Published Friday, April 7, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Rescuer: Let Elian decide his future
Pompano man breaks silence
By Eunice Ponce . eponce@herald.com
In a rare break of his trademark silence, Sam Ciancio, the Pompano Beach man who jumped in the water to rescue Elian Gonzalez on Thanksgiving Day, and the man who just renamed his boat ``Elian,'' is urging authorities to let the boy decide his own fate.
``I want to hear that child say, `I want to go back with my father,' and if he does, the people of Miami should respect that. But if he says he wants to stay, then so be it, and that
should be the end of it.''
Ciancio, who said Thursday night that he's planning to travel to Washington to meet Elian's father, said he thought it unwise to move the boy from the home where he said he's felt loved and comfortable. But if it comes to Elian leaving for Cuba with his father, Ciancio said he would want to get
to know Juan Miguel Gonzalez.
``If for nothing else but for myself, I want to meet him,'' he said. ``I just want to see who this child will be given back to.''
With respect to Elian's wishes, Ciancio said he has seen how the 6-year-old rafter has come to view his cousin, Marisleysis Gonzalez, as a mother figure. He has also heard the boy say he doesn't want to return to Cuba, he said.
``The United States is wrong at this point. Maybe at first he could have been sent back to his father. He would have had just one mishap in his life,'' Ciancio said, referring to the death of Elian's mother, Elisabeth Brotons, who perished during the voyage from Cuba.
FAMILY MEETING
Laura Fabar, a family law attorney on the Elian's Miami family's legal team, said an evidentiary court hearing, with all family members present, ``is still a viable action.''
But with respect to Elian being questioned in front of his relatives, she said family court judges are typically reluctant to subject children to that kind of pressure.
Ciancio's more outspoken cousin, Donato Dalrymple, who was fishing with Ciancio when the two found Elian hanging onto an inner tube, agreed with Ciancio, but also thought it highly unlikely that anyone would ever ask Elian what he thinks.
MAKE AMENDS
But Dalrymple was adamant on one point. He said Elian should not be removed from his Little Havana home during the appeals process.
``I think the boy's father needs to sit with the boy here, where [Elian] feels loved and comfortable, and he needs to reconcile with his uncle [Lazaro Gonzalez], who has done nothing but love this little boy,'' Dalrymple said. ``This family needs to make amends. [Elian] needs to see his father
interacting with the family, that everything is OK. These are family members who were having a good time together just over a year and a half ago in Cardenas.''
Ciancio, who has two children of his own, expressed doubts about Juan Miguel Gonzalez's stated intentions of wanting to take the boy back to Cuba.
``I would go to the end of the world for my kids,'' he said. ``I would go through fire, through bricks, to be there by their side. I think in my heart, why [Juan Miguel Gonzalez] didn't come originally, is that he was glad for his son to be here.''
Arrival sends media into high gear
'Nightline' comes to Dade; out-of-town crews set up camp
By Terry Jackson . tjackson@herald.com
The two items most in demand in Miami this week: a ticket to tonight's Nightline town hall meeting and a freelance TV news crew not already booked to stake out Elian Gonzalez's Little Havana home.
With the arrival of Juan Miguel Gonzalez in Washington, the media frenzy in Miami has been ratcheted up yet another notch in anticipation that the four-month international drama might be reaching a crescendo.
The latest to bring their spotlight to Miami is ABC's Nightline, which comes to Florida International University tonight for a 90-minute live show that host Ted Koppel said is intended to ``take the pulse of Miami.''
Eager for a spot in FIU's 600-seat Wertheim Performing Arts Center, hundreds of people have called FIU and ABC seeking tickets.
``Our phones have been ringing off the hook,'' Aileen Izquierdo, an FIU spokeswoman, said Thursday.
The answer? Sorry, it's invitation only.
``Whenever we do a town meeting on the road, we get a lot of response,'' said Sara Just, Nightline's chief booker. ``I think that because this issue is happening right now, the response is greater than we would normally get.
``What we want to do is make sure the audience is a fair, representative cross-section of South Florida.''
Just and her crew have been calling community groups, politicians, activists and ordinary citizens the past two days to offer seats for the 11:35 p.m. WPLG-ABC 10 broadcast, which also will be available in Spanish on Radio Mambi, WAQI-AM (710).
``Some of the people who believe that the boy should be with his father have been concerned about making those views public,'' Just said.
Nonetheless, she thinks all sides in the Elian controversy will be represented.
``There are certainly many views within the Cuban-American community, and we're finding that some of the people we're calling are changing their impressions every day,'' Just said.
