Published Friday, June 30, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Elián secluded on first day back /
No cameras allowed near home as 11-block area is cordoned off
Herald Staff Report
HAVANA -- Cloistered in a secluded seafront compound far from the routines of everyday Cuban life, Elián González spent his first full day back in Cuba on Thursday -- officially dubbed ``the little prince.''
Elián's latest residence is a white stucco, two-story estate with a pool, multiple bedrooms, a play room and a classroom, where Cuban authorities said the 6-year-old will finish up the first grade with four classmates who returned with him Wednesday from Washington, D.C.
The boy's father, Juan Miguel, his stepmother and half-brother were also staying inside the compound, known as the White House, in Miramar, a neighborhood that before the revolution was home to the capital's wealthy elite.
But it was impossible to get a glimpse of the child whose comings and goings were often a fixture of both Cuban and Miami television broadcasts during the international custody dispute that surrounded his seven-month stay in the United States.
No TV cameras were allowed near the compound and police sealed off an 11-block area around Elián's new quarters, permitting only residents and nearby hotel workers near the house, located on the corner of First Avenue and 34th Street.
``He will never again live new moments of repugnant manipulation like those of the long interviews conducted by an American TV station,'' the Cuban daily Granma said.
FAMOUS NEIGHBOR
Outwardly unfazed by their famous new neighbor, Miramar residents welcomed Elián and said seclusion was in his best interest.
``A lot of people want to see him. But he has to live his normal life,'' said Dolores González, who works at a pharmacy near the compound.
``Extra security is important,'' said María Teresa Soto, who sells fried dough in a Miramar street, because ``the mafia is everywhere.'' Mafia is the term the Cuban government uses to describe government opponents.
The Copacabana Hotel, for example, is just a few blocks away -- the scene of a bombing that killed an Italian tourist in 1997. Other area buildings include the Peruvian Embassy, the National Aquarium, a vocational high school, and an outlet of Cuba's ubiquitous fast-food chain, El Rápido.
It will be nearly a month before Elián returns to his father's home in Cárdenas, 90 miles east of Havana. Authorities said Elián and his family will spend three weeks in the compound, then take a weeklong vacation near Cárdenas before moving home.
The blackout on coverage of Elián's activities Thursday did not mean an end to the daily routine of round tables, video clips and analysis on the drama's implications for U.S.-Cuban relations.
Newscasts Thursday replayed footage of the boy's arrival -- his excited classmates jumping and shouting his name, his teary-eyed grandfathers holding him in their arms. They also showed some of the 900 students from Cárdenas' Marcelo Salado Elementary School staging a play and putting
flowers on a bust of José Martí in Elián's honor. School has not yet let out for the summer in Cuba.
Both Granma and the Cuban youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde also dedicated a special 14-page section to coverage of the return of Elián, whom they called ``the little prince.''
At last in the homeland, Granma's headline read.
Rebelde's front page declared: Happiness returned, and included a special poem, Hallelujah for the boy that has won the battle!
Granma also reported that, although President Fidel Castro did not attend the boy's brief arrival party at the airport Wednesday night, Cubans could undoubtedly ``see'' the presence of the man who had made the child's return a personal crusade.
Still, it was not known whether Castro had been in contact with the Gonzálezes in Miramar or elsewhere, since their arrival.
DESCRIBED AS HERO
Much of the coverage characterized Juan Miguel González as a hero who had won the hearts of the American people and cast the culprit of the tragedy as the Cuban Adjustment Act.
Government officials here have long complained that the law, which lets Cubans who reach U.S. land claim permanent residency, encourages people to take risky journeys across the Florida Straits.
Elián's mother and 10 other people perished in just such a journey in November. The child and two others survived.
News coverage said that, now that Elián's return had been secured, people should now struggle to defeat the Adjustment Act and U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba.
Ex-U.S. official to lead pro-embargo drive
By Juan O. Tamayo. jtamayo@herald.com
One day after the return of Elián González to Cuba, the top Cuban-American political lobbying group announced Thursday that it is hiring a senior State Department expert on Cuba to spearhead a nationwide campaign to combat efforts to ease the U.S. embargo.
In naming Dennis Hays, 47, to the post of executive vice president, the Cuban American National Foundation signaled that it is moving quickly to try to counter what many analysts say is the most severe challenge to American policy toward Cuba in decades.
