Yahoo! June 29, 2000
Elian Restarts Life in Cuba After Custody Saga
By Andrew Cawthorne
HAVANA, 29 (Reuters) - Surrounded by his closest family and away from the public eye, 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez restarted life back home in communist-run Cuba on Thursday after returning from the United States at the end of a bitter, seven-month custody saga.
The government, despite having won its battle to bring Elian home, announced that mass rallies would continue in its wider fight to overturn the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba and end a U.S. immigration policy that Havana blames for causing Elian's tragic story.
``Back in the fatherland at last!'' proclaimed a red banner headline on the front page of Granma, newspaper of the ruling Communist Party which turned the boy's case into the biggest patriotic crusade of President Fidel Castro's four-decade rule.
A government statement inside Granma proclaimed: ''Immediately, and without a truce or a minute of rest, the battle will continue'' against what Cuba calls the U.S. ``war'' against it.
Nearly a quarter of a million Cubans would rally in the eastern port of Manzanillo at the weekend, and daily televised round-tables on the Elian case -- which Castro calls ``the university of the people'' -- were to continue.
State Television repeated footage of Elian's landing in Cuba late Wednesday, while radio stations swapped the ``Free Elian!'' jingles played in the last seven months for new ones proclaiming ``Elian is back!'' and ``Welcome back, little prince!''
Elian and his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, flew home shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an emergency request by the boy's relatives in Miami seeking to keep him in the United States. The court also turned down an appeal seeking a political asylum hearing for Elian.
The boy had been at the center of an emotional tug-of-war since he survived a migrant shipwreck last November off the Florida coast -- in which his mother drowned -- and was taken in by his Miami relatives.
They said they wanted him to grow up, as his mother wished, in freedom in the United States, rather than in a communist-ruled country.
Elian Ensconced In Havana House
Elian disappeared from public view after a brief arrival appearance on Wednesday night at Havana's international airport, where he looked happy although somewhat overawed.
After reunions with family and friends, he spent the night with his father, grandparents and classmates in a seaside house in Havana that will be his home and school for the next few weeks during what Cuba calls his ``readaptation.''
Security forces blocked access to the house in the upscale Miramar district, which was specially prepared to receive the motherless boy and his entourage before they return to their provincial hometown Cardenas, on the northern coast.
Freshly painted and complete with a swimming pool, the house is a good deal grander than Elian's humble former home in a potholed street in Cardenas or the modest house where he lived with his Miami relatives after his rescue.
But it is not as luxurious as Elian's most recent residences in the Washington area, where he lived after U.S. federal agents seized him from his Miami family at gunpoint and reunited him with his father on April 22.
After Elian's return, Castro, guarding against accusations of political exploitation, was not seen publicly, although there was speculation in Havana that he may have met with Elian's group.
The return of Elian, whose personal tragedy became another flashpoint in the turbulent history of Cuba-U.S. relations, was a major victory for the Castro government. The 73-year-old leader personally supervised a massive ``Free Elian!'' campaign, mobilizing millions in rallies across the island.
Dissidents and foreign critics accused him of exploiting the case to raise his political standing at home and abroad, and to cover up economic difficulties and internal opposition to his one-party socialist system.
On arrival, Elian was lifted out of the plane by his father, a 31-year-old tourism worker who left Cuba for the first time in his life to travel to the United States and seek his son's return.
No Street Celebrations
On the streets of Havana, there was joy at Elian's return. ''Sincerely, I am very happy because this is another triumph in our fight for independence and sovereignty,'' 87-year-old Havana resident Domingo Mazorra said.
However, to prevent the boy from suffering ``excessive emotions, tiredness or bother,'' no street celebrations were planned, a Cuban statement said.
``We always said the boy's interest was above all, and we would not turn his return to Cuba into a motive for big mobilizations and celebrations to cry victory and humiliate our historical adversary, the United States,'' the statement added.
The government said Elian would likely spend between two and three weeks in the Havana house. After that, he will enjoy a week's holiday before returning to Cardenas where teachers will ''carry out the task of converting him into a model boy...a normal citizen, as well as a symbol, an example
and a glory for all the children of our nation, and a pride for Cuba's teachers,'' an official communiqu said.
Ex-Diplomat Heads Anti-Castro Group
WASHINGTON, 29 (AP)- Dennis Hays, a newly retired career diplomat, has been named to head the Washington office of the Cuban-American National Foundation, the most powerful of the conservative groups opposed to Cuba's communist regime.