What's also changing every day is the media throng across from the Northwest Second Street home where Elian has been living for the past four months. It's now growing larger as out-of-town news crews set up an around-the-clock stakeout.
``We're now calling it Camp Elian,'' CNN's Susan Candiotti said Thursday, waving down the block at a string of side-by-side canopies, each a shaded oasis for a different station or network.
``I've been covering this since December and the scene here had fallen into sort of a lull until last week, when word that Elian's father might come to the U.S. got everyone all excited.''
Now miles of multicolored cables snake down the street and around the block to huge satellite trucks, making a walk through Camp Elian a treacherous affair.
Coolers filled with water, juice and soft drinks keep reporters' throats lubricated for their updates -- which in the case of Candiotti can come as often as every half-hour, regardless of whether there's anything new to report. Recently, a gray tabby cat has taken to prowling Camp Elian, adding
a lived-in touch.
With the arrival of more out-of-towners, parking within two or three blocks of Elian's has become impossible, both for residents and news crews.
Robert Viscon, news director at South Florida station WSCV-Telemundo 51, said that he can't move his news truck -- one of only two owned by the station -- if news breaks elsewhere.
``Since all the media from the rest of the country moved in, if we had moved we would have lost our space,'' he said.
``I've never seen this kind of coverage of a Cuban event before.''
By Thursday night, Camp Elian had pretty much hit capacity and is unlikely to grow because nearly every freelance camera crew within 200 miles of Miami has been booked for Elian coverage.
``I don't think you could get a crew if you needed one,'' said Alice Jacobs, WSVN-Fox 7's vice president for news. ``Freelancers are getting rich off this.''
Elian custody switch to begin
Talks between INS, family break down
By Jay Weaver, Frank Davies And Frances Robles . jweaver@herald.com
The process of transferring custody of Elian Gonzalez from his Miami relatives to his father will begin today, federal authorities said Thursday, hours after Juan Miguel Gonzalez's strong pledge on his arrival in the United States to return to Cuba soon with his son.
Juan Miguel Gonzalez met this morning with Attorney General Janet Reno and emerged from the meeting saying he was sure he would be reunited with his son.
Attorneys for Elian's Miami relatives reacted with bitterness as talks broke down Thursday and it became clear that the government was about to begin enforcing its 3-month-old decision that the 6-year-old boy must be returned to his father.
``Elian has not had his day in court,'' Jose Garcia-Pedrosa, one of the family attorneys, angrily told reporters. ``This is a very, very sad day in the history of American jurisprudence.''
Elian's father, in remarks both combative and conciliatory, said he was eagerly awaiting a reunion with the boy.
``For exactly 137 days I have been unjustly and cruelly separated from my son,'' Juan Miguel Gonzalez said as he squinted in the sunlight of a 40-degree dawn at Dulles International Airport, his wife Nersy and infant son Hianny by his side. ``We are Elian's true family and we love him very
much.''
More than 300 supporters of the Miami family held carnations and prayed outside the family's Little Havana house Thursday might to show their concern. Exile leader Ramon Saul Sanchez urged a civil disobedience campaign to start at 4 p.m. today at Miami International Airport. Two psychologists
who have examined the boy told the crowd that he would suffer psychological harm if he is removed from their care. The relatives' attorneys said they will ask the state court for a full evidentiary hearing.
But Elian could be back in his father's custody by the end of next week. The Immigration and Naturalization Service said late Thursday that a letter officially giving the boy back to his dad could go out as soon as today. A second letter urging that he be turned over at a neutral location will
be sent by the middle of next week.
Juan Miguel, accompanied by his wife, his infant son and his lawyer, met with Attorney General Janet Reno this morning.
In brief remarks after the meeting, he said he was hopeful that his son would soon be returned to him.
"I'm sure that I'm going to have my boy with me,'' he said.
He also thanked the men who rescued Elian from the sea last Thanksgiving.
Gonzalez's attorney, Gregory Craig, said Juan Miguel had requested the Justice Department's help and in turn was given assurances that Elian would be turned over to him.
"I think it was a very successful meeting," Craig said.
Gonzalez's 7 a.m. arrival Thursday at the airport outside Washington brought a sense of climax to the dramatic tale. Since the moment little Elian was pulled from the sea, his custody has been the focus of an intense struggle between Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits.
Speaking through an interpreter, Juan Miguel Gonzalez expressed his ``deepest gratitude'' to the American people but also sharply criticized U.S. politicians, lawyers, journalists and the Cuban community in Miami for ``harassing'' his son.
``To witness his mother's disappearance and to miraculously survive the sinking of his boat was already enough suffering for a boy barely 5 years old. Add to this the turnover, in temporary custody, to some distant relatives who never saw him before,'' he added.