In addition to the U.S. government's backing of Elián's return to Cuba, Republicans in the House of Representatives earlier this week agreed to support the lifting of the 40-year prohibition on sales of food and medicine to the island. Throughout the Elián saga, many Cuban
Americans have argued that U.S. politicians and voters don't understand or know about human rights abuses that occur under the government of Fidel Castro.
Hays will ``play a key role in . . . getting the truth out to the American people about Fidel Castro and current U.S. policy, said Jorge Mas, chairman of CANF.
Hays, who will be the highest ranking non-Cuban working for CANF, retired Monday from the State Deparment where he most recently served as ambassador to Suriname. But he is best known for resigning as head of the State Department's Cuban Affairs Office in 1995 to protest a U.S.-Cuba accord that
for the first time returned home Cuban rafters intercepted at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard.
Hays will be in charge of the foundation's Washington office. The foundation also will expand its Washington presence from three to as many as eight staffers, Hays said.
Hays said the foundation's campaign would entail ``very proactive and aggressive efforts to meet with political leaders and newspaper editorial boards across the United States, plus five TV spots on Castro's wrongdoings.
One spot focuses on Castro's harboring of 77 fugitives from U.S. justice, including financier Robert Vesco and Afro-American activist Joanne Chesimard, convicted in the 1973 killing of a New Jersey state trooper.
It will be first shown in the district of Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., who is leading the House side of the campaign to lift most restrictions on U.S. food and medical sales to Cuba, Hays said.
Mas told a news conference in Washington that Hays' vast foreign policy experience ``will be invaluable as we continue to forge ahead in an era where American values . . . have often taken a back seat to economic schemes.
Asked how much the overall campaign would cost, Hays said CANF's membership had made ``commitments for what it takes.
Hays said part of the campaign will also be aimed at countering the negative image of Cuban exiles as right-wing radicals and ungrateful immigrants who defied U.S. laws over the Elián González case.
``That's a concern, image, Hays said. ``It's clear from news stories that there's a lot of bad information and misinformation that is in the public domain. Something needs to be done to correct that.
``It's important to focus on the facts, and the facts are that Cuba is a failed society and that people are suffering from the regime's policies, he added in a telephone interview from Washington.
Hays and his deputy at the Cuban Affairs Office, Nancy Mason, asked for transfers to other posts in 1995 after Undersecretary of State Peter Tarnoff secretly negotiated a migration deal with Cuban officials.
The deal required U.S. authorities to return to Cuba any rafter interdicted at sea, while Havana promised not to punish the returnees. Until then, all Cubans found on the high seas had been accepted by the United States as refugees from Castro's communist government.
``In that job I would have been responsible for enforcing a policy that I felt was not appropriate or justified, Hays said Thursday.
Hays, a California native who graduated from the University of Florida, spent 26 years in the State Department, including assignments in Jamaica, Burundi and Guyana.
Reno satisfied Elián, dad united but regrets rift with Cuban exiles
BY FRANK DAVIES fdavies@herald.com
WASHINGTON -- Janet Reno on Thursday discussed a range of thoughts and emotions about the seven-month Elián González saga: satisfaction that father and son are together, a wish that they were in a free country, and a regret that her breach with the Cuban-American community may be
too deep to heal.
``It's a mixture of so many different things,'' said Reno at her weekly press briefing. ``A little boy who lost his mother, a country that is not free. It's a story of families that have disagreements. It is a story of so much of human life. And yet in the end he is with his father, and I am
glad of that.
``I just wish he were with his father in a democratic, free country.''
Because of her decision to take Elián by force from his Miami relatives, Reno conceded that she may not be able to help heal the wounds of a divided community in her hometown:
HURT GOES DEEP
``I don't know whether I can. I would like to think that I can. Some of the messages I get from [Cuban Americans] indicate maybe I can't. But I am devoted to that community, and I am going to do everything I can to heal it. I say to all of those who are speaking sharply and feeling hurt, I would
like to talk to you.''
``This hurt may go too deep, which I will regret,'' she added. ``But I still have to do what I think is right under the law.''
Reno reiterated that Elián's father, Juan Miguel González, had opportunities to seek asylum while in the United States. She recalled a meeting in her conference room with González, his wife and baby son soon after they arrived in April when the issue was raised.