A formal announcement was expected Thursday afternoon.
Hays, whose title will be executive vice president of the Miami-based organization, retired from the Foreign Service this week after serving as U.S. ambassador to Suriname.
Hays once was coordinator for Cuban affairs at the State Department. He resigned in protest from that post in 1995 after the administration reached a secret agreement with Cuba that called for the forcible return of Cuban boat people who are caught by U.S. authorities while trying to flee to the
United States.
In addition to Hays' appointment, the foundation plans a major expansion of its Washington office.
Clinton Inclined To Sign Cuban Bill
By Philip Brasher, Ap Farm Writer.
WASHINGTON, 28 (AP) - President Clinton said Wednesday that he is inclined to sign legislation easing the 38-year-old embargo on Cuba if he is convinced that it will provide for sales of U.S. products.
But he said he does not plan any further steps to normalize relations with Fidel Castro's government.
``I've always wanted to sell more food and medicine, not only to Cuba but to other countries as well,'' Clinton said.
House Republicans agreed Tuesday to allow sales of food to Cuba provided they are not financed by either the federal government or private U.S. sources. Cuba would have to pay cash, of which it has little, or else obtain credit from a third country, lawmakers said.
The compromise also would write into law an existing ban on U.S. tourist travel to Cuba. Sales of medicine to Cuba have been allowed since 1992 with certain restrictions.
Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites), campaigning for the presidency, equivocated, telling reporters that he was concerned about the legislation's apparent ``power grab'' by Congress to change the president's embargo authority. But Gore endorsed the basic premise of ``opening up to the
Cuban people without helping the Castro government.''
The deal is part of legislation that would also bar Clinton and future presidents from stopping shipments of food and medicine to any country without congressional approval. The White House has expressed concern with that provision for some time but has stopped short of threatening a veto.
``If I believe that the legislation essentially allows for the sales of American food and medicine to Cuba or to other countries, but has some protection for us for extraordinary circumstances that foreign policy might require ... then I would be inclined to sign the bill to support it,''
Clinton said.
Farm and business groups have praised the agreement, but some Democrats say it didn't go far enough.
New York Rep. Charles Rangel, the senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said it wouldn't bother him if Clinton vetoed legislation that contained the Cuba measure. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., threatened to filibuster a military appropriations bill if Republicans went ahead with
plans to attach the Cuba legislation to it.
``It's a clear case of one hand giving while the other takes away, because while it purports to allow for the sale of food and medicine, it proceeds to make it almost impossible to do so,'' Dodd said, adding that a ban on tourism was a ``giant step backward.''
Dodd contended the legislation wouldn't even allow third-country financing of food sales to Cuba. A spokesman for Rep. George Nethercutt, the House GOP's leading proponent of easing the embargo, said that the agreement was intended to allow for such financing and that the wording of the
legislation might be altered to make that clear.
The Clinton administration decided last year to allow sales of food and medicine to three other countries listed as terrorist states - Iran, Libya and Sudan - but was barred by law from including Cuba.
``I don't believe that we can change that law until there is a bipartisan majority which believes that there has been some effort on the part of the Cuban government to reach out to us as well,'' Clinton said.
He said he was moving forward in normalizing relations with Castro until the Cuban air force shot down two private planes in the Florida Straits in 1996.
``Now we're in a position where, until there is a bipartisan majority of Congress persuaded that there that there has been a fundamental change, we can't do more than what I've been doing, which is try to aggressively expand people-to-people contacts,'' Clinton said.
House Democrats said that sentiment for easing the embargo had grown significantly this year because of the ordeal of Elian Gonzalez, the young castaway who returned to Cuba Wednesday after a protracted legal struggle between his father and his Florida relatives.
On the Net: U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council: http://www.cubatrade.org
Cuban American National Foundation: http://www.canf.org/
Elian Saga United Cuban Exiles
By Alex Veiga, Associated Press Writer.
MIAMI, 28 (AP) - The Elian Gonzalez custody struggle united and invigorated anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami, but their campaign to keep the boy in this country hurt their image and may have helped those who favor easing the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba.
``There is a sense that Cuban-Americans overplayed their hand on this whole manner and that there's less sort of danger supporting some modest initiatives (to ease the embargo) than there would have been in the past,'' said Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.
``They managed to unify and mobilize their base at the expense of alienating the much larger population,'' he said. ``They've gone backward, not forward.''
Elian's Miami relatives took him into their home after the boy's Thanksgiving Day rescue from the Atlantic, where his mother and 10 others died when their boat sank as they fled Cuba. On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal filed by the boy's Miami relatives, clearing the way
for his return to Cuba with his father.