TEAM OF SUPPORT
Gonzalez, a 31-year-old Cuban tourist worker, was accompanied by Cuban diplomats; his lawyer, Craig; local police and federal agents; and two U.S. church leaders who have supported him: Joan Brown Campbell, former general secretary of the National Council of Churches, and the Rev. Thom White
Wolf Fassett, general secretary of the Board of Church and Society for the United Methodist Church.
As Gonzalez spoke, six demonstrators nearby shouted, ``Welcome to the land of freedom,'' and other slogans. Gonzalez clearly heard them but did not acknowledge them.
One of the demonstrators, Camila Ruiz, 27, a Cuban American from Santa Clara, Calif., said she wanted to ``welcome Juan Miguel so he knew exiles were not against him.
``We want him to be able to make a free choice about his future in a free country, but that will be hard when he's surrounded by Cuban state security,'' she added.
The father spent Thursday at the Bethesda, Md., home of Fernando Remirez, Cuba's top diplomat in the United States. He met with supporters, including California Congresswoman Maxine Waters.
Late Thursday, Juan Miguel Gonzalez told a Havana TV program that he has been received kindly by Americans in the Maryland neighborhood. ``I've walked out, chatted with them, served them coffee and I've been connecting and talking with them, and they're truly very concerned about all this,'' he
said.
President Fidel Castro said that he expects Juan Miguel Gonzalez and his family to be in the United States ``between 10 days and two months,'' although he believes that ``the American authorities are interested in solving the problem as soon as possible.''
BROKEN TALKS
Late in the day, talks over how and when the boy would be returned finally broke down between Gonzalez family lawyers and immigration officials who have been negotiating in Miami for six days.
The government rejected every one of the family's demands, including allowing Elian to be interviewed by a panel of independent psychologists. The INS is putting together a panel of medical and psychological experts that will advise the agency on the most appropriate way to reunite the boy with
his father.
INS district director Robert Wallis said the family's attorneys refused the government's terms to turn over the boy voluntarily with ``as little conflict as possible.''
``Instead, the attorneys continued to revisit the issue of whether Elian should be reunited with his father as opposed to discussing how best to reunite the two,'' Wallis said.
With the father here, the Miami family now has few options. It can seek a court injunction of U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore's ruling that cleared the way for the boy to go back to Cuba, or try to return to state family court to seek custody. The federal government would would have to obey
an injunction, but would not have to abide by any family court action.
DAD'S DECISION
The government has assured the family that it does not intend to whisk the child away from the home. But Wallis said that once the boy is reunited with his father, the agency could not stop them from returning to Cuba immediately. He expressed hope that they would remain for a federal appeal
challenging the boy's return to Cuba.
Miami family attorney Roger Bernstein said Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez will obey the rule of law if the government comes to take the boy: ``If the INS chooses to rip Elian from his family, Lazaro Gonzalez is ready to comply pure and simple.''
During a radio interview Thursday, Lazaro Gonzalez said he welcomes his nephew, but continued to insist that Juan Miguel come to his Little Havana home.
``It's correct that father is going to meet with the boy, but in his new home where the child lives here in Miami and where he's surrounded by his family that gave him the warmth that he's needed since he arrived to this country of freedom,'' Lazaro Gonzalez said.
Fears that the government planned to pry Elian away from his cousins agitated the protesters outside his Little Havana's house late Thursday afternoon. Chanting, ``Elian no se va!'' -- Elian is not leaving -- they broke through barricades surrounding the home, linked arms in a human chain, and
insisted they wouldn't let the first-grader go. But they backed down shortly afterward.
Late Thursday, however, Democracy Movement leader Sanchez urged the crowd of 300 to drive to the airport -- not to block traffic but to make their presence felt.
``We want to send a powerful message, an economic one, to the federal government that we want them to listen,'' he said.
HAVANA TV
Asked about the demonstrations on the Havana television show, Juan Miguel Gonzalez said, ``We're not mortified, because those people really don't want the best for my son.''
At the rally outside the Little Havana home, psychologist Alina Lopez-Gottardi, who has been seeing Elian since December, said the boy has repeatedly expressed fear of his father.
``Elian has expressed that his father freely expresses his anger out of control and in an abusive manner in specific instances that have been given to the INS,'' she said. ``The INS has chosen to ignore this information.''
INS spokeswoman Maria Cardona said the agency found Juan Miguel Gonzalez has a caring, loving relationship with his son. ``We believe this reunification in the long run will be what he needs in order to move forward with a normal life after the immense tragedy that he has endured,'' she said.
