hangs on the wall
wishing him a happy birthday; a large poster of Elian is suspended above the chalkboard at the front of the room; and his desk chair is draped in white cloth with a note saying, "This chair is untouchable."
"I want to go to Washington to find my friend, so when he comes home, he's not behind in school," said Mayren Rodriguez Rodriguez, a 6-year-old classmate of Elian's.
"We're going to help him with his schoolwork and to learn the sounds of letters," added Yerlandis Suarez Santiesteban, also 6.
"When he gets back into the group, he's going to be a kid like any other," said Elian's teacher, Yamilin Morales Delgado. "We're going to rescue him and bring him back to this country, where he belongs."
Officials here have prepared a seaside villa in the posh Miramar section of Havana to house a large part of the group should Elian return to Cuba. According to pictures shown on Cuban television, the villa has a large swimming pool, dormitory-style bedrooms, a new swing set and jungle gym.
Officials said the group would probably stay there for several months while Elian is reimmersed in Cuban society.
Government officials said that, upon his return, they will cancel the Elian television shows and rallies and pull down the billboards and posters that have made him one of the island's most familiar figures.
"We're not going to celebrate when that boy comes back," Castro said in a televised speech Saturday. "We can't appear like those people over there [in the United States] and organize a show with this child."
Staff writer Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.
Md. Farm Retreat Offers Elian and Family a Little Breathing Room
By Raymond McCaffrey and Hamil R. Harris. Washington Post Staff Writers. Wednesday, April 26, 2000; Page A06
Elian Gonzalez's new temporary home couldn't feel further away from the frenzy that has tailed the little boy like a shadow since his abrupt arrival in the Washington region on Saturday.
The estate known as Carmichael Farm sprawls across 300 lush acres just outside the tiny community of Queenstown on Maryland's Eastern Shore. It also sits on the edge of the Aspen Institute and Wye River Conference Centers, a 1,000-acre retreat that was the site of the 1998 Middle East peace
talks and plays frequent host to state, civic and business leaders.
Nina Houghton, wife of the late Arthur A. Houghton Jr., the Corning Glass magnate who donated the land for the conference centers, offered the Gonzalez family the use of Carmichael Farm.
Lane Cole, a town commissioner in Queenstown, wasn't at all surprised that Houghton offered the farm. She's a generous woman, active in her church and community, he said.
"Mrs. Houghton is a people person," Cole said. "If you're going to relax, you're going to do it there. It gives you a chance to get out and breathe the fresh air."
Elian, his father, Juan Miguel, stepmother and infant half-brother were driven by federal officers from Andrews Air Force Base about 12:45 p.m., arriving at their new quarters in the mid-afternoon.
"He's here," Drew Wade, a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service, said about 4:30 p.m. "He's fine. . . . He seems to be very happy."
It was believed that Elian and his family would be staying in one of the guest cottages behind the main farmhouse, a neat, two-story white home fronted by flowering trees.
Although it had been rumored since Saturday that Elian would come to the Wye River Conference Centers, his arrival at the estate still seemed to catch some by surprise.
When in mid-afternoon workers suddenly began putting up security lights in front of the farm, an army of media and giant TV trucks converged on the site well before state police had arrived to begin crowd control.
Some residents, who had to endure intense scrutiny during the peace talks, seemed to be turning sour already.
"Take him back to Cuba," one resident said as she drove by.
But others supported the community playing host to Elian, especially because it meant he wouldn't be going back to Cuba soon.
"He was happier here," said Carrie Harris, an associate at the Sunglass Hut International Watch Station on nearby Route 50.
Jean Cardwell, a secretary for a firm in the area, also said she was not upset by the excitement, even if it does mean more traffic. She said she hopes Elian gets a chance to meet some of the children in the community, one child in particular.
"I have a 6-year-old daughter who would like to come over and play," Cardwell said.
For Elian, a Called Strike
By Scott Wilson and April Witt. Washington Post Staff Writers. Wednesday, April 26, 2000; Page D01
MIAMI, April 25 –– He only had a few hours to decide whether to leave a family he loved for a country he did not know and was taught to fear. The airplane that would take his Cuban national baseball team to a series of practice games in Connecticut sat waiting at a Miami airport.
At 17 years old, Michael Tejera, a promising young pitcher, chose the United States during the fateful layover, seeking political asylum at his uncle's urging without having considered the step before leaving Cuba less than an hour before. He called his mother, Lizette, from a Miami radio
station with the news.
"I've defected," he told her. "Then we all started crying. She couldn't say anything back."
Tejera wouldn't see his parents again for two years, when Miguel and Lizette Tejera jammed into a 25-foot boat with dozens of others and fled Cuba. Michael, then playing in the Florida Marlins' minor league system, left for Miami for a reunion that, in some ways, is still unfolding.
Tejera, now 23, was one of several Latin American Florida Marlins, most of whom are of Cuban descent, who did not suit up tonight against the San Francisco Giants in support of the citywide work stoppage called by Miami community leaders to protest the Saturday seizure of 6-year-old Elian
Gonzalez. Two Giants players--including Cuban-born pitcher Livan Hernandez--sat out the game.