The Miami relatives and most of the 780,000 Cuban-Americans in South Florida opposed the federal government's efforts to return Elian to his father, believing the boy would have a better life in the United States.
Hundreds of Cuban-Americans held 24-hour vigils outside the relatives' home. And after the boy was removed by federal agents, they took to the streets in protest.
``Politically we had everything to lose and nothing to gain, but as exiles we had no choice,'' said Ramon Saul Sanchez, head of the exile group Democracy Movement. ``We had an ethical duty to defend the rights of another person looking for asylum.''
Mann said many non-Cubans in South Florida were offended by what they took to be anti-patriotic actions.
In the political firestorm over the Miami police department's handling of the federal raid, the city's police chief resigned under pressure and the city manager was fired.
Both were Anglos, and their ouster by Cuban-born Miami Mayor Joe Carollo deepened ethnic divisions. Protesters tossed bananas outside City Hall, symbolizing that the city was being run like a banana republic.
Max Castro, a sociologist at the University of Miami's North-South Center, said the struggle hurt the exiles' image and their political clout in Washington.
``Some of their power has slipped away,'' he said. ``Inside the Cuban community, yes, they were energized and mobilized, but for a losing cause, for a cause with a bad image, and it has cast a bad image on the community.''
Cuban-Americans hold extraordinary power in Florida, whose 25 electoral votes make it a key state in this year's presidential race.
But while their political clout has been formidable in shaping U.S. policy on Cuba, they face increasingly bolder opposition.
``There's no question that the other side has gone out of their way to exploit the negativity around the Elian situation to push their political agenda,'' said Jose Cardenas, director of the Cuban American National Foundation in Washington.
As recently as last year, while the Senate overwhelmingly passed a measure to ease the embargo on Cuba for food and medicine, the House later rejected it.
On Tuesday, however, House Republicans cut a deal to allow direct sales of U.S. food to Cuba for the first time in four decades.
That may have more to do with the efforts of a number of lawmakers up for re-election in farming states than with any serious move to ease up on Cuba's regime, said Steve Johnson, policy analyst for Latin America at the Heritage Foundation.
``The momentum is guided largely by a desire to open another market to American commodities and goods,'' Johnson said.
Cardenas agreed that the farming interests' push for trade with Cuba began long before Elian became an issue.
However, he feels the public became fed up with the struggle over the boy's custody.
``I think that the American people sort of began to resent it being forced into their living rooms every night,'' Cardenas said. ``They just wanted all those shouting people out of their living room.''
Miami Cubans React To Elian News
By Adrian Sainz, Associated Press Writer.
MIAMI, 28 (AP) - Wails and angry shouts of disbelief filled the air outside the Little Havana home where Elian Gonzalez had lived with relatives as the 6-year-old boy's plane took off from Washington Dulles Airport on Wednesday bound for Cuba.
``We held out hope until the last minute,'' Rosari Quiones, 17, said through tears. ``We weren't expecting this.''
About 30 people clustered around small monitors set up outside the home by local television stations so people could watch Elian's departure. As the plane began moving across the runway, a gasp rose from the crowd. One man yelled ``God Bless you Elian.''
Estrella Martinez, 29, cried, ``Oh my God, my God we love him.''
Ramon Saul Sanchez, leader of the Cuban group Democracy Movement, knelt next to a television, wiping tears from his face.
A few minutes after the plane's departure, Elian's great-uncle Delfin Gonzalez arrived at the house and thanked the Latin community for its support of his family.
``This government has the right to give asylum to who it wants. We have to abide by this country's laws,'' he said. ``We feel OK, we did all we can, but we fought a powerful government.
``Elian knows we love him, the community loves him,'' he said. Then someone in the crowd yelled out that Elian had come to liberate Cuba.
``That's right,'' Delfin Gonzalez said. ``He came to complete a mission here and now he is going to complete it over there.''
Earlier, dozens of people gathered at the downtown federal courthouse and at the Little Havana home. Some of Miami's Cuban-Americans wept, screamed and jeered over the Supreme Court's refusal Wednesday the boy's return to Cuba. Others accepted it quietly.
Demonstrators carried a long poster with images of Elian and his mother, but police calmly moved them behind barricades.
``This boy was not given a chance to defend himself,'' 74-year-old Ester Granda said. ``That kid is not going to his father. He's going back to Fidel.''
