By Maggie Fox
WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Making 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez a U.S. citizen would be tantamount to stealing his Cuban nationality, Ricardo Alarcon, head of Cuba's National Assembly, said on Sunday.
The international tug-of-war over the fate of the boy, plucked from an inner tube seven weeks ago, has made unlikely allies of the Cuban government and the U.S. Justice Department, which say he should be returned to Cuba.
Pitted against them are some members of Congress, anti-Castro Cuban-Americans and Elian's relatives in Miami who argue that the boy should never be sent back as long as Fidel Castro is in charge in Cuba.
Alarcon, Castro's main spokesman on U.S. affairs, said the tug-of-war over the child's fate has damaged the already poor relations between the United States and Cuba and making Elian a U.S. citizen would make things even worse, he said.
``That would be a terrible message for the future of our relations but I don't think that would happen. I don't think it would have any constitutional validity,'' Alarcon told NBC's ``Meet the Press'' programme.
Earlier, he told Fox television, ``I hope that at some point your congresspeople realise that Congress should be a serious institution and not an instrument to permit what amounts to the kidnapping of a small boy.''
As Alarcon pleaded the boy's case on U.S. media, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque began a 10-day tour of Europe on Sunday, carrying into the arena of international diplomacy his country's fight for the return of Elian Gonzalez.
Large demonstrations have been held in Cuba, with more than 100,000 mothers marching past the U.S diplomatic mission in Havana on Friday and 150,000 people rallying on Saturday.
Last month Senate Republican leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi and Assistant Majority Leader Don Nickles of Oklahoma, proposed that Congress grant U.S. citizenship to Elian. And last week four Republican members of the House of Representatives, including Florida
Representative Bill McCollum, said they would introduce a bill to do so.
Elian was one of 14 Cubans on a boat that capsized during an attempt to enter the United States illegally last November. Eleven passengers drowned, including Elian's mother Elizabet.
His father, Juan-Miguel Gonzalez, who lives in Cuba and who was divorced from his mother, has demanded his son's return.
The U.S. Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) ruled earlier this month that Elian belonged with his father and should be returned by Jan. 14, but the deadline was extended after a legal challenge by a Miami family court. And Indiana Republican congressman Dan Burton subpoenaed the boy to
appear before a House hearing.
Alarcon noted that not only the INS but Attorney General Janet Reno and President Bill Clinton have said Elian should be returned to Cuba.
``That you first permitted some people to steal a boy, now is the Congress of your country going to steal his nationality? That's going too far,'' he said.
A poll of 1,500 Americans by Time magazine shows that 48 percent think Elian should be returned to Cuba while 38 percent think he should stay in the United States.
The debate has even split Republicans.
Arizona Sen. John McCain, a Republican candidate for president, said he supported both keeping Elian in Florida and making him a U.S. citizen.
``If during Cold War a woman trying to go over the Berlin Wall and been killed, and dropped her child to freedom, no one would have contemplated sending her child back to oppression,'' McCain told NBC. He called Cuba ``one of the last places of oppression and repression.''
But Texas governor George Bush, a Republican candidate for president, said it should be up to Gonzalez to decide what happens to his son. ``But my position is ... that the man ought to be allowed to come to America to make that decision as to where the son ought to live,'' he told CNN's ``Late
Edition.''
``There's no telling what pressures he's under, no telling what he's being told, and if he's being given a chance to come and hopefully come and stay in the United States if he wanted to stay with his son, I think he ought to be given that option to do so.''
U.S. Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida echoed arguments that Gonzalez is being forced by Castro's government to demand his son's return. ``I am convinced, as are the relatives here of Elian, that the father is under coercion,'' he told CNN.
Diaz-Balart said Gonzalez should come to the United States to make his case -- and should bring his second wife and child along with him as proof the Cuban government is not holding his family hostage against his return.
``Only a court can make the decision. It is not a decision either for me or for Governor Bush or for Attorney General Reno,'' he added.
15:04 01-16-00
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