Players elsewhere also showed their support. In New York, Mets shortstop Rey Ordonez and third-base coach Cookie Rojas--both of whom were born in Cuba and live in Florida during the offseason--sat out tonight's game against Cincinnati. Cuban native Jose Canseco elected to not play in Tampa Bay's
game against Kansas City. Yankees pitcher Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, who was not scheduled to pitch, was not in uniform for his team's game against Minnesota.
The decision by the Marlins players--who also include starting third baseman Mike Lowell, whose wife is Cuban and whose parents are Cuban exiles--was a joining of hands with a community outraged over the treatment of a child who lived among them for less than five months.
But supporting the one-day strike is more than a political statement. It has become a story partly about the sacrifices and separation of fathers and sons. As with key elements of Elian's story, the boycott turns on deep memories and personal hardships endured to make the passage from Cuba to
the Florida shores.
"I've been in this country 34 years--my parents came in 1966 with three small children--and I owe it to them and my community to show my support," said Fredi Gonzalez, the Marlins' third-base coach who boycotted the game. "It's a fine line. You don't want to get involved in the
political arena. My parents took my brother and sister out of this situation and I owe it to them."
The general strike called by more than 30 community groups kept parts of this city shuttered throughout the day, but it failed to bring the city to a stop. The decision by some Marlins to boycott a home game, however, captured the city's attention.
The team's endorsement of the strike was viewed as a smart public relations move in a community with a large Hispanic population. After winning the World Series three years ago, the team's former owner traded some of its most popular players, including Livan Hernandez.
"I don't think it had anything to do with PR," said Eric Carrington, the director of media relations for the Marlins, who are averaging 14,000 fans per game in a stadium built to hold 42,531. "It had to do with the emotions and sensitivity of the staff--the people who work and
play for the Marlins."
Since the Saturday morning raid that spirited Elian to a reunion with his father outside Washington, Miami's Cuban-American community has denounced what it views as an unconscionable armed assault on the house. Many community members say Elian should be reunited with his father, Juan Miguel
Gonzalez, but not if that means sending the boy back to a communist country some of them have fled at great peril.
Although the protests have divided the city, it has brought together generations of Cuban families who observed the strike together and found parallels between Elian's story and their own.
Tejera, who is on the disabled list, joined horn-honking protesters along Little Havana's busiest streets today. His father, Miguel, took the day off from his job at a Nissan dealership on Calle Ocho, a cultural main street in the community. Michael remembers longing for his family to join him
after his 1994 defection, only to spend two futile years trying to secure their passage. His father said the family talked about supporting the strike--and eagerly decided to observe it together.
"This is a family decision," Miguel Tejera said. "We are all together on this and worried about this case. This decision is for the Cuban community, and all of us are very upset about what has happened with this giant deception."
Dominican and Puerto Rican players joined their Cuban colleagues in protest. Assistant general manager Tony Perez, a Hall of Fame inductee, was the most senior Marlins official to spend the day away from the ballpark. Javier Castro, a clubhouse assistant, also won permission from Marlins
management to take the day off.
Cuban-American pitchers Alex Fernandez and Vladimir Nunez, closer Antonio Alfonseca, pitcher Jesus Sanchez, outfielder Danny Bautista, infield coach Tony Taylor and bullpen catcher Luis Perez also sat out the game for the Marlins. Giants catcher Bobby Estalella, a Cuban-American, also joined in
the work stoppage.
Gonzalez, the third-base coach, arrived with his two siblings and parents on a flight from Havana in December 1966. Now he has a 6-year-old son of his own. "The laws should decide," Gonzalez said of Elian. "I want him to be here with his father--that's best case scenario. But I
don't know how it will play out."
Lowell, who leads the Marlins with 19 RBI and is batting .313, was born in Puerto Rico to parents who fled Cuba at a young age. He has characterized his decisions as "certain things you have to stand up for--things you believe in."
"I'm sure he had to struggle with this decision," said Carl V. Lowell, Mike's father, who left Cuba when he was 11 years old and closed his Coral Gables dental practice today. "I am proud of him beyond the baseball. He's always made me proud as a person."
In the near-empty stands tonight, reaction to the players' and coaches' absence broke down along ethnic lines, much as it has over the course of the Elian saga.
Best friends Luis Mion, a Cuban-American banker, and Ken Kendal, an Anglo high school football coach, came to the game together but with different views on the importance of the protest.
"I believe in what they are doing," Mion said. "It's a statement of solidarity with the community."
Kendal joked, "By looking at these stands, they need to get some solidarity going so they can get some fans."
Will Williams, a North Miami Beach television cameraman, came to the game looking for some traditional springtime escape from the drama that has dominated news and conversation in South Florida for nearly five months.
"They have a right to do it, but I'm not for the whole thing," Williams said. "Elian was used. It was all about Cuba and Castro, not about the kid."
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