By Elaine Monaghan
WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - An international custody battle over a Cuban boy entered a dramatic new phase on Thursday with the boy's grandmothers apparently ready to try to bring him back to his father in Cuba.
A plane reportedly chartered by Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, a former general secretary of the National Council of Churches (NCC) who has been trying to mediate the controversy, left New York for Cuba, apparently to pick up the two women and bring them to the United States.
The plan was for the grandmothers of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez to fly to the United States to pick up the boy and take him back to his father in the Cuban town of Cardenas, a U.S. official said.
A State Department spokeswoman told reporters that the plane started its flight to Cuba Thursday afternoon and said the two grandmothers had been issued visas valid for travel on Friday.
In Miami, Elian's great uncle Lazaro Gonzalez was asked how he would feel if the grandmothers came to Miami. ``Of course I'll let them in,'' he said.
``I feel normal, like always. I'm not happy or sad,'' he told reporters outside his Little Havana home.
The dispute has roused passions on both sides of the Straits of Florida ever since Elian was found clinging to an inner tube on November 25, the survivor of an accident in which his mother and 10 others were killed.
The plane's departure spelled the beginning of what looked like a decisive initiative led by Brown, formerly of the NCC -- which itself denied all knowledge of the plan.
A source said the plane, which left at about 3 p.m. (2000 GMT), was supposed to return to New York's JFK airport on Friday. No further information was available on its itinerary.
The State Department spokeswoman could not say what type of visa the women had been given.
She said the State Department had been informed by the Cuban government that the group of private individuals on the plane hoped to travel to Cuba to meet the grandmothers and Cuban officials.
The case has driven a wedge between the government and Cuban-Americans hostile to Communist leader Fidel Castro.
A further complicating factor is an ongoing legal battle to get the boy a U.S. political asylum hearing which on Thursday looked likely to face delays -- and which seeks to bar U.S. immigration officials from deporting him before the hearing.
The federal judge on the case said a schedule conflict could stop him handling the case quickly and that his children's legal careers may raise conflicts of interest.
Elian's relatives in Miami backed by Cuban exiles and conservative U.S. politicians opposed to Castro have challenged the U.S. government's ruling that the boy should be reunited with his father on the island.
The U.S. Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS), asked if Elian's grandmothers would be allowed to take the boy back to Cuba, had no comment.
The State Department spokeswoman said the two grandmothers had applied for and received visas at the U.S. interests section in Havana earlier on Thursday. ``They are supposed to travel tomorrow,'' she added.
Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, a tourism industry worker who lives in Cardenas, has repeatedly appealed for his son's return and his supporters have pointed out he had maintained a good relationship with the boy despite having been divorced from his mother.
Brown, a former general secretary of the National Council of Churches, visited Cuba from January 2-5 to try to resolve the custody dispute.
She saw the father and grandparents as well as Cuban officials.
20:40 01-20-00
Copyright 2000 Reuters Limited. |