MSNBC
January 21, 2000
 
 
Elian’s grandmothers depart for U.S.
 
Cuban women flying to N.Y. to plead for boy’s return
 
                                                    MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

                               HAVANA, Jan. 21 —  Elian Gonzalez’s grandmothers
                          flew with a U.S. church delegation to New York
                         City on Friday to press their effort to bring him
                         home to Cuba.
                                 The women, Mariela Quintana and Raquel
                         Rodriguez, kissed and embraced Elian’s father, Juan Miguel
                         Gonzalez, before boarding the plane. Elian’s father
                         remained in Cuba.
                                “For the past 24 hours we have been in delicate and
                         emotional conversations with Elian Gonzalez’s family, a
                         loving family,” Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National
                         Council of Churches, said before the plane took off. “We
                         are very pleased that Elian’s grandmothers have agreed to
                         accompany us to New York City to have an opportunity to
                         speak to the American public, particularly to ask that Elian
                         Gonzalez come home.”
                                Juan Miguel Gonzalez has said he does not want to
                         have to visit the United States to pick up his son. Cuban
                         officials say they fear enemies of Cuba’s communist
                         government will hinder his return to Cuba with a subpoena
                         to appear before Congress.
                                The women were due to arrive at John F. Kennedy
                         International Airport at midafternoon aboard a Lear jet
                         owned by the church council, said spokesman Roy Lloyd.
                         Leaders of the council, the largest organization of Protestant
                         churches in the United States, have strongly advocated the
                         return of Elian to Cuba.
                         PRESS CONFERENCE PLANNED
                                The women hope to use the visit to demonstrate they
                         are not being pressured by the Cuban government to seek
                         the boy’s return. They were planning to speak about their
                         efforts to get Elian back to Cuba at a press conference after
                         their arrival, Lloyd said.
                                They also were expected to meet with Democratic
                         Rep. Charles Rangel of New York.
                                 Supporters of the boy’s family in Cuba hope the visit
                         by the women might help convince U.S. skeptics that the
                         family really did want the six-year-old boy to return. Some
                         anti-Castro activists claim the family’s appeal for the boy’s
                         return is made under government pressure.
                                Congressional sources said New York was chosen to
                         avoid Miami, where Elian has been living with his father’s
                         uncle for almost two months and where there were
                         disturbances over earlier proposals to send him home.
                                Elian’s relatives in Miami, who have taken legal action
                         to keep him in the United States, said they would welcome
                         a visit by the grandmothers, but had no plans to take him to
                         New York City to see them and will not allow them to take
                         the boy back to Cuba before the federal court rules in the
                         case.
                                “That has to go to court so that justice and the law of
                         this country can resolve this problem,” Elian’s great-uncle
                         Delfin Gonzalez said Friday. “The boy is going to be raised
                         here with a healthy and clean mind.”
                         CUBAN-AMERICAN PARENTS SPEAK OUT
                                Meanwhile, in a new maneuver in the family dispute
                         that has grown into an international tug-of-war, U.S.
                         lawmakers held a news conference in Miami to highlight a
                         number of cases where they charged that parents who fled
                         Cuba have been denied custody of their children by Fidel
                         Castro’s communist government.
                                Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, both
                         Republicans, were joined at a press conference by several
                         parents who said that Cuban officials have denied requests that
                         they be reunited with children who remain in Cuba.
                                The U.S. diplomatic mission in Cuba issued visas to the
                         two grandmothers Thursday, but the trip appeared doubtful
                         after a meeting Thursday night between the relatives and
                         officials from the church council.
                                As she left, Quintana, Elian’s paternal grandmother,
                         waved her finger and said “no, no, no” when journalists
                         asked if she was going to New York.
                                Quintana said before the meeting she would only go to
                         the United States if she could return with Elian, who was
                         found floating at sea in late November after the boat on
                         which he was heading for south Florida capsized, killing his
                         mother and 10 other would-be refugees.
                                The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has
                         ordered Elian returned to his father in Cuba. Elian’s Miami
                         relatives and Cuban-American activists argue he would
                         have a better life in the United States.
                                Attorneys for Lazaro Gonzalez, the boy’s great-uncle
                         filed a lawsuit accusing the INS of violating Elian’s
                         due-process rights and asked a judge to prevent Elian’s
                         return before he has an asylum hearing.
                                Elian’s cousin, Marisleysis Gonzalez, told local
                         television in Miami that the boy does not want to return with
                         his grandmothers to Cuba.
                                “He asked me ‘Are they coming to pick me up?’ And I
                         said, ‘Well, they are here to see you, do you want to leave
                         with them?’ and he said ‘No, I want to tell them that I don’t
                         want to go back over there.”’
                                On Thursday, the federal judge in the case asked
                         lawyers if they preferred he step aside because of his ties to
                         both sides. U.S. District Court Judge James Lawrence King
                         has a son with political ties to Elian’s Miami relatives and a
                         daughter who works for the U.S. government.
                                King said his son hired Armando Gutierrez, now
                         working as spokesman for those relatives, to help in his
                         re-election bid. King’s daughter is an assistant U.S. attorney
                         in Miami.
                                Lawyers for Lazaro Gonzalez said they saw no reason
                         for King to recuse himself. U.S. Attorney Tom Scott asked
                         for a day to respond.
 
                                The Associated Press contributed to this report.