Before the court's decision, many of the protesters sipped Cuban coffee as a scratchy version of the Cuban National Anthem blared over a loudspeaker.
Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez and cousin Marisleysis Gonzalez, whose family he had lived with, appeared briefly outside the house but didn't comment.
``This is a very rough time for us, but we must obey the law and the rule of law,'' family spokesman Armando Gutierrez said at a news conference after the plane left for Cuba. ``Elian's arrival and his subsequent fight are a wake up call for Miami.''
In Tallahassee, Republican Gov. Jeb Bush said he was ``saddened by how this has turned out.''
Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex Penelas, meanwhile, appealed for calm. But while police expected emotions to run high Wednesday night, they did not anticipate large protests.
``Don't expect to see any violence or anything of that nature because it's not our nature and such acts will not be tolerated by the leadership of the Cuban-American community here,'' said Jose Basulto, leader of the group Brothers to the Rescue.
Sanchez, of Democracy Movement, said community leaders and activists would begin planning for a July 14 flotilla from Key West to the waters off Cuba.
Elian was rescued from the Atlantic Ocean on Thanksgiving Day after a boat leaving Cuba for Miami sank, killing his mother and 10 others. He stayed with his Miami relatives until federal agents seized him on April 22 and turned him over to his father in Washington pending the court appeals.
Police monitored the crowds outside Elian's former home and outside the courthouse. The family moved out in the weeks following the raid, but the house has remained a gathering place for many in Little Havana.
At Little Havana's Versailles Bakery on Wednesday, the crowd seemed to accept the Supreme Court decision.
``He had his day in court. That's it,'' said Octavio Oliu, a 54-year-old Cuban-born engineer. ``I would have been upset if he hadn't had his day in court. As a citizen of this country, that's all I can ask, that he have his day in court.''
In southwest Miami-Dade County, in a neighborhood of suburbs and shopping malls, a few dozen government supporters cheered the arrival of Elian's plane in Cuba, waving U.S. flags and signs that said ``Adios, Elian,'' to the honks of approving motorists.
``It's not the kid I'm saying goodbye to, it's goodbye to the problems,'' said Julie Sickle, 22, of Homestead. ``It was a total division of the community.''
Americans Mull Elian's Future
An AP News Analysis, By Pauline Jelinek Associated Press Writer.
WASHINGTON, 29 (AP) - Elian Gonzalez set out for America with his mother and went home with his dad, leaving behind legions of broken hearts and momentous, unanswered questions.
Will the celebrated little castaway be devoured by a life of oppression in Fidel Castro's Cuba?
Did the U.S. government correctly decide that reuniting a 6-year-old boy with his father was more important than saving him from communism?
``In the end, he is with his father and I am glad of that,'' Attorney General Janet Reno said Thursday. ``I just wish he was with his father in a democratic free country.''
In his final moments Wednesday before flying away from America, Elian bounced on the seat of an airport people carrier and waved with both hands to journalists outside the window. He smiled shyly as he boarded the plane and, following his father's lead, gave a final wave.
His father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, hoped aloud at an airport news conference that the friendship he had come to feel from Americans would some day ``come true between both our countries.''
In Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, anti-Castro protesters wept, made the sign of the cross and warned that America would one day regret sending Elian home.
``That kid is not going to his father, he's going back to Fidel,'' protester Ester Granda shouted.
``One day, I hope Elian will come back to the United States as a free man,'' said Roger Bernstein, a lawyer for Miami relatives who took him into their home and then tried to keep him in America.
The familiar but inconclusive argument played out thousands of times during Elian's seven-month stay in the United States.
Reno acknowledged the strong feelings in Miami, her hometown, and said she would like to work to heal the wounds created by the Elian custody dispute.
``This hurt might go too deep, which I will regret, but I still have to do what I think is right under the law and I think this little boy's father should speak for him and I think he should be with his father.''
She said government officials would review the case to see if there are any lessons learned or changes needed in regulations governing children who apply for asylum.
Miami relatives who sought asylum for Elian against his father's wishes claimed they wanted to honor the sacrifice of the mother who drowned in the Atlantic bringing Elian to America.
The U.S. government answered that only the child's father could decide his future - politics and political systems aside.
And the father's Washington lawyer, Gregory Craig, said today Juan Miguel Gonzalez never showed any interest in staying in the United States. ``We talked obliquely about it,'' Craig said today on NBC's ``Today.'' ``There was no evidence ever ... that he wanted to explore that option.
``I really believe he made the decision about living in Cuba many, many months before during family discussions,'' Craig said.
