Custody Fight Over Elian Gonzales Moves to Streets of Miami
BERNARD SHAW, CNN ANCHOR: The fight for custody of a 6-year-old Cuban boy was taken to the streets of Miami, Florida, Thursday. Dozens of Cuban-Americans were arrested while protesting the U.S. government's decision to return Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba, instead of allowing the boy to stay with his U.S. relatives. CNN's Mark Potter has more from Miami.</s>MARK POTTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At first, the crowd was orderly, gathering behind barricades at the federal building. Several hundred people chanted and voiced their disapproval of the INS decision to send Elian Gonzalez back to his father in Cuba.</s>SYLVIA IRIONDO, MOTHERS AGAINST REPRESSION: We are here because this is not your normal custody battle. The life and the future of a child is at stake.</s>POTTER: Shortly afterward, the crowd began to surge forward through the barricades, through the police officers on horseback who could not hold them back. Moments later, the whole group was moving east through downtown traffic, the police struggling to keep ahead of the crowd, sealing off streets along the way.</s>POTTER (on camera): After making their way several blocks up Biscayne Boulevard, the protesters finally stopped walking at the entrance and exit for the busy port of Miami. The idea was to stop traffic -- and it worked. (voice-over): Many of the marchers sat down in the middle of the road in the name of Elian Gonzalez.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All of us coming out, Cubans, you know, Puerto Ricans, everybody coming over here to help this child.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's the whole meaning of</s>U.S.A.: freedom. Why are we going to have a child go back to Cuba?</s>UNIDENTIFIED POLICE OFFICER: This is an unlawful assembly. If you do not disperse, you will be arrested.</s>POTTER: Police barricaded the port and then began making scores of arrests. Among those taken away was Ramon Saul Sanchez, a Cuban- American who organized the rally.</s>DET. NELDA FONTICELLA, MIAMI DADE POLICE: We will not allow them to shut down the city.</s>POTTER: Late in the afternoon, Elian's cousin in Miami, who has been caring for him, urged the community to be calm.</s>MARIS LEYSIS-GONZALES: I just say to all of those that are doing this, you know, to keep it down and to have control of themselves, whatever they're going to do, so they don't go into trouble and there's no problems caused.</s>POTTER: But problems continue. West of Miami, there were other attempts to shut down traffic. Police moved in and made more arrests. Mark Potter, CNN, Miami.</s>SHAW: Here in Washington, United States Attorney General Janet Reno gave little hope to those wanting to keep Elian in this country. Reno said Thursday, she, quote, "fully agrees" with the decision by immigration officials.</s>JANET RENO, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I never say that I won't reverse myself. I try to be as open-minded as I can, but based on all the information that we have to date I see no basis for reversing it.</s>SHAW: In Havana, ordinary Cubans are reacting cautiously to the U.S. decision to side with Elian's father. Our Havana bureau chief, Lucia Newman, reports.</s>LUCIA NEWMAN, CNN HAVANA BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): There were no victory parades on the streets of Havana to celebrate the INS decision to reunite 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez with his father in Cuba. That's because of skepticism the ruling could still be reversed -- or at least delayed indefinitely in Florida, where the Cuban-American community has vowed to do everything in its power to prevent the child from returning to Cuba. "Those people are totally wrong," says this man. "Elian belongs to Cuba and should be with his father." "One of the things that really bothered me was when they wrapped him with the American flag, because Elian isn't American. He's Cuban." The headline of the communist youth newspaper reads, "Until We Obtain Justice, We Fight." Hence, the latest of hundreds of protest meetings to demand the return to Cuba of the boy, this one with students and journalists. For the second day in a row, the child's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, was out of sight. But CNN has confirmed he told the INS he wants the U.S. National Council of Churches, whose outgoing leader was in Havana this week, to serve as an intermediary in returning Elian to Cuba. The reverend Joan Brown Cambell has reiterated her organization's and her own personal willingness to transport the boy back to his father, who's said he won't go to Miami out of fear for his own safety in what he considers hostile territory. (on camera): The solution the INS had been hoping for, an amicable agreement between Mr. Gonzalez and his relatives in Miami, seems unlikely. The child's father has said that there's nothing to negotiate, least of all with relatives he says have betrayed him. Lucia Newman, CNN, Havana.