Yahoo! June 26, 2000
Remains of Fighters Returned to Cuba
HAVANA (AP) - Thirty-three years after their deaths, the remains of six guerrillas who fought alongside Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara have arrived in Cuba from Bolivia, official media reported Monday.
Their remains arrived Sunday night and were immediately taken to the Armed Forces Ministry in the capital, Havana, according to Granma, the official daily of Cuba's Communist Party.
At an unspecified date, the remains of Cubans Eliseo Reyes Rodriguez, Antonio Sanchez Diaz and Jose Maria Martinez Tamayo will be taken to the memorial in Santa Clara, 168 miles east of Havana, where Guevara's remains were interred in 1997, the newspaper said.
Accompanying the Cubans were two Bolivians, Serapio Aquino Tudela, who died in combat July 9, 1967, Casildo Condori Vargas, killed June 2, 1967, and Peruvian Restituto Jose Cabrera Flores, slain Sept. 4 1967, Granma said.
Their remains arrived in small wood boxes covered with the Cuban, Bolivian and Peruvian flags. They were found during exhumation work in Bolivia, where Guevara was killed in October 1967 after helping to bring Fidel Castro to power in Cuba.
Santa Clara was the site of Guevara's greatest military victory. The capture of the city by his troops on Dec. 31, 1958 sent Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista fleeing into exile.
After about five years as an economic official in newly communist Cuba, Guevara left for unsuccessful attempts to aid a revolt in the Congo and to inspire one in Bolivia, where he was caught and shot.
Cubacan Exploration Inc. - Appointment To Advisory Board
Monday June 26, 9:30 am Eastern Time. Press Release. SOURCE: Cubacan Exploration Inc.
CALGARY, June 26 /CNW/ - Cubacan Exploration Inc. is extremely pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Kirby Jones to the Board of Advisors. Mr. Jones is President of Alamar Associates, a consulting firm based in Washington, D.C., which, for 26 years has provided a full range of consulting
services to companies and organizations interested in establishing relationships or who are currently conducting business in and with Cuba.
Mr. Jones has infinite experience and exposure when it comes to business within the Republic of Cuba. Mr. Jones is a founder and member of the Board of Directors of Americans for Humanitarian Trade with Cuba, serves on the Board of the Centre for Cuban Studies in New York, and is President of
the US-Cuba Trade Association, a membership organization of US firms and international companies doing business in Cuba today.
Mr. Jones has also chaired all four US-Cuba Business Summits over the last two years, which has brought over 175 US executives face to face with Cuban officials and potential business partners.
Mr. Jones, who first travelled to Cuba in 1974, has been described by Newsweek as having ``better contacts in Cuba than any other American''. The Company is honoured to have a man of Mr. Jones's calibre join our team and look forward to a long and prosperous relationship.
BLOCK 22 EXTENSION
The Company is pleased to announce that MacDonald Oil Exploration Ltd. (CDN - ``MACO'') has signed moratorium terms under its oil exploration contract covering Block 22 in Cuba which extends to January 31, 2001, the time within which an election may be made to proceed with the drilling of a
second exploration well. Cubacan has a right to participate up to a 15% working interest in Block 22 by way of a Joint Venture Agreement between the Company and MacDonald Oil.
Cubacan is a Calgary based junior oil and gas exploration company with interests solely in Cuba. Cubacan is listed on the Canadian Venture Exchange (CDNX) with shares trading under the symbol "CCX'', the A Warrants trading under the symbol "CCX.WT.A'' and the B Warrants trading under
the symbol ``CCX.WT.B''.
The Canadian Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Allan J. Kent, President at (403) 777-9220, e-mail to carla.driedger@cmt.net or visit our website at www.cubacan.com
Gore Accepts Court's Elian Decision
By Mike Glover, Associated Press Writer.
MIAMI, 24 (AP) - Al Gore (news - web sites) accepts a federal court decision that moves Elian Gonzalez closer to returning to Cuba, an aide to the vice president's campaign said Saturday.
"We're going to respect the decision of the court,'' spokesman Chris Lehane said aboard Air Force Two as Gore flew from San Francisco to Miami for a Demoratic fund-raiser and party dinner. ``We have a judicial process in this country.''
"At this point, we'll wish what's best for the boy,'' Lehane said.
