By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday , April 14, 2000 ; A01

The Justice Department declined to take action yesterday after the great-uncle of Elian Gonzalez defied a government order
and refused to surrender the 6-year-old boy, pushing the international custody dispute into another day amid escalating tension
in Miami and mounting anger from Elian's Cuban father.

As thousands of Cuban Americans protesting outside great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez's home in Miami's Little Havana vowed to
prevent the boy's removal, Attorney General Janet Reno continued to seek a negotiated settlement despite adamant refusals on
both sides of the Gonzalez family to alter positions they have held for weeks.

Lazaro Gonzalez again demanded a face-to-face meeting with the father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, after which, he has said, he
would decide whether to turn over Elian. "We want the family to get together with no preconditions," said Manny Diaz, an
attorney for the U.S. relatives.

The father again responded that there would be no meeting until Elian is "physically and legally" in his custody, as the Justice
Department has ordered. "Juan Miguel Gonzalez asks only this, that the laws of this nation be enforced," the father's attorney,
Gregory B. Craig, said in a statement delivered outside his downtown Washington law office. "Today, Lazaro Gonzalez defied
the nation's chief law enforcement officer. . . . Elian Gonzalez is being held unlawfully in Miami against his father's wishes."

Officials said that Reno, who spent a second day in Miami in charge of the situation, believed it was worth the additional
delay--and the possibility of appearing indecisive--to exhaust every avenue of compromise before resorting to a forcible
removal that she feared could result in violence. Federal and state law enforcement officials were advising Reno on a series of
options for proceeding in the event there is no "cooperative" solution, officials said.

"We have the authority to take action," Reno told reporters. "But responsible authority means not only . . . taking action . . . but
knowing when and how to take it."

A senior official in Washington said the administration expected Elian to be in his father's custody "in the next day or so" and
indicated that the Miami standoff would not be allowed to persist through the weekend. But others said it could stretch into next
week and that the government was more interested in success than speed.

President Clinton declined to second-guess Reno. "I think I should let her address what we're going to do and when we're
going to do it," Clinton said in comments to reporters at the American Society of Newspaper Editors convention here. But, he
said, "I think the issue here for me is the rule of law. We have a system . . . if you don't think it's right, then you can say, well,
we ought to change the laws." He noted that a federal court had upheld Reno's decision to return Elian to his father.

The Justice Department's ultimatum was issued Wednesday night, after the relatives refused Reno's request--made in a
personal meeting in Miami--to bring Elian to Washington, meet with the father and turn over the boy. A subsequent Immigration
and Naturalization Service letter instructed Lazaro Gonzalez to relinquish Elian at Opa Locka airport, north of Miami, yesterday
at 2 p.m.

Even before that deadline had passed, Reno announced that "you will not see marshals at 2:01 . . . attempting to remove the
child by force." But unless the Miami relatives altered their refusal to comply with the federal order, it appeared that the U.S.
marshals, accompanied by INS agents, ultimately would be deployed to retrieve the boy.

Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who arrived here last week from Havana to reclaim his son, was said to be depressed and outraged by
a videotape broadcast repeatedly yesterday on national television in which Elian addresses him saying, "Daddy, I don't want to
go to Cuba. . . . If you want to stay, come here, but I don't want to go back to Cuba."

The tape was apparently recorded by the relatives early Thursday morning in the boy's Little Havana bedroom after the meeting
with Reno. "Daddy, you saw that old woman who came . . . she wants to take me back to Cuba," Elian said, apparently
referring to Reno.

Former Arizona senator Dennis DeConcini (D), who met with the father yesterday in Bethesda, where he is staying in the home
of a Cuban diplomat, told reporters that on the question of his return to Cuba, Juan Miguel Gonzalez had told him: " I have no
reason that I would want to leave Cuba. I love Cuba. My family is there. I have a job there and I have a happy life there.' "

DeConcini said he had found Gonzalez anxious, disappointed and unable to understand why the system has not been able to
deliver his son. He said Gonzalez wept when he mentioned the video.

Craig, the father's lawyer, said that since arriving here eight days ago, "Juan Miguel Gonzalez . . . has had to live the nightmare
that he most dreaded . . . forced to watch Elian exploited by those who have him in their care." The video, Craig said, was part
of an effort that has "emotionally damaged and exploited this most wonderful little boy."

