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Unable to get the case transferred to family court, the family convened one of its own. Last week they couldn't resist using a psychologist's findings to bolster their case. "Elian has expressed that his father freely expresses his anger out of control and in an abusive manner," said Miami psychologist Alina Lopez-Cottardi, whom the family had hired to evaluate Elian. Relatives insisted that Elian should undergo psychological evaluation to determine whether it was in his best interest to return to his father; separating him now from Marisleysis, his new "mother," they said, would be another unbearable trauma. Immigration officials replied that the whole question of custody was already settled, and that the only role for psychiatrists was to help determine the least scarring way to bring this whole drama to a close.
As a result, other lawyers on the team tell TIME, the family has no intention of "participating in any action to voluntarily hand Elian over to his father" under these conditions: "The family will step aside if the government does come knocking--they'll cry, and their hearts will be broken--but they will not participate in this."
Tensions may remain high in parts of Little Havana, but demonstrators who have adopted Elian as their cause say they will take their cues from the boy's relatives in Miami. If they decide to give Elian to his father peacefully, the crowd will not resort to violence. Some had vowed they were prepared to die to prevent his return to Castro's Cuba. Until the boy is handed over, they plan to continue to descend daily on Elian's house, bearing signs: FREEDOM SUPERCEDES FATHERHOOD. IT'S THE OPPRESSION, STUPID. GRINGOS FOR ELIAN. LET HIM STAY FREE.
If Juan Miguel has a fairy-tale ending in mind, he too may have a bitter surprise ahead. Castro's critics believe he has invested too much in this child's symbolic power to let him resettle in peace in Cardenas, as he has publicly promised to do. The boy's picture is now as ubiquitous in Havana store windows as it is in Little Havana. However much Elian's privacy was stripped away by his Miami custodians and their rolling press conferences, is it going to be respected by an aging dictator in need of a new revolutionary icon? Who better to exploit than a bright-eyed magical child, saved from the sea by dolphins, soaked in the gifts and poisons of capitalism, who is reunited with his father and has returned to claim his place as a Young Pioneer in the revolution that never ends?
--Reported by Tim Padgett and Elaine Shannon/Washington, Tim Roche/Miami and Dolly Mascarenas/Cardenas