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The father's outburst may have alienated many Americans who supported his custody rights. But Juan Miguel seemed last week to realize that he may not be reunited with Elian anytime soon, if ever. Just two weeks ago, citing the close bond between father and son, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service ruled that Elian should be sent home to his father by Jan. 14. But politics continue to pull Elian back as tenaciously as the puppy that tugs at his shorts for the TV cameras. Backed by angry street protests in Miami, anti-Castro lawyers and politicos have stormed the courts and Capitol Hill, devising ways--including a congressional subpoena and a possible grant of U.S. citizenship--to stall the boy's return.
Wringing their hands in the middle of it all are the INS and its overseer, Attorney General Janet Reno, who stated emotionally last week that Elian "should be with his father" and upheld the INS ruling. But she went limp on the critical issue of how to carry it out. Instead, she asked Elian's kin to "work together" to resolve that question. She sounded at once prudent and naive. This family feud "has become a canona," warns University of Miami sociologist Max Castro, using a Cuban term for bullying. "It's not some gentlemen's disagreement."
Many child psychiatrists side with Reno. Lazaro says Elian has described how Elizabet drowned. She was one of the first to go, dragged under by rough seas while trying to lash Elian to his inner tube. One day, while spreading newspapers on the kitchen floor to house-train the boy's new puppy (a gift from a Cuban-American politician), Lazaro says, he inadvertently put down a page that bore a large picture of Elizabet. Seeing it, Elian shouted and cried. He made Lazaro cut it out and frame it for his bedside. When the reality of what happened out in the ocean comes crashing down on Elian, and when the glow of Disney World and all the attention and gifts wears off, "he'll need to be with the father and grandparents who have reared him, not a group of well-meaning but distant relatives he just met last Thanksgiving," says Dr. Michael Hughes, former head of child psychiatry at the University of Miami.
After Miami Circuit Judge Rosa Rodriguez granted Lazaro temporary custody of Elian last week, a typical Miami-style conflict-of-interest controversy erupted. It was discovered that Armando Gutierrez, publicist for the drive to keep Elian in the U.S., was a paid media consultant in Rodriguez's 1998 election campaign--and that the judge is under state investigation for allegedly violating campaign-finance rules. As the judge argued that Elian should be reared in a freer society than Cuba, it was hard not to wonder last week whether Miami is the ideal American city in which to teach the boy about democracy.
--With reporting by Dolly Mascarenas/Havana