Craig also disputed a report from Father Francisco Santana, a priest stationed at Our Lady of Charity, the revered Cuban
Catholic shrine in Miami, who visited the Miami relatives yesterday. Santana told reporters outside the house that Elian had
personally told him that his father should come to Miami if he wanted to talk to him. "The father has called several times this
afternoon. He wanted to talk to Elian. The boy refuses to talk to the father," Santana said.

Craig said that Gonzalez had spoken to his son twice, soon after arriving from Havana, but that the Miami relatives have hung
up the phone every time the father has called since then.

Meanwhile, the Miami relatives sought and received a temporary federal injunction from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
ordering the government to prevent his departure from this country. The ruling had no immediate bearing on the custody
dispute, but the Miami relatives hailed it as an interim victory in their pending appeal of last month's federal court decision
upholding Reno's authority to decide Elian's fate.

The relatives have said they want to meet the father before turning over custody so they can persuade him to stay in the United
States. Although Juan Miguel Gonzalez has said that he would await the outcome of the appeal, scheduled for a May 11
hearing in Atlanta, Reno acknowledged after earlier negotiations with the relatives broke down that the father might not stay if
the custody turnover came under duress.

Appeals Court Judge J.L. Edmondson, who issued the injunction, asked the government to respond to it by 9:30 this morning,
after which the complete three-judge appeals panel will make a decision.

In a potentially more significant court action--at least on a political level--a Florida family court yesterday dismissed a separate,
months-long effort by Lazaro Gonzalez to be awarded custody of Elian. Judge Jennifer Bailey said the U.S. Constitution
prohibited state courts from preempting a case that was clearly under federal immigration jurisdiction. Even in the absence of
jurisdictional conflict, she said, Lazaro Gonzalez was ineligible for custody because under Florida law a great-uncle is not
considered part of a child's "extended family."

In definitively dismissing the petition, Bailey wrote that "no motion for rehearing will be entertained."

The question of whether Elian's custody should fall under federal or state jurisdiction has been at the center of political dispute
over the case. Both leading presidential candidates have said that Florida family court is the proper place for it, and Vice
President Gore drew wide criticism within the Democratic Party earlier this month when he broke with Clinton to say he
thought the case "should be addressed in our domestic relations court." Gore endorsed special legislation that would remove
Elian from INS jurisdiction by granting him permanent U.S. resident status.

Gore canceled what would have been his first news conference in two months yesterday after the state court decision was
issued. From the campaign trail in North Carolina, spokesman Doug Hattaway said that "with the situation in Florida so volatile,
we thought it was best not to be dragged into it."

It marked the first time that Gore, who is aggressively pursuing Florida's 25 electoral votes, has shown reluctance to comment
on the issue. Before he decided to support the permanent resident legislation--which has languished on Capitol Hill along with
bills to make Elian a U.S. citizen--Gore said his preference was for the father to "come here and stand on free soil to express
the true feelings in his heart."

Texas Gov. George W. Bush, Gore's likely opponent in November's presidential election, has also said that the issue belongs in
state court, and that Reno has the discretion to have it heard there.

In an initial response to the state ruling, campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said Judge Bailey "had to make that decision"
because the federal government had inappropriately seized jurisdiction of the case. A later statement, issued by spokesman Ari
Fleischer, said that "were the attorney general to exercise her discretion to defer to the state court's custody determination, the
state court would have full jurisdiction to resolve the matter."

On the question of Lazaro Gonzalez's lack of standing as a relative, campaign domestic policy adviser Ted Cruz said, "The
court's standing ruling closed off just one particular challenge, and there are numerous alternative avenues of relief, including
appointing a guardian ad litem," someone to represent Elian's interests in court, "that could be pursued in Florida family court if
the attorney general were to decide to defer to that court's jurisdiction."

The relatives launched a separate legal effort in U.S. District Court here yesterday aimed at preventing Elian from returning
home. A civil complaint filed on Elian's behalf by attorneys for Lazaro Gonzalez maintained that forcing the child to return to
Cuba would violate the United Nations Convention on Human Rights and other international treaties.

Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. agreed to hear the request for a temporary restraining order at 11 a.m. today.

Staff writers Sue Anne Pressley in Miami and Ceci Connolly, Bill Miller, Sylvia Moreno, Terry M. Neal and Manuel
Perez-Rivas in Washington contributed to this report.

                                 © 2000 The Washington Post Company