``We upheld here what I think is a quite important principle, as well as what is clearly the law of the United States,'' President Clinton said at a White House news conference after the Supreme Court on Wednesday denied the Miami family's final appeal.
But nothing in repeated rulings from state court, to federal appeals court to the highest court of the land changed passionate minds.
``This is an important moment that shows the world and the people of Cuba that the United States is a nation of laws,'' said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. ``And I am proud that our laws recognize the value of reuniting a son with his father.''
On the other side, Cuban-born Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., accused Clinton of committing his ``most cowardly crime by returning a defenseless 6-year old boy to the only Stalinist totalitarian tyrant in the Western Hemisphere.''
Clinton was asked whether he had second thoughts about returning Elian to Cuba.
``Well, if he and his father decided they wanted to stay here, it would be fine with me,'' the president said. But he added that the most important thing was that Juan Miguel Gonzalez had been judged ``a good father, a loving father committed'' to the welfare of his son.
In an ironic twist, the United States and Cuba were on the same side in the custody battle.
The father was clearly appreciative of the support he had received. ``We are very happy to be going home. Thank you,'' he said in a brief statement at Dulles International Airport in suburban Virginia.
For his American host, Youth for Understanding International Exchange, he left behind two Cuban flags - ``one big one and one little one as a token and the first step in the direction of a human and beautiful relationship between our two countries.''
For its part, the organization gave Gonzalez a message for Castro, inscribed in a book: ``We hope that someday soon, we will be able to establish cultural relations and cultural normalization between Cuba and the U.S., and would be willing to play a role in that.''
EDITOR'S NOTE - Pauline Jelinek has covered the Elian Gonzalez case from Washington since his arrival in the United States.
Elian's Miami Relatives 'Devastated' by His Return
MIAMI, 28 (Reuters) - The Miami relatives of Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez, who fought for seven months to keep him in the United States, were ``devastated'' by his departure for Cuba on Wednesday, saying he was returning to a country where he would never be free.
``We are devastated that at this very moment, Elian is going back to live in a country where he will never be free,'' family spokesman Armando Gutierrez told a news conference at a Miami restaurant, minutes after the 6-year-old left with his father on a charter plane from Washington's Dulles
airport, bound for Cuba.
Elian's Miami relatives took him into their home last November when the child was rescued at sea after a disastrous migrant voyage from the communist island in which his mother and 10 other people died.
The child's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, backed by many among the city's fiercely anti-Castro Cuban exiles, waged a legal battle to keep the child in the United States against the wishes of his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who wanted him back in Cuba.
That battle ended about noon (1600 GMT) on Wednesday when the U.S. Supreme Court turned down the relatives' appeal seeking an asylum hearing -- freeing Elian's father to take his son home.
``Lazaro Gonzalez wants everyone to know that his family will still fight for Elian to be free no matter where he's at,'' Gutierrez said.
``I wish to thank the people in Miami and around the world who offered their love and support for Elian.''
Some of the lawyers who worked with the Miami relatives to keep Elian in the United States also spoke at the news conference, but the relatives themselves were said to be too upset to attend.
Elian was reunited with his father on April 22 after armed federal agents seized him from his Miami relatives' home in a dramatic predawn raid. Elian's father had arrived in the country weeks earlier, but the relatives refused to hand over custody.
The Miami relatives, who are in the process of moving out of their Little Havana home, have kept a low profile since the raid, barely speaking to the media.
Lazaro Gonzalez was gazing at the ocean behind a bayfront church when he received word that the Supreme Court had refused to consider the case.
He turned angrily on a news crew trailing him, shouting at it to leave, while his daughter, Marisleysis, tugged at his arm and held him back.
On Wednesday morning, a handful of protesters began gathering outside the Miami home where Elian had stayed with his relatives.
Their reaction to Elian's departure was a mixture of anger, frustration and sorrow. Cuban exiles believed that Elian's mother died for her child to come to freedom in the United States and that he should not go back.
``I hope one day Elian will come back to the United States as a free man and hopefully not on a raft with his father,'' said one of the relatives' lawyers, Roger Bernstein.
``There is no more noble cause,'' another lawyer, Kendall Coffey, said of the long struggle to keep Elian in the country. ''I've never seen a family go through so much in such a short period of time and come out with their dignity intact.''
During Elian's five-month stay in Miami, his relatives became heroes for many in the Cuban exile community, and well- known figures as they appeared almost daily in front of their small home to greet the media and supporters.