FATHER'S WISHES
``The subject came up -- he was sitting right there -- and he said he wanted to go home,'' said Reno.
The father's Washington lawyer, Gregory Craig, said on NBC's Today that González showed no interest in defecting: ``We talked obliquely about it. There was no evidence ever . . . that he wanted to explore that option.''
The saga of the 6-year-old boy focused attention on unaccompanied children who enter the United States, and Reno said that her department, which includes the Immigration and Naturalization Service, is reviewing how to handle asylum cases involving children.
``I'm just asking the general issue, because it is clear that, where do you draw the line between the 6-year-old and the 12-year-old? How do you make these judgments?'' she said. ``We will be looking at it to see if there is any lesson learned, anything that should be done.''
NO LESSONS
But Reno avoided drawing any large lessons from Elián's case, ``because I don't think we'll ever see anything quite like this again.''
Reflecting on the controversy, Reno recalled how she first learned of Elián González during Thanksgiving weekend, when she was in Miami:
``I looked at a copy of The Herald reporting on how he was pulled from the water, and I thought: `What a remarkable little boy. And what a sad situation, a tragedy.' ''
Exile group hires ex-U.S. official to lead image effort
By Juan O. Tamayo. jtamayo@herald.com
The top Cuban-American lobby hired a State Department expert on Cuba Thursday to spearhead a campaign to educate Americans on Havana's misdeeds, combat efforts to ease the U.S. embargo and burnish the image of exiles.
The Cuban American National Foundation named Dennis Hays, 47, who resigned as head of State's Cuban Affairs Office in 1995 in disagreement with a secret U.S.-Cuba accord that for the first time returned home Cuban rafters intercepted at sea by the U.S. Coast Guard.
His hiring came amid growing efforts in Washington to ease the trade and economic embargo on Cuba, and a severe image crisis among Cuban Americans in the wake of the dispute over child rafter Elián González.
Hays will ``play a key role in . . . getting the truth out to the American people about Fidel Castro and current U.S. policy, said Jorge Mas, chairman of CANF.
The highest-ranking non-Cuban working for CANF, Hays will carry the title of executive vice president and be in charge of its Washington office, expected to expand from three to up to eight staffers.
Hays said the foundation's campaign would entail ``very proactive and aggressive efforts to meet with political leaders and newspaper editorial boards across the United States, plus five TV spots on Castro's wrongdoings.
One spot focuses on Castro's harboring of 77 fugitives from U.S. justice, including financier Robert Vesco and Afro-American activist Joanne Chesimard, convicted in the 1973 killing of a New Jersey State trooper.
It will be first shown in the district of Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., leading the House side of the campaign to lift most restrictions on U.S. food and medical sales to Cuba, Hays said.
Mas told a news conference in Washington that Hays' vast foreign policy experience ``will be invaluable as we continue to forge ahead in an era where American values . . . have often taken a back seat to economic schemes.
Asked how much the overall campaign would cost, Hays said CANF's membership had made ``commitments for what it takes.
Hays said part of the campaign will also be aimed at countering the negative image of Cuban exiles as right-wing radicals and ungrateful immigrants who defied U.S. laws over the Elián González case.
``That's a concern, image, Hays said. ``It's clear from news stories that there's a lot of bad information and misinformation that is in the public domain. Something needs to be done to correct that.
``It's important to focus on the facts, and the facts are that Cuba is a failed society and that people are suffering from the regime's policies, he added in a telephone interview from Washington.
Hays and his deputy at the Cuban Affairs Office, Nancy Mason, asked for transfers to other posts in 1995 after Undersecretary of State Peter Tarnoff secretly negotiated a migration deal with Cuban officials.
The deal required U.S. authorities to return to Cuba any rafter interdicted at sea, while Havana promised not to punish the returnees. Until then, all Cubans found on the high seas had been accepted by the United States as refugees from Castro's communist government.
``In that job I would have been responsible for enforcing a policy that I felt was not appropriate or justified, Hays said Thursday.
Hays, a California native who graduated from the University of Florida, spent 26 years in the State Department, including assignments in Jamaica, Burundi and Guyana.
Hays retired from the State Department on Monday after serving most recently as U.S. ambassador to Suriname, and had planned to settle in the Orlando area until CANF offered him the job.
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