By Andrew Cawthorne
HAVANA, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Leaders of a prominent U.S. church organisation began a three-day visit to Cuba late Sunday aimed at resolving an international custody battle over six-year-old shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez.
``Our purpose here is clear and simple: We believe that Elian Gonzalez should be returned to his family,'' said Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, a leader of the U.S. National Council of Churches, which represents 35 Protestant and Orthodox denominations with 52 million members.
Campbell, accompanied by another leader of the New York- based council, the Rev. Oscar Bolioli, was due to visit Elian's father and grandparents in their hometown of Cardenas, two hours east of Havana, Monday morning.
The father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, has demanded the boy's return ever since he was rescued at sea Nov. 25. He had been in a boat filled with illegal Cuban migrants which had capsized. Elian's mother, who was divorced from the father, died in the incident along with 10 others.
The boy, who spent two days and nights clinging to an inner-tube, has been staying with paternal relatives in Miami, prompting a highly politicized custody battle across the Florida Straits.
The council delegation was met on arrival at Havana's international airport by senior Cuban official Ricardo Alarcon, who heads the island's National Assembly and is President Fidel Castro's point man on U.S. affairs.
``We know that the position of the council reflects the opinion of the immense majority of Americans,'' Alarcon told reporters. ``This visit goes beyond symbolic support. We know the council is doing all it can to help resolve the matter.''
In addition to lending moral support to Havana's case by visiting, the council believes it can help by offering itself as a vehicle to return Elian in the future, and acting as a spokesman in the United States for Elian's family in Cuba.
``It has all become very political. We need to make sure the family's voice will be heard in the U.S. They have no voice in the U.S.,'' Brown added in a briefing with reporters.
She mentioned, for example, a possible hearing in the U.S. Congress on a Senate proposal to grant Elian U.S. citizenship. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) is also due to hold a hearing on the case Jan. 21.
In one of the world's last remnants of Cold War hostilities, Castro's government and the Miami Cuban-American exile community have been at each other's throats for a month over Elian's case.
Havana says the boy has been ``kidnapped'' and is being ``tortured'' psychologically as well as ``bribed'' with toys and U.S.-style comforts. And Cuba says that U.S. authorities have ridden roughshod over parental rights.
The boy's U.S. relatives, and Cuban-American politicians, however, say it would be a travesty to send Elian back to the country his mother died trying to help him escape. They say Elian would grow up in Cuba without the freedom and prosperity available to him in the United States.
The U.S. Council of Churches opposes Washington's embargo against Cuba, has close ties with the Cuban Council of Churches since before Castro's 1959 revolution, and has sent $10 million of aid to Cuba in the last eight years.
``Our hope is that our being here will be a witness that will perhaps hurry the day that Elian Gonzalez can return to his family,'' added Campbell.
01:17 01-03-00
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