Arriving in Florida, Gore went to the toney Miami Beach home of Phil Levine, chairman of On Board Media where gave his standard pep talk to couples paying $5,000 each.
In the latest in a string of high-dollar events in the past few days, Gore brought in $250,000 in ``soft money'' for the Democratic National Committee, sticking to main campaign themes.
He also was the featured attraction at a $125-per-person dinner in suburban Bal Harbour that raised $500,000 for the state's Democratic Party.
Lehane, meanwhile, renewed his assault on Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., for disclosing a Justice Department official's recommendation that an independent counsel be named to look into Gore's 1996 fund raising. Lehane labeled that a ``smear tactic'' of leaking confidential information.
On Friday, the 12-member 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta denied a request by the 6-year-old Elian's Miami relatives for a custody rehearing and said it would not look at the case again.
The court said it would grant no further delays, and its earlier stay requiring Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, to keep Elian in the United States will dissolve at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
Father and son are staying in Washington, D.C.
Many political observers feel Gore's standing with voters, particularly in South Florida, with its large Cuban American population, has been hurt by the Clinton administration's efforts to return Elian to Cuba.
Gore believes a family court, rather than federal judges, should decide the case - a position counter to the administration's. He also broke with the administration by supporting legislation to grant permanent resident status to Elian, his father and other relatives.
Lehane said the issue has been debated and settled and that Gore did not plan to address it during his campaign swing Saturday.
Gore was expected to discuss Social Security and Medicare, issues important to Florida's sizable elderly community.
Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state, which has 25 electoral votes, fourth most in the country. But a Florida poll in May put Republican George W. Bush (news - web sites) at 47 percent and Gore at 40 percent.
While Bush's brother, Jeb, is Florida's governor, Gore's strategists contend they can run a competitive race in the state.
Castro Pledges No Surrender in Battle for Elian
By Pascal Fletcher
HAVANA, 24 (Reuters) - Cuba's President Fidel Castro said on Saturday a U.S. court ruling against efforts to keep Elian Gonzalez in the United States was ``encouraging'', but he pledged his country would not rest until the Cuban castaway came home.
``The encouraging news received yesterday ... will not allow us to let down our guard,'' the Cuban leader said in a personal message read out at the start of a huge pro-Elian rally of more than 400,000 Cubans held in the eastern city of Holguin.
Castro did not attend the event personally but was represented by his brother, Armed Forces Minister Raul Castro.
In his message, he gave a guarded welcome to the refusal by a U.S. appeals court Friday to reconsider its decision against granting Elian a political asylum hearing in the United States.
If the federal appeals court ruling stands, the 6-year-old boy could be back in Cuba as soon as next Wednesday, ending a politicized seven-month custody battle that has pitted the 73- year-old Cuban leader against bitter Cuban exile foes in Miami.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said an injunction blocking Elian's father from taking his son home will expire at 4 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT) Wednesday.
But Castro warned that a move by Elian's Miami relatives to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep him in the United States could still delay the boy's return, perhaps for months.
``There are still latent risks that cannot be underestimated ... the criminal mafia of Miami and their extreme right-wing allies in the United States still have power and room for maneuver,'' Castro said in his message.
The Holguin rally, scheduled prior to Friday's court ruling, was the latest in an almost daily series of protests, marches and events organized by Castro's government as part of an unrelenting national campaign for Elian's return.
A succession of adult and child orators, accompanied by song and dance troupes, read prepared scripts to the flag- waving crowd. They attacked Elian's ``kidnappers'' and denounced alleged injustices in U.S. society, such as the controversial execution in Texas Thursday of convicted murderer Gary
Graham.
Castro, who also condemned Graham's execution as a racist ''crime'', promised to continue the patriotic national crusade he has waged over Elian to press for an end to four decades of U.S. government hostility against communist-ruled Cuba.
``Even when Elian and his worthy father return to Cuba ... we won't take a minute of rest,'' Castro added, vowing he would campaign against the 38-year-old U.S. economic embargo against the island and other aspects of Washington's Cuba policy.
Elian has been in the United States since last November after he survived a disastrous migrant voyage from Cuba in which his mother and 10 others died. Distant relatives in Miami tried to keep him with them in defiance of a custody claim by the boy's Cuban father which was backed by U.S.
authorities.
