The Cuban dad who wants his 6-year-old refugee son sent home from Miami refuses to meet with U.S. officials unless they’re ready to return the boy, Fidel Castro said yesterday.
The hardening of the Cuban position came as Immigration and Naturalization Service officials were set to deliver a letter to Elian Gonzalez’s father, explaining what he needs to do to get his son back and inviting him to meet with INS representatives.
“His reaction is fair,” Castro said of the defiant dad in a message read before tens of thousands of protesters in front of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana.
Castro’s message also charged that 31-year-old Juan Gonzalez had been offered $2 million by what he called the “extremist Cuban-American mafia” to move to Miami and stay with Elian there.
Elian was rescued off the Florida coast last month after a boatload of refugees sank, and his mother and 10 others drowned.
His dad wants him to come home, but relatives in Miami who have taken him in say they want to keep him in the United States — sparking a bitter custody fight that has stirred political passions on both sides of the Florida Straits.
U.S. officials acknowledged this week that Elian’s dad has the right to apply for custody under INS regulations — setting the stage for the proposed meeting.
Meanwhile, President Clinton made his first comments on the volatile case, saying, “I think all fathers would be sympathetic” with Elian’s dad.
“Of course, I’d rather grow up in the United States, but there may be other considerations there.”
When pushed to take sides, he said kids “almost always” are better off with their parents.
But Clinton cautioned against politicizing the boy’s case.
“I don’t think that politics or threats should have anything to do with it,” he said.
Stung by the administration’s softening stand toward the father, Elian’s relatives in Florida said they will seek political asylum for the child.
“We feel young Elian would be in danger in Cuba,” said his great-uncle Lazaro Gonzales.
Elian’s cousin Marisleysis Gonzalez, 21, said, “We know in our hearts that Elian has a better future here, a better everything.
“For now, we are all holding tight, hoping for the best.”
Angered by Clinton’s words and in answer to four straight days of protests in Cuba, thousands of anti-Castro Cubans took to the streets of Miami’s Little Havana to demand the boy be allowed to stay in the United States.
In a related drama, an administration source said the United States is handing over to Cuba five men and a woman suspected of hijacking a Cuban boat at knifepoint in an attempt to reach Florida.
The suspects and two crewmen they took hostage are expected to arrive in Havana today.