Networks Mark End to Elian Story
By David Bauder, Ap Television Writer.
NEW YORK, 28 (AP) - Television news networks kept vigil on Wednesday as a boy whose story had sustained them for months boarded an airplane and took off for Cuba.
ABC, CBS and NBC interrupted regular programming to watch the chartered plane lift off from a Washington-area airport, carrying Elian Gonzalez to Havana and marking the end of the bitter, politically charged custody fight.
``It has been a long, emotional, political and dramatic odyssey for this young man,'' said NBC's Tom Brokaw shortly before the takeoff.
ABC juxtaposed pictures of the plane moving into position for takeoff with videotape of a helicopter plucking the 6-year-old from the sea on Nov. 25, 1999.
A restrained sense of anticlimax characterized Wednesday's broadcast coverage of Elian's departure, hours after the boy's Miami relatives exhausted their legal appeals. At the cable news networks - where the debate over Elian's fate provided hundreds of programming hours - it was more heated.
CNN, whose ratings have tumbled dramatically over the past year, had the rare chance to juggle two major stories. The network covered President Clinton's news conference and the developing Elian story simultaneously by splitting its screen.
CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC all used a helicopter to trace the movements of Elian and his family during their final hours in the United States. The boy and some of his friends pointed and waved at a helicopter hovering above them.
From there, each network followed Elian's motorcade to Washington Dulles International Airport from the air - pictures eerily similar to the slow-speed chase of O.J. Simpson in his Ford Bronco in 1994.
All of the networks covered Juan Miguel Gonzalez, Elian's father, as he delivered a short statement before boarding the airplane. Not all seemed to realize Gonzalez would be speaking in Spanish; ABC and CNN were quickest to translate his words into English.
Cameras also caught an angry outburst by one of Elian's Miami relatives, Lazaro Gonzalez, as he realized his fight to keep the boy in the United States had ended. He shouted at photographers but was pulled away by his daughter, Marisleysis, who had taken care of Elian before the April raid that
removed the boy from their home.
Republicans Give Go Ahead To Sale Of Food And Medicines to Cuba
by Jose A. Delgado © Efe Washington.
The United States will export, with some limitations, food and medicines to Cuba as a result of a compromise reached by House of Representatives Republicans early Tuesday morning.
The measure implies an easing of the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba and its approval in the near future by the plenary of the House was assured following a long meeting of the Republican legislators.
The Republicans plan to vote on the initiative "as soon as possible," but have not yet decided whether it will be added to the 2001 budget allocation bill or another bill to be submitted to the plenary of the House.
The White House said that President Bill Clinton did not oppose the initiative to sell food and medicines to Cuba, although he had reservations on a provision that would limit the government's authority to impose unilateral economic sanctions.
Both opponents and supporters of the economic embargo, imposed in 1962 and which has since then governed U.S. policy toward Cuba, believe the initiative represents a victory for their side.
The pact rules out loans by U.S. private or public banks to finance agricultural and medical exports to the island, and also bans export of Cuban products to pay for U.S. imports.
Cuba will have to pay cash or otherwise secure third-party financing for its U.S. purchases.
George Nethercutt (Rep.-WA) maintained that the initiative, which he sponsored, represented a big change in U.S. policy toward Cuba.
He added that the measure gave new hope to U.S. farmers by opening a seven billion dollar market, in reference to the elimination of sanctions banning the sale of agricultural products to Iran, Libya, Sudan and North Korea.
But Republicans of Cuban heritage - Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, both from Florida - and Robert Menendez (Dem.-CA) said they had succeeded in limiting sales of food and medicines.
In addition, they added they were pleased by the inclusion of a legal provision enabling the government to declare illegal both trips to Cuba and tourism there by U.S. citizens.
Diaz-Balart said that blocking Clinton's ability to ease the ban on American travel to the island was one of the House's greatest achievements.
Ros-Lehtinen maintained that the agreement improved current legislation, because it meant zero loans and zero tourism for Castro.
There is currently a U.S. government ban on tourism to the island, but the bill would also tie the hands of the next president, who would have to consult with Congress before making any changes in this policy.
The initiative to sell food and medicines to Cuba had been approved by the U.S. Senate in 1999, without the restrictions included in the House's agreement, which is now expected to be upheld by the Senate.
Last week, however, the Senate vote 59-41 against a move to create a special commission of experts to review U.S. policy toward Cuba.
The opponents of the embargo believe that the case of Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez has "opened the eyes" of U.S. public opinion on the need to review a policy based on a punishment decreed four decades ago.