Father and son were reunited April 22 after a dramatic raid by federal agents which snatched him from the home of the Miami relatives. Father Juan Miguel Gonzalez, Elian and their close family are staying as guests of supporters in the Washington area, blocked by legal restrictions from
returning to Cuba.
In his message, Castro cited Thursday's execution of Graham in Texas as an example of why Elian should return to Cuba.
Supporters of keeping him in the United States say he will live a better life there than in his communist-ruled homeland, where they argue he will undergo political indoctrination.
``He was murdered,'' Castro said of Graham's death by lethal injection. ``It's widely believed in the United States and in the world that he was simply sentenced to death and executed for being black,'' he added.
Calling Graham by his self-adopted name Shaka Sankofa, Castro said the execution had ``shown the world the bitter fruits of a social system where the differences between rich and poor are infinite and where individualism, egoism, consumerism, the generalized use of firearms and violence
constitute the underlying philosophy''.
Graham, who had protested his innocence to the last, was sentenced for the 1981 shooting of a man outside a Houston grocery store largely on the testimony of a single eye witness.
Cuba also maintains the death penalty, for cases like terrorism, armed rebellion or particularly gruesome murders.
Rights group Amnesty International appealed Tuesday for a stay of execution for six Cubans sentenced to die by firing squad for killing five guards during a 1999 jailbreak.
Relatives Keep Up Fight For Elian
By Jaime Hernandez, Associated Press Writer.
MIAMI (AP) - Relatives of Elian Gonzalez are vowing to continue their battle to keep the 6-year-old in the United States despite a federal court decision that brings him one step closer to Cuba.
``They are confident they are doing the right thing. They will keep fighting for what his mom died for,'' Armando Gutierrez, spokesman for the boy's Miami relatives, said Friday after the 12-member 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta denied a request for a custody rehearing and
emphatically said it would not look at the case again.
``Any further requests for stays or for injunctive relief should be directed to the Supreme Court,'' said the ruling, written by Circuit Judge J.L. Edmondson. He said the appeals court will not grant any further motions for a stay - even putting the word ``not'' in boldface and large letters.
The court said its earlier stay requiring Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, to keep Elian in the United States will dissolve at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
In Washington, Gregory Craig, attorney for Juan Miguel Gonzalez, said he would meet with his client over the weekend to talk about his plans for the coming week.
"Juan Miguel is grateful that the 11th Circuit has denied the petition for the hearing and has lifted all stays and all injunctions as of Wednesday afternoon of next week,'' Craig said.
Attorney General Janet Reno said: ``Now that the court has conclusively upheld our decision, I am hopeful that this father and son will soon be able to move on with their lives together.''
A three-judge panel of the Atlanta-based court had ruled against the relatives earlier this month. The decision to grant a rehearing before the full court had to be approved by seven of the 12 judges; none of the 12 even asked for a vote on the question.
Gutierrez said the relatives will file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday. Although the Supreme Court hears about 1 percent of the appeals it received, he said the family is not daunted by the long odds.
``The family is very hopeful God will save Elian,'' the spokesman said.
Four of the nine Supreme Court justices must agree to hear an appeal. A single justice can grant a stay, or can opt to refer the question of a stay to the full court. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is the justice assigned to hear emergency matters from the 11th circuit.
Elian was rescued off the Florida coast on Thanksgiving Day after his mother and 10 other people drowned when their boat sank en route from communist Cuba to the United States.
The Miami relatives argue that the three-judge panel was wrong to uphold an Immigration and Naturalization Service decision that Elian should return to Cuba with his father. They said INS decisions are not necessarily law and can be overturned by the courts.
But Bernard Perlmutter, a University of Miami law professor, said it is highly unlikely that the Supreme Court would overturn the appellate decision or even grant a hearing. He said the 11th Circuit's earlier decision was based on a Supreme Court decision in another case and it is not likely to
reverse its course.
``The family should recognize that there is no purpose to any further appeals and that to prolong this process is to engage in an exercise in futility,'' Perlmutter said.
Dozens of protesters Friday night gathered outside the relatives' Little Havana home where Elian lived before he was seized by federal agents April 22 and reunited with his father in the Washington area.
