By Mike Dorning, Washington Bureau. Orlando Sentinel staff writer Tamara Lytle contributed to this report. Chicago Tribune. June 29, 2000 http://chicagotribune.com
WASHINGTON -- Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old Cuban boy whose tumultuous stay in the United States seized the nation's attention, reverberated through its politics and prompted a re-examination of relations with Cuba, returned to his native land Wednesday after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed a
final appeal from his Florida relatives.
Elian's welcome at Havana's Jose Marti International Airport was modest but loving as his grandmothers and other relatives rushed to embrace him. They took turns hugging Elian, whose shy smile showed he has recently lost his two front teeth.
Hundreds of schoolchildren from his hometown waved Cuban flags and chanted, "Elian! Elian!" Cuban President Fidel Castro, who has rallied his nation in support of the boy's return, did not appear at the airport gathering, which was kept low-key.
Two chartered jets carrying Elian, his family and an entourage of Cuban compatriots lifted off into gray clouds above Washington's Dulles International Airport only 40 minutes after the 4 p.m. expiration of a court injunction keeping Elian in the United States.
"I am extremely happy being able to go back to my homeland," Juan Miguel Gonzalez, the boy's father, declared from a podium set up on the airport tarmac before his departure. "And I don't have words to express what I feel."
With that, he and his son walked up the jet's stairs and together gave a final goodbye wave before the door of the plane closed. It was seven months and three days since two fishermen plucked Elian from an inner tube adrift off the coast of Florida.
Elian's Thanksgiving Day rescue set off a passionate struggle over custody that pitted his Florida relatives--backed by the city's fiercely anti-Castro Cuban-American community in their attempts to gain political asylum for the boy--against Elian's father, who wanted his son returned to live
with him in their homeland.
Elian's mother perished along with 10 others while fleeing Cuba by sea. That left as Elian's only surviving parent Juan Miguel, who, although divorced from the boy's mother, had continued to play an important role in raising the child.
Elian was placed in the temporary custody of his great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, who lived in Miami's Little Havana district and whose daughter, Marisleysis, became Elian's caregiver. The relatives vowed to keep the boy in the United States to grow up "in freedom" rather than in
communist Cuba. They refused to surrender him and held hopes that Juan Miguel would defect and join them in Miami.
Even as Elian and his father were on their way back to Cuba, Kendall Coffey, a lawyer for the Florida relatives, went before the cameras to say his clients were "truly heartbroken at this moment, with a sense of sadness that an injustice has occurred."
The controversy placed into conflict such cherished values as love of family and hatred of repression. It swept through the nation's politics, altering the Cold War consensus on Cuba and intruding into the current presidential campaign. The case provoked street riots in Miami, an armed raid by
immigration agents on the home of the Miami relatives to retrieve custody of Elian and legal maneuvering that cost the Justice Department $1.8 million as the legal battle reached all the way to the nation's highest court.
Public reaction against the Florida relatives and their Cuban-American supporters diminished the once-powerful anti-Castro lobby's influence in Washington and provided a catalyst for easing the economic embargo that has been the cornerstone of U.S. policy toward Cuba for four decades. Earlier
this week, House Republican leaders dropped their opposition to legislation that would permit sales of food and drugs to Cuba, a measure Midwestern grain farmers had sought for years.
Vice President Al Gore may have damaged his presidential campaign when he broke with the Clinton administration over Elian and called for a Florida family court to decide the custody case. His handling of the issue was widely perceived as pandering for votes in Florida and reinforced perceptions
that he is willing to adjust his beliefs for political gain.
The controversy also presented a unique personal challenge to Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, a Miami native and former state attorney for Dade County who has maintained close ties to the community. She weathered bitter criticism for authorizing the raid on the Miami home but ultimately emerged with
broad public approval for returning Elian to his father's custody.
A federal district court and later an appeals court upheld Reno's decision that Elian's father should speak for him regarding applying for political asylum. And the Supreme Court joined them shortly after noon Wednesday, turning down an appeal from Elian's relatives with a terse, 26-word order
that freed his father to take the boy home.
Reno said afterward that she was "very pleased."
"This little boy now knows that he can remain with his father," Reno said. "All involved have had an opportunity to make their case--all the way to the highest court in the land."
GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush said he was "saddened [that] the land of the free sends a young boy back to communist Cuba without a fair hearing in family court."
Officials of Youth For Understanding, the international exchange group that was playing host to the family, presented Elian a toy globe, a children's book and two American flags as going-away presents. Juan Miguel in return gave his hosts two Cuban national flags.
A few hours after the court ruling, Elian, his father, his stepmother and half-brother, along with an entourage of Cuban classmates and officials, departed in a motorcade from the estate where he had stayed in Washington. Elian's last hours in the United States received the kind of intense media
coverage that has punctuated his entire stay.
Before their plane departed, the family was taken to an airport shuttle vehicle and briefly kept alone with U.S. immigration officials, giving the family one final chance to defect, a Justice Department official said. Elian could be seen through the windows running up and down the vehicle,
smiling and doing chin-ups on bars while he waited to board the plane.
Juan Miguel, who arrived in the United States grim-faced and making combative accusations that his son had been exploited, left smiling. He said his three-month U.S. sojourn "has allowed me to meet very beautiful and intelligent people in this country."
"I hope that in the future this same friendship and this same impression that I have of the U.S. people, that the same thing can become true between our countries," he said in his parting remarks.
Once the plane carrying Elian and his family was aloft, an airport official gave a thumbs-up signal to a group of supporters who had come to witness the departure. The crowd, which included attorney Gregory Craig and Fernando Remirez, Cuba's chief diplomatic representative in the United States,
then broke into applause and embraces.
A Justice Department official called the moment "a little bittersweet." The official added, "Juan Miguel gets to make decisions for his son. At the same time, would we all be happier if he chose to remain in the United States? Yes, we would." |