Cuba Urges Calm, Discipline for Elian Return
By Andrew Cawthorne
HAVANA, 28 (Reuters) - President Fidel Castro's communist government reacted to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision Wednesday to clear the way for shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez' return to Cuba with a call to Cubans to maintain their ''serenity'' and ``discipline.''
Cuban state TV broke off normal programming to read an official communique minutes after the announcement of the Supreme Court's rejection of an emergency last-ditch request by relatives seeking to keep the 6-year-old in the United States.
``Now more than ever, our population must behave with the greatest dignity, serenity and discipline,'' the communique said, adding that ``appropriate exhortations'' would be given later in the day to further guide Cuba's 11 million people.
Meticulous arrangements were being made for Elian's Cuban relatives to receive him at Havana's Jose Marti international airport in a low-key ceremony intended to preserve family privacy and avoid a media circus at the end of the seven-month custody saga.
There were no plans for street celebrations, with officials saying Cuba's 11 million inhabitants, most of whom have participated in the massive state-run ``Free Elian'' campaign over the last seven months, would instead ``rejoice in their hearts and homes.''
Elian's return would represent a major political victory for President Fidel Castro, who has personally led the unprecedented patriotic campaign to support the demand of the boy's father that he be returned to Cuba.
The government communique said Elian, his father Juan Miguel Gonzalez, and the rest of their entourage of friends and family currently in Washington, would wait until a 4 p.m. (2000 GMT) deadline passed before arranging their return.
Foreign correspondents in Cuba were given instructions to be at Havana's Jose Marti international airport by early evening to cover the boy's arrival. They would only be allowed to record the event, however, from the airport terrace, well away from the runway where Elian would be met by his
family.
``Let's remember at all times that our battle is barely beginning, and there is still a long way to go,'' the government communique added, echoing Castro's insistence that attention should now focus on ending the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba and changing Washington's immigration policy.
After reading the statement, Cuban state TV showed a collage of photos of Elian, with soft music playing in the background.
In the streets of Havana, there was a sense of satisfaction and relief. The majority of Cubans have backed Elian's return from the outset, when he was rescued at sea after a shipwreck that killed his mother and taken in by U.S. relatives who then sought to keep him in the United States.
``This is another victory against imperialism,'' said tourism worker Cristobal Aldama, 50, adding that Elian should never have had to wait so long in the first place to receive permission to return to Cuba.
``As far as I'm concerned, the president of the United States should have decided this case long ago. There was no need to hold him for seven months.''
Another Cuban, Octavio Montes de Oca, 37, said anti- communist groups in Miami, who backed Elian's U.S. relatives in their bid to keep him there, had exploited the case politically. ''The Mafia were never interested in Elian, but rather in Cuba,'' he said. `` ... What they did was an abuse.''
Although Cuban authorities want to handle Elian's return with discretion, the campaign to bring him home has turned the boy and his father into celebrities here, as well as etching them into the pantheon of state-approved revolutionary heroes.
During the ``Free Elian!'' campaign, hundreds of thousands of images of the boy and his father have appeared all over the island on T-shirts, banners, posters and other paraphernalia.
In Elian's hometown of Cardenas, a port of about 90,000 people on Cuba's northern coast near the beach resort of Varadero, residents were anxiously awaiting his return. But there were no signs of any special preparations for a homecoming party.
Bush, Gore React to Elian Departure
WASHINGTON, 28 (AP) - George W. Bush (news - web sites) said he was ``saddened'' by Elian Gonzalez's departure from the United States on Wednesday while Al Gore (news - web sites), who broke with the administration over how the case was handled, said the Supreme Court's refusal to intervene is
``entitled to respect.''
Vice President Gore had argued for the case to turned over to a family court. He also parted company with the administration by supporting legislation to grant permanent resident status to the 6-year-old Cuban boy, his father and other relatives in a move that some criticized as political
pandering to Cuban-Americans in Florida who wanted Elian to remain in this country.
On Wednesday, as a chartered jet flew Elian home to Cuba, Gore said he still believed ``our country would have been better advised to send the case to a family court.''
``I still feel that way but this decision is entitled to respect and the law must be followed,'' the likely Democratic presidential nominee said aboard his campaign plane. ``And I wish the young boy well after all he's been through and I hope that the various parts of his family will all find
the healing that they so richly deserve.''
Texas Gov. Bush also favored a family court hearing for what became an international custody dispute between Elian's father and the Miami relatives who had appealed to the high court to keep him in the United States. The likely Republican presidential nominee also had said the administration
should try to persuade the boy's father to stay here with him.
