By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 8, 2000; Page A04
The apparent last act in the four-month-old custody drama over Elian
Gonzalez began yesterday as Attorney General Janet Reno told the
6-year-old boy's Miami relatives that, whether voluntarily or against their
will, they must give him up next week. Reno said Elian's father, who met
with her for an hour yesterday, told her "what he has said time and again:
He
wants his son back."
In Miami, leaders of days of demonstrations called on Cuban Americans to
postpone plans to disrupt city traffic and block access to the city's
international airport, amid uncertainty over how the relatives would react
to
Reno's statement, conveyed in a news conference and in separate letters
to
them and to father Juan Miguel Gonzalez.
"Now is not the time for civil disobedience," said a statement issued by
the
Cuban American National Foundation.
But a lawyer for the relatives, Manny Diaz, told a crowd gathered before
the
Little Havana home of Elian's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, that "we have
not had our day in court." And relatives continued, without apparent success,
to try to persuade Elian's father to meet with them to discuss the boy.
Another great-uncle, Delfin Gonzalez, flew to Washington but was turned
back by Montgomery County police at the family's request from approaching
the Bethesda home of the Cuban diplomat where the father is staying.
Florida's two senators, Connie Mack (R) and Bob Graham (D), acting at the
behest of the relatives, also wrote to Juan Miguel Gonzalez's attorney
to ask
for a meeting. In a later news conference, they blasted Reno and the
Immigration and Naturalization Service as acting "in a heavy-handed and
outrageous manner" toward the relatives.
The father's attorney, Gregory B. Craig, responded to the appeals by saying
his client "has tried for over four months, in almost daily phone calls
with
these people, to persuade them to give his son back. They have resisted
not
only his efforts, but the INS, the attorney general, and the federal court"
that
last month upheld an INS ruling that custody belonged with the father.
"It raises in our minds whether this is just another delay," Craig said.
Reno made it clear yesterday there would be no more delay. "The law is
very clear," she said at her news conference. "A child who has lost his
mother belongs with his sole surviving parent, especially with one who
has
shared such a close and continuous relationship with his son."
Elian's mother drowned when the boat carrying her, Elian and other
would-be migrants from Cuba capsized last November.
Reno said that the relatives would be given instructions early next week
on
"when and where Elian is to be turned over to his father, and at that time,
the
INS will formally transfer parole and care to the father." Officials said
the
second letter would be issued Monday or Tuesday, with a turnover day of
Wednesday or Thursday. Asked what the government is prepared to do if
the relatives resist, Reno said they "have indicated that they intend to
comply
with the law . . . and so I don't think we have to get to that point."
Officials said that U.S. marshals are prepared to remove Elian from Lazaro
Gonzalez's home if the relatives do not agree to bring him to them. Although
Miami area mayors said last week that local police would not participate
in
any effort related to the removal of the boy, federal officials said last
night
that they had become more confident in recent days that the police would
"do their job" if violent protests erupt.
In his own statement on the steps of the Justice Department after meeting
with Reno, the father said he "appreciated the opportunity" Reno and INS
Commissioner Doris N. Meissner had given him to tell them about the
"suffering" his family has gone through. He said he wanted to thank the
two
fishermen who rescued Elian, as well as "the American people who have
supported us."
Sources said the meeting with Reno, Meissner, Deputy Attorney General
Eric H. Holder Jr. and other officials had been emotional, and that Gonzalez
hugged the attorney general when it ended. Gonzalez's wife, Nercy, moved
to the corner of the room at one point to feed their 6-month-old son, Hianny.
No Cuban officials were present at the meeting.
In the Justice Department letters sent to the father and the Miami relatives,
Reno asked them to meet separately with two psychiatrists and one
psychologist Meissner has appointed to advise the INS on the least disruptive
way to transfer Elian to his father's care. On Sunday, the family in Bethesda
is to meet with Paulina F. Kernberg, a professor of psychiatry at the Weill
Medical College of Cornell University and Lourdes Rigual-Lynch, the
director of Mental Health Services at Montefiore Medical Center--both of
whom speak Spanish. The third is Jerry M. Weiner, professor emeritus of
psychiatry and pediatrics at the George Washington University Medical
School.
The letter said the three-member team would travel to Miami on Monday in
hopes of meeting with the relatives there. Officials said the three already
had been sent all Justice Department documentation on the boy as well as
television tapes of him. They said the initial opinion of the team, and
of other
experts consulted, had been that there should be no transition period in
the
turnover.
"They made it very clear it should be done promptly" now that the father
is in
this country, one official said, even if the child violently protests that
he does
not want to go. "Their initial advice was that there is no reason to believe
he
would not immediately start rebonding with his father."
The team apparently plans to meet initially only with Lazaro Gonzalez and
other family members in Miami to try to convince them that they could play
an important role in soothing Elian's fears. "They said he needs to feel
[the
Miami relatives] are helping him; that the relatives need to take
responsibility" for the transfer. If the relatives agree, the team may
then ask
to meet with Elian.
Although the Miami relatives remained out of sight and issued no public
reaction to Reno's news conference, or the letter they received, opinion
among people close to them seemed to be divided on the psychiatric team.
Ramon Saul Sanchez, leader of the exile group Democracy Movement, said
that "we share some pleasure in the fact that finally, after all this time,
they
have finally listened" to the relatives' demands that the government take
Elian's delicate emotional condition into account.
But one of the family's lawyers said that from what Reno said he feared
the
team already had made up its mind without ever examining Elian. He said
that the relatives' previously had demanded that psychiatrists be allowed
to
evaluate whether sending Elian back to Cuba with his father was the best
thing for him.
Meanwhile, the Bethesda neighborhood where the father and his family are
staying remained a media camp yesterday, with more than 20 cameras
trained on the Millwood Road home surrounded by yellow police tape.
Unlike Thursday, no protesters appeared on the street as neighbors milled
about at an impromptu block party.
Celeste Lavin, 9, and Jackie Kantor, 8, sold lemonade, brownies and pizza
at
a corner stand. The girls said they had made about $28, with half of it
going
to a fund-raiser at Bradley Hills Elementary School. "A lot of people have
been tipping us," Lavin said.
About 4:30 p.m., police at the family's request turned away Delfin Gonzalez,
who had just arrived from Miami. A spokesman for the Cuban American
National Foundation said Elian's great-uncle would spend the night here,
and
return to Bethesda to try again today.
Staff writers Sue Anne Pressley in Miami and Patrice Gaines and Katherine
Shaver in Washington contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2000 The Washington Post Company