Herald staff writers Ana Acle, Alfonso Chardy, Don Finefrock and Marika Lynch, staff translator Renato Perez, and Herald writer Mireidy Fernandez contributed to this report.
Exile groups want father to come to Miami
BY ALFONSO CHARDY. achardy@herald.com
The crowd gathers around the home of Elian Gonzalez' Miami relatives, hoping to hear word that the boy's father will meet with family members to work out a solution to the custody battle.
The main Cuban exile organizations on Thursday unanimously welcomed the arrival of Juan Miguel Gonzalez, Elian Gonzalez's father, to the United States.
But they also criticized him for not traveling directly to Miami to see his son and meet with his Miami relatives to work out an arrangement that would enable Elian to stay here.
The Cuban American National Foundation, the Democracy Movement and Brothers to the Rescue -- the three exile groups most closely involved in the case -- said they will do anything Elian's Miami family asks to foster a reunion with the child's father in Miami.
Ramon Saul Sanchez of the Democracy Movement and Bill Schuss of Brothers to the Rescue said they're ready to urge demonstrators to leave the vicinity of the Little Havana home where Elian has been staying if the Miami family feels that such a move would encourage the boy's father to come to
Miami.
``If the family asks that we call on people not to be here so the father can feel more at ease, we would do so,'' said Sanchez, one of the community's key promoters of street protests.
Sanchez's strategy Thursday was to urge demonstrators to flock to the Little Havana home with flowers and prayers for Elian's father to come here.
A Cuban American Foundation press release summarized the sentiments of other exile groups.
``CANF Welcomes Juan Miguel Gonzalez to America,'' it said.
GROUP SKEPTICAL
But beneath the title, the press release blasted Elian's father and expressed skepticism that he is free of Fidel Castro's influence.
``We firmly believe that if Mr. Gonzalez were free of the fear and pressure instilled in him and his family by the Cuban government in the course of the last four months,'' the press release stated, ``he would also fulfill his wish, stated so often to his family, that he, too, would come to live
in the land of freedom.''
Local authorities take charge at diplomat's home
By Ana Radelat . Special to The Herald
BETHESDA, Md. -- Montgomery County Police took charge of security arrangements Thursday around the suburban home of Cuba's chief diplomat in Washington, Fernando Remirez, who vacated his house to make room for Juan Miguel Gonzalez, his wife and young son.
A lone Secret Service agent and several State Department security officers left their posts in front of the home shortly after Gonzalez and his family arrived in a seven-car police motorcade from Dulles International Airport in Virginia.
The Cuban Interests Section waived the diplomatic immunity status of the Remirez residence and allowed the Montgomery County Police to come onto the property. Officers entered the house several times during the day, giving its occupants updates on the situation outside.
The waiver could thwart any argument by the Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez that turning the boy over to his father in the home would be surrendering him to Cuban territory.
An army of journalists and media technicians invaded the high-income residential neighborhood. Police quickly set up orange-and-white plastic barricades to stop traffic into the block, directing the horde of media around the block to a spot about 50 yards away from the brick, split-level home
where the Gonzalez family is staying.
A second cordoned-off area, behind the media section and about a block and half from the house, was set up to keep protesters from moving closer.
``If Elian comes here, everything is going to go up a notch,'' predicted Montgomery County spokesman David Weaver.
`SENSE OF NORMALCY'
In a letter delivered to area residents Wednesday night, Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan warned residents that Elian's father might soon be their neighbor and assured them the county would ``maintain some sense of normalcy.''
Besides directing traffic away from the Remirez residence and making sure reporters stayed in their proper place, the principal duty of the two dozen uniformed Montgomery County police officers on the site appeared to be to ensure that the growing mob of journalists kept off the well-tended
lawns and flower beds.
Lt. William O'Toole, the police spokesman on the scene, disappointed many when he said that no porta-potties would be brought in.
``We don't want this to look like an encampment,'' he said.
The police were also trying to establish communications with the home's inhabitants so officers could ``prepare for any changes in the situation,'' O'Toole said.
``They've been very hospitable, but there's no official spokesperson,'' O'Toole complained. ``We'd like to keep informed about what's going on.''
SECURITY DETAIL
One security problem that concerns the local police force is the apparent failure to decide which federal agency will be in charge of providing a security detail that would accompany Juan Miguel Gonzalez on his trips out of the house.
Immigration and Naturalization Service spokeswoman Maria Cardona said the issue was ``still being discussed'' between the INS and the State Department. The failure to come to a decision about the security detail has reportedly complicated arrangements for Juan Miguel Gonzalez to meet with
Attorney General Janet Reno.
Copyright 2000 Miami Herald |