``I am saddened when the land of the free sends a young boy back to communist Cuba without a fair hearing in family court,'' said in a written statement. ``My thoughts and prayers are with the entire Gonzalez family, and I hope that one day Elian will live in a free Cuba and be able to choose
for himself whether to return to America.''
U.S. Spent Almost $2M on Elian Case
By Michael J. Sniffen, Associated Press Writer.
WASHINGTON, 28 (AP) - The Justice Department spent $1,826,000 on the Elian Gonzalez case through June 11.
With a final accounting about a week away, the department said Wednesday that the largest item through June 11 had been $786,000 in travel costs for immigration and Border Patrol officers, deputy U.S. marshals, lawyers and Community Relations Service mediators.
Close behind was $618,000 in overtime for immigration officers and deputy marshals. The Immigration and Naturalization Service provided Border Patrol agents and the Marshals Service provided deputies for the early morning raid on April 22 that retrieved Elian from the home of his Miami
relatives. The two agencies also guarded Elian, his family and friends from Cuba at a rural estate on Maryland's Eastern Shore and later at a house in Washington.
Another $127,000 was spent on Marshals Service aircraft that made two trips to Miami. One plane brought Elian from Miami to Washington on April 22. The other was sent to Miami earlier to ferry his Miami relatives to Washington had they agreed to a plan proposed by Attorney General Janet Reno
when she flew to Miami in an unsuccessful bid to negotiate his voluntary return to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez.
Earlier, the department had said the April 22 raid and Elian's flight to Washington together, all dubbed Operation Reunion, cost a total of $229,686, and that figure was included in the totals released Wednesday. That amount included overtime and travel for the 131 immigration and Border Patrol
agents and 18 marshals involved, medical personnel on the flight, security and equipment. The agents trained for a week before the raid.
The remaining $295,000 in costs since Elian was found in the Atlantic off Florida last Thanksgiving include housing the family briefly at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington; Public Health Service personnel; cell phone costs for mediators, attorneys and agents; computer hardware; fuel;
radio batteries; van and limousine leases; court transcripts and documents and courier services.
The totals do not include normal salary and benefit costs for regular, full-time federal employees who would have been paid even if there had been no Elian Gonzalez case.
Repatriated Cuban Player Stops Return Bid
HAVANA, 28 (Reuters) - Cuban baseball player Andy Morales, repatriated earlier this month after a failed defection bid, has given up a brief attempt to continue practicing the sport here, his father said Wednesday.
After two games with his local team, San Nicolas, Morales, 28, has pulled out, too depressed for now to continue, his father and former baseball tutor Adelso Morales said.
``He feels very pressured, he is very depressed. It's a very critical situation for all of us,'' Adelso Morales said by telephone from the town of San Nicolas, in Havana province south-east of Cuba's coastal capital.
During his career, Morales played regularly for San Nicolas and Havana province, and also made his mark in a Cuban national squad that played a high-profile exhibition series last year with the U.S. major league's Baltimore Orioles.
Apparently intent on breaking into Major League Baseball like other Cuban defectors, the third baseman left the Caribbean island illegally by boat in early June. But he was picked up at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard along with 30 other people, and sent back to Cuba in line with 1995 bilateral
accords between Washington and Havana.
Despite family fears Morales would be banned from playing, Cuban sports' authorities insisted they would not punish Morales, and said it was up to him if he wanted to continue his sports career here.
Morales's father alleged his son was being closely followed by Cuban state security, putting him under intense pressure. ''He is not a criminal,'' said Adelso Morales, who believes his son would have made it into any international professional league had he succeeded in leaving Cuba.
During the Cuban national team's game against the Orioles in Baltimore, Morales hit a memorable home run, a double and had three RBI in a 12-6 Cuban victory.
He is the latest in a line of morale-hitting defection attempts by Cuban baseball players eager to seek fame and fortune in the United States.
in Cuba, they play for the equivalent of about $25 a month plus the subsidized food and services received by all Cubans. The best players, however, enjoy a hero status and state-bestowed privileges like a car or good house.
Perhaps the most famous recent defector was pitcher Orlando ''El Duque'' Hernandez, who left Cuba on a small boat in December 1997. He later signed a $6.6 million contract with the New York Yankees and pitched in their 1998 and 1999 World Series triumphs.
Cuba's communist President Fidel Castro made sport here amateur-only after he came to power in a 1959 revolution.
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