By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, Apr 22 2000 (IPS)

Cuban shipwreck boy Elián González was reunited with his father Juan Miguel González Saturday at an airbase near Washington, D.C., after federal agents seized the boy from the home of his great-uncle in Miami.

After floating for more than two days at sea, watching his mother and stepfather drown and not seeing his father for nearly five months, Elián was snatched by armed federal agents from the family he lived with in Miami in a predawn raid staged at 09:15 GMT.

Four and a half hours later, Cuba’s state-monopolised TV showed Juan Miguel González getting out of a car and entering a house in the Andrews military base with his son in his arms.

Elián could be seen clinging tightly to his father.

The reunion between the two took place at 13:43 GMT, after the plane transporting the six-year-old landed at Andrews airbase.

The government of Fidel Castro described the reunion as “a favourable shift towards a fair, honorable and correct solution to this problem.”

Juan Miguel González has been fighting for custody of Elián since the boy was rescued by fishermen on Nov 25, after the boat in which he and his mother and were travelling to the United States with other Cuban emigrants capsized.

But Lázaro González, the great-uncle awarded temporary custody of the child, refused to hand him over, and went to court to fight for Elián to remain in the United States.

The law has been enforced, said US President Bill Clinton, who backed Attorney-General Janet Reno’s decision to stage a law enforcement action to return Elián to his father.

Clinton said that up to the last minute, great efforts were made to negotiate a voluntary handover, but when everything failed there was no alternative but to remove the child by force.

The operation, which took no more than five minutes, was carried out by 158 armed federal agents on orders issued by Reno and the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS).

The agents surrounded the González home in Little Havana in Miami and sprayed the anti-Castro demonstrators holding an all- night vigil around the house with tear gas and pepper spray while eight agents broke down a door and burst into the house.

An armed agent snatched Elián from the arms of Donato Dalrymple, one of the fishermen who rescused him at sea five months ago, who was hiding with the boy inside a closet, according to witnesses.

Elián, confused and crying, was quickly removed from the house in the arms of a female agent who explained to him in Spanish what was happening.

“The boy was taken like a hostage in the nighttime,” said Dalrymple. “He (Elián) shouted ‘what’s happening, what’s happening, help me, help me.’ They ripped him from my arms. They held the family with guns in the living room.”

An Associated Press photographer authorised to enter the house along with the federal agents took photos of an agent in war fatigues and helmet aiming his gun at Dalrymple, who was holding Elián in his arms.

Responding to a question by reporters, Reno said if one looked closely at the photo, one could see that the gun was pointing to one side and that the agent’s finger was not on the trigger.

A brief official communique issued “to the people of Cuba” at dawn in Havana said the operation took three to five minutes and met little resistance from the demonstrators gathered outside the home of Lázaro González.

Reports out of Miami, however, said the armed men had to force back the people forming a human chain outside the González home. Protesters destroyed the US flag after the agents pulled out.

As soon as the news came out, a flow of Cuban exiles began to visit the González home to offer their support and protest the Clinton administration’s decision.

“They’re animals!” shouted Marisleysis González, Elián’s second cousin. According to reports out of Miami, several individuals were detained early Saturday for acts of civil disobedience.

Two hours after the law enforcement action, and shortly before Elián reached the Andrews airbase, Juan Miguel González was informed that his son was fine, and that on the plane he was playing with one of the agents involved in the operation.

In Cuba, meanwhile, local authorities urged the people not to hold public demonstrations and to remain “calm and dignified.”

“Any other kind of behaviour could have a negative influence on future developments,” warned the second communique released by the government, which was accompanied by soundless images of the operation by US federal agents.

Contacted in the city of Cárdenas, 150 kms from Havana, Elián’s two grandmothers declined to comment, explaining that they were too overwhelmed by emotion.

Reno told the press that after an entire night of negotiations, she had told the parties involved that the time was up, and ordered the operation.

The agents were prepared for the unexpected, but everything was carefully planned to ensure the boy’s safety and make the process the least traumatic as possible for him, said Reno.

She added that a law enforcement action of this kind could have been carried out at any time since the INS ruled on Jan 5 that Juan Miguel González had custody rights over his son and ordered that the boy’s Miami relations hand him over.

Juan Miguel González’s lawyer Gregory Craig reiterated Saturday that his client was prepared to remain for the time being in the United States with his son, as a federal appeals court in Atlanta, Georgia ordered Wednesday.

In a May 11 hearing, the court is to decide on an appeal demanding that Elián be granted a hearing for political asylum.

It has not yet been announced where Juan Miguel González and his son will await the hearing. But González has demanded that their privacy be guaranteed, and that the press be kept away from his family.

Excerpt: