The Washington Post
April 13, 2000
 
 
Elian Kin Ordered to Surrender Boy Today

By Karen DeYoung and Sue Anne Pressley
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday , April 13, 2000 ; A01

Attorney General Janet Reno last night ordered the Miami relatives of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez to surrender him to his Cuban
father today. Elian's great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, vowed defiantly that he would never voluntarily relinquish the boy and said
federal officials "will have to come into the house and take him by force."

"That way," Gonzalez said, "the world can see how they train people to attack this humble house where we have lived . . . just
so they can have their way and make sure that this little boy goes back to Cuba."

Nearly five months after Elian was found floating in the Atlantic Ocean by two Florida fishermen, the international custody
dispute moved toward a dramatic close. Gonzalez and his lawyers stalked out of a final meeting in Miami with Reno and
Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris N. Meissner to tell waiting cameras at midnight that the U.S.
government "doesn't care what happens to this child."

Nearly an hour after they spoke, Reno said she had asked Gonzalez to bring Elian to Washington. His other choice, spelled out
in an INS letter, was to deliver Elian at 2 p.m. today to the Opa Locka airport, where his custody would officially be transfered
to INS. The boy would then be flown in a government aircraft--perhaps with Reno herself--to Washington, where he was to be
reunited with his waiting father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez.

"I think it is obvious, and I believe strongly, that Mr. Lazaro Gonzalez and his daughter care very deeply about Elian," a visibly
weary Reno said. "It is now up to them to ensure that Elian's transition from their care to the care of his father . . . happens in
the best and least traumatic way."

If Lazaro Gonzalez does not appear at the designated time and place, U.S. marshals and INS officials will go to his Little
Havana home and take custody of Elian, officials said.

Reno and Meissner flew to Miami yesterday afternoon to make one last, personal effort to persuade the relatives to cooperate
in the reunion. But a 2 1/2-hour meeting with Lazaro Gonzalez and his 21-year-old daughter, Marisleysis, held at the Miami
Beach home of Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin and attended by Elian, ended without agreement at 9 p.m. After additional talks at the
U.S. attorney's office in downtown Miami, Lazaro Gonzalez emerged with his attorneys to angrily denounce the government.

Late last night, Lazaro Gonzalez, Marisleysis and Elian were believed to have left O'Laughlin's gated home and returned to his
home in Little Havana, apparently ensuring that federal officials will have to travel through the heart of Miami's Cuban American
community to retrieve the boy.

The crowd of demonstrators that has surrounded the house for weeks had grown thin yesterday after the relatives indicated
they would spend the night at O'Laughlin's. Although community leaders have said there would be no violence, local law
enforcement officials prepared to establish a security perimeter around the area.

Since negotiations between the government and Lazaro Gonzalez broke down last week, Elian's great-uncle had insisted that he
would not even consider voluntarily turning the boy over to his father until they had a face-to-face meeting. Even if he emerged
from such a meeting satisfied that Juan Miguel Gonzalez freely desired to return to Cuba rather than stay in this country, he
indicated he would agree to no immediate transfer but wanted a lengthy "transition" period for the child to become reacquainted
with his father while continuing to live in his house.

Over the past week, the relatives have said repeatedly that Elian was "afraid" of his father and did not want to go back to
Cuba.

But Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who arrived in Washington last week from Havana, publicly and privately insisted that he would
brook no further delay in being reunited with his son and had every intention of returning to Cuba. The father steadfastly refused
to meet with the relatives until after he had "legal and physical" custody of Elian, and his presence in the United States put
pressure on the government finally to enforce its Jan. 5 ruling that Elian be sent home.

Officials said that Reno, whose aides were divided on the wisdom of yesterday's personal intervention and the possibility of
further delay, made the trip out of "instinct." A Miami native who has repeatedly praised the basic goodness of the Cuban
American community and expressed her love of southern Florida, she believed it was worth one more personal effort to resolve
the controversy in a "cooperative" way that would not inflict further trauma on Elian.

Elian was rescued on Thanksgiving Day from a migrant shipwreck in which his mother and others fleeing Cuba drowned. The
INS placed him temporarily in Lazaro Gonzalez's care but on Jan. 5 ruled that he should be sent back to Cuba. Last month, a
federal judge upheld that ruling, although Lazaro Gonzalez has appealed. Juan Miguel Gonzalez's arrival in Washington last
week from Havana spurred the Justice Department to try to enforce the ruling.

As last night's meeting began, initial reaction in Miami was that the relatives had won another victory--or at least another
postponement of the inevitable. And while Cuban officials and supporters publicly held their tongues, there was growing
irritation on the father's side that what they saw as unrelenting intransigence from Miami was being met with more government
acquiescence.

The letter sent in the early hours of this morning to Lazaro Gonzalez offered him the same deal Reno had offered him in
person--to fly to Washington with Elian and to meet with Elian's father but with the timing of custody transfer explicitly set out.

"Before the meeting," it said, "Juan Miguel Gonzalez will have an opportunity to meet privately with his son. During the meeting .
. . INS will have custody and care of Elian. . . . After the meeting, care and parole of Elian will be transferred to Juan Miguel
Gonzalez."

"If you do not wish to meet with Juan Miguel Gonzalez as described above," the letter said, the INS "hereby instruct[s] you to
present Elian at the same time and place. . . . At that time, the parole of Elian into your care will be revoked" and temporarily
transferred to INS for the duration of the flight to Washington, when the boy will be "paroled into the care of his father."

"You and your representatives have frequently stated in the last several weeks that while you did not agree" with the
government's decision in the case, "you would nevertheless abide by the law," the letter concluded. "The time has now come to
carry through on that commitment."

Sources said that another great-uncle in Miami who has supported Elian's return to Cuba was on "standby" to accompany him
to Washington if needed. The sources said that the Cuban government had arranged for the reunion with his father to take place
at a private location in or near Washington and that it would not be at the Bethesda home of Cuba's top diplomat here or at the
Cuban Interests Section on 16th Street NW.

In describing last night's meeting between the relatives and Reno, officials said that Marisleysis Gonzalez, who has described
herself as a "mother figure" to Elian, talked for nearly an hour. She was released yesterday from the hospital, where she had
been admitted Saturday suffering what the relatives said was exhaustion, and immediately went to the home of O'Laughlin, a
Dominican nun and president of Barry University who had hosted a controversial January meeting between Elian and his two
Cuban grandmothers.

Manny Diaz, an attorney for Lazaro Gonzalez, said they had presented Reno and Meissner with extensive evidence of
repression in communist Cuba and had raised questions about Juan Miguel Gonzalez's parental fitness. Government officials
said none of the information given to Reno was new.

DeYoung reported from Washington, Pressley from Miami. Staff writer April Witt and special correspondent Catharine Skipp
contributed to this story from Miami.

                                 © 2000 The Washington Post Company