``This country is a disgrace,'' said Reinaldo Martinez, a Miami painter who arrived within an hour of the court decision. ``This entire case has been a theater between Clinton and the Cuban government.''
``All Cubans have been betrayed,'' said Ana Terasa Bonnin, another demonstrator. ``I am praying very hard for the appeal to go through. I hope it's God's will for this child to stay here.''
Castro Urges Fight Against U.S.
By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA, 24 (AP) - President Fidel Castro urged some 400,000 rallying Cubans on Saturday to keep up the pressure on the United States to return Elian Gonzalez - and to continue their protests against Washington even after the boy is home.
``Not even when Elian and his valiant father return to Cuba with their family and close friends will we take a minute's rest!'' Castro said in a message read on his behalf at a rally in the eastern city of Holguin.
Cubans have a ``sacred duty'' to keep fighting against the U.S. embargo on the island, laws that allow Cubans who reach U.S. soil to remain and America's ``incessant policies of subversion and destabilization'' against the Cuban revolution, the message said.
The rally was held a day after a federal appeals court in Atlanta refused to review the case of 6-year-old Elian, forcing his Miami relatives to take their appeal to keep him in the United States to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The high court hears about 1 percent of the cases it receives.
Castro warned the flag-waving crowd that the legal process could still take months and that the relatives would use all legal means available to them because they had no scruples about ``torturing the victims of their hatred'' by pursuing the case.
But he noted that public opinion polls in the United States overwhelmingly support Elian's father's right to decide his future - sentiments ``which cannot and will never be forgotten,'' said the message, read by a television anchor to the crowd in Holguin, 450 miles east of the capital Havana.
Elian was rescued off the Florida coast in November after his mother and 10 other people drowned when their boat sank en route from Cuba to the United States.
The Miami relatives argue that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta was wrong to uphold an Immigration and Naturalization Service decision that Elian should return to Cuba with his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who came to the United States in April to bring him home.
On Friday, the court denied the family's request for a rehearing and said its earlier stay requiring Elian's father to keep the boy in the United States will end at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
At the rally, headed by Castro's brother, Raul Castro, the No. 2 man in both Cuba's Communist Party and the government's ruling Council of State, speaker after speaker denounced the Miami relatives for continuing to keep Elian in the United States.
Cuba has staged similar rallies around the country in the seven months that Elian has been away, but Saturday's was the first that also focused on a non-Cuban topic: the death penalty in the United States.
Official Cuban media has spent much of this week criticizing the case of Gary Graham, who was executed by lethal injection Thursday night in Texas. In his message, Castro said Graham had been ``assassinated,'' because he was black and poor.
Cuba: Elian Ruling Looks Favorable
By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press Writer.
HAVANA, 23 (AP) - Cuba on Friday called the decision by a U.S. federal appeals court refusing to review the Elian Gonzalez case ``favorable'' but warned that the boy's Miami relatives would likely continue to try to block his return home.
Brief official bulletins were issued on state-run television and radio soon after the unanimous decision of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was released Friday in Atlanta.
The decision ``appears to have been favorable to Elian and his family,'' the statements said.
``However, we have to count on the near-absolute certainty that the 'mafia' and extreme right in the United States, using the five days granted them to appeal and maneuver, will not resign themselves to defeat or end their obsessive plan to obstruct and delay as much as possible the return of
the boy and his family to Cuba,'' the statement said.
``And therefore it is our elemental duty to go on with the fight with more strength and intensity than ever,'' it said in Spanish.
In refusing to take another look at the custody battle, the court set back hopes of Elian's Miami relatives that they would be able to block his return to the communist island. The court also said its stay requiring Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, to keep the 6-year-old boy in the United
States will dissolve at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
``Any further requests for stays or for injunctive relief should be directed to the Supreme Court,'' said the ruling, written by Circuit Judge J.L. Edmondson.
Four of the nine Supreme Court justices must agree to hear an appeal. A single justice can grant a stay, or can opt to refer the question of a stay to the full court.
The decision came a day before another massive rally is planned in Cuba to demand Elian's return. An estimated 400,000 people are expected at a demonstration Saturday in the eastern province of Holguin, the official Communist Party daily Granma said.
Elian was rescued off the Florida coast on Nov. 25 after his mother and 10 other people drowned when their boat sank en route from Cuba to the United States.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service decided the boy should be returned to his father. But the Miami relatives, who cared for Elian after his rescue, refused to relinquish him. On April 22, federal agents seized the boy and reunited him with his father in the Washington area.
Elian's Miami relatives to file Supreme Court appeal
MIAMI, June 26 (AFP) - Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives are expected to file a last-ditch appeal to the US Supreme Court Monday, in an effort to prevent the youngster's repatriation to Cuba.
Seven months after his dramatic rescue at sea, a US appeals court on Friday cleared the way for the six-year-old shipwreck survivor to return with his father to Cuba.
The 12-member appeals court in Atlanta, Georgia ruled unanimously that any further legal action seeking to block his departure should be directed to the US Supreme Court, and lifted an injunction barring his return to Cuba effective Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. (2000 GMT).
After that decision last Friday, Elian's Miami-based relatives said they would indeed file an appeal to the Supreme Court, saying through family spokesman Armando Gutierrez that they hoped to prevent the "removal of a child from this land of freedom to a land of gross, violent and
extensively documented human rights violations."
The appeals court ruling dealt the second blow in a month to the Miami relatives' case, after a three-judge panel of the same court rejected the relatives' asylum hearing petition and agreed with the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) that only the boy's father could speak on his
behalf on immigration matters.
Elian was found clinging to an inner tube off the Florida coast last November. His mother and several other Cubans had drowned when the boat, in which they were trying to flee Cuba, capsized.
The youngster stayed at first with his relatives in Miami, who refused to surrender the boy to his father. Elian was reunited with his father in the United States on April 22, after US federal agents launched an armed raid on the Miami relatives' home, and since then has been staying with his
father in the Washington area.
The custody case has refocused US public opinion on the question of the longstanding US embargo against Cuba, with proposals to relax the ban on the export there of food and pharmaceuticals currently under discussion in the US Congress.
The Miami relatives also have filed a separate lawsuit in Washington DC, seeking to block Elian's return to Cuba based on international treaties against human rights abuses. That case has remained dormant while the Miami relatives pursued other legal maneuvers in the case.
The government of Fidel Castro has used Elian's saga to mobilize hundreds of thousands of Cubans at demonstrations, most recently at a rally Saturday that drew half a million people.
Cuba Defector Ready To Make Splash
By Paul Newberry, AP Sports Writer.
FEDERAL WAY, Wash. 23(AP) - Rio Ramirez knew there had to be a better life. So without telling family or friends in Cuba, he began plotting his escape.
``I didn't want to spend my entire life pretending I believed in something that I didn't,'' he says.
Ramirez, a world-class diver, defected from his homeland in 1993, settled in Miami and became a U.S. citizen last year.
Now he wants to compete in the Olympics for his new country and have a chance to hear the national anthem played on his behalf. He gets goose bumps every time the song is played.
``It's so powerful,'' Ramirez said. ``I'll always be Cuban. But I'm really proud to be in this country. It gave me my freedom.''
He faces the same numbers game as every American diver. There's only two spots available in each of the events - 3-meter springboard and 10-meter platform - which means most competitors will be staying home.
But Ramirez faced another obstacle at this week's U.S. trials in suburban Seattle. The Olympic charter requires an athlete to wait three years after citizenship to compete for a new country. The ban can be lifted if the athlete's former country grants a waiver.
That's a formality in many cases. Not this time.
``There's not been too many Cubans who were able to defect and represent the United States in international events,'' Ramirez said. ``I know they will try to do anything to prevent me from doing that. In a sense, it's like a slap in their face. Here I am, free, still doing what I love to do and
being treated like a human being.''
The Cubans haven't said if they will grant the waiver. The deadline is Aug. 15, though Ramirez's fate could be settled this weekend when he attempts to qualify in his best event, the platform. He finished eighth in the springboard Thursday night.
``He needs to put it out of his mind and worry about his performance'' said his coach, Randy Ableman. ``If he doesn't make the team, it's going to be a moot point anyway.''
How much has Ramirez been affected by all the political intrigue away from the pool? Would he have performed better if he weren't an athlete entangled in red tape?
``Maybe it's not a negative, but it sure isn't a positive,'' Ableman said. ``If he was fully cleared, maybe he would be more uplifted. Maybe it's somewhere in the back of his mind. But that's no excuse for missing dives.''
Ramirez reveals none of the turmoil he must be feeling. He is stylish and debonaire, the Ricky Martin of diving. His smile and thick head of black hair are not lost on his female fans.
A few months ago, People magazine dubbed him one of the world's ''50 Most Beautiful People.'' He proudly sent a copy to his parents, who have been showing it around the old neighborhood in Camaguey, Cuba.
``I talked to one of my friends and he said, 'Oh, so things are going pretty well for you in America,''' Ramirez said, breaking out in a grin.
This fall, he'll vote for the first time in an American election. He's still trying to make up the mind on his choice for president. He relishes the duty.
``In Cuba, they say you have a choice, but it's a joke. The choice is Castro or Castro,'' he said. ``This is my first true election.''
Not that he is turning America into some sort of Nirvana.
``I didn't come to a perfect country,'' Ramirez said. ``But, for sure, there is more justice in this country. And I had more opportunity to be who I really am.''
Still, he hasn't fully escaped the grip of his former country.
``I'm not expecting anything from them. I would be surprised if they released me without further complications,'' Ramirez said. ``But I cannot live anybody else's life. I have to live my life.''
He plans to keep diving. If he doesn't make it to his first Olympics this year, he hopes to make the U.S. team in 2004, when a waiver wouldn't be required. Ramirez also has branched out, doing part-time television work.
Standing on the deck of the pool, Ramirez looks up to find a young woman blowing him a kiss. He returns the gesture.
``Anything is possible in this country,'' he said. ``I still have faith that something good will come out. As long as I have a girl like that blowing kisses to me, there's always life.
Miami relatives will ask Supreme Court for help
By MICHAEL KIRKLAN. Friday, 23 June 2000 18:13 (ET)
Miami relatives will ask Supreme Court for help
WASHINGTON, June 23 (UPI) -- Miami relatives of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez will look to the Supreme Court for help now that the full 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to help them keep the boy in the United States. A family spokesman, Armando Gutierrez, said Friday that papers will
be filed with the court on Monday. Gutierrez said, "They're not going to give up."
The Supreme Court said Friday the relatives' earlier request to block the boy's departure is still listed on its docket as "pending."
The relatives filed the request June 1 after a three-judge appeals court panel refused to reverse a federal judge's ruling that allows the boy's father to return with him to Cuba. But in a letter the same day, lawyers for the relatives asked the Supreme Court to put the request on hold because
they had decided to first ask the full appeals court for a rehearing.
The full court denied that request Friday, and said an injunction ordering the Justice Department to keep the boy in the United States would expire next Wednesday. Justice Department officials said earlier Friday that its "departure control order" keeping Elian in the United States is
tied to the injunction, and would end when the injunction is lifted.
If the relatives reactivate their request for Supreme Court help, it would go to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who oversees the 11th Circuit.
Kennedy could deny or grant the request on his own, but would be more likely to refer the application to the full court for a vote.
In papers filed June 1 only minutes after the three-judge panels' ruling, the Miami relatives asked the Supreme Court to issue an injunction "to preclude (Elian's) physical removal from the jurisdiction of the United States" until the nine justices decide whether to review the case
by hearing argument next term.
Supreme Court procedure allows an emergency injunction from the justices if there is the prospect of "irreparable harm" to a party in a case, but only in the "most extraordinary circumstances."
Kennedy was actively considering the request late that afternoon on June 1 when the letter came asking the court to put the document on hold.
Elian was found floating off the coast of Florida on Thanksgiving day, one of only three survivors of a shipwreck that killed his mother and at least nine others trying to flee Cuba to the United States. The boy was placed into the temporary custody of his great-uncle Lazaro in Miami, but when
the Immigration and Naturalization Service tried to return Elian to his father for a return to Cuba, the Miami relatives defied the INS order.
INS agents forcibly removed the boy from Lazaro's house on Easter weekend April 22, but the court battle continued. A federal judge ruled that Attorney General Janet Reno acted within the bounds of her authority by delegating custody of Elian to his only surviving parent, the appeals court
panel agreed on June 1 and the full appeals court refused a rehearing Friday.
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