from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Today's News Articles US vs. Cuba Clinton Orders Reno to Seize Elian Evil terrorists hold 6-year old child captive. WASHINGTON, April 20 -- After a meeting today with Attorney General Janet Reno, federal law-enforcement authorities began to mobilize to remove Eli�n Gonz�lez forcibly from the home of the Miami relatives who have refused to hand over the 6-year-old Cuban boy to his father, government officials said. Time, they said, has nearly run out on a negotiated solution. They said law-enforcement action was now all but certain and would be carried out by immigration agents and federal marshals who have been quietly arriving in Miami in recent days. Aides said tonight that Ms. Reno was still prepared to listen to any specific proposal to conclude the matter peacefully. In blunt comments this evening that sounded like a prelude to action, President Clinton said the father should wait no longer for his son. "There is now no conceivable argument for his not being reunited with his son," Mr. Clinton told reporters, adding, "I think he should be reunited and in as prompt and orderly a way as possible." The hardening rhetoric and surge of behind-the-scenes activity came one day after a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, barred the authorities from removing the boy from the United States. The appeals court did not prohibit the Justice Department from ordering the boy's Miami relatives to surrender him to the authorities. Today, Eli�n's father, Juan Miguel Gonz�lez, renewed his plea for the government to deliver his son. "Don't let them continue to abuse my son," Mr. Gonz�lez said, referring to the Miami relatives who have cared for Eli�n since he was plucked from ocean waters off Florida last November, a survivor of an ill-fated effort to flee Cuba. "I really wish to be with my son," Mr. Gonz�lez said, speaking in Spanish to reporters gathered outside the home of a Cuban diplomat in suburban Washington where he has been staying. "He belongs with me." This evening, The Associated Press reported, the boy spoke on a telephone in the yard outside his Miami relatives' home and shooed his playmates away. He blew kisses into the telephone. A family spokesman, Armando Gutierrez, said the boy had been talking to his father. As the atmosphere around the case grew more tense, Ms. Reno met with senior law-enforcement officials to discuss the preparations under way to carry out a tactical operation in Miami. The meeting suggested that Ms. Reno, who has been under heavy pressure to resolve the case, had at last reached a decision to end the impasse over the boy's custody. For months she had tried unsuccessfully to persuade the Miami relatives to give up the child even as negotiations repeatedly stalled over the relatives' refusal to relinquish him. The officials said the number of agents would be kept small enough to avoid the appearance of a military-style assault, but large enough to ensure the safety of the boy and the agents. It was not precisely clear when agents would move in to retrieve the child, but the operation seemed likely at any time. One official said it would take place "at the appropriate time," probably in a matter of a few days at most. The officials said they believed they could remove the child without interference from protesters but were concerned about potentially violent demonstrations by Cuban-Americans in Miami after Eli�n is taken from the Little Havana home of his great-uncle, L�zaro Gonz�lez. The officials said that a tactical operation had become more dangerous as the custody battle has worn on and that the action would now have to be carried out in a hostile neighborhood. Only yesterday, the neighborhood exploded in triumphant demonstrations over the appellate court ruling that offered the relatives another day in court. As the case preoccupied administration officials, it also continued to create political headaches for Vice President Al Gore, who has said the boy should be granted permanent residency status. In a television interview today in New York, Mr. Gore bristled when asked if his decision was motivated by politics. "That's not the case," he said. "It's consistent with my long-term position on Castro. And more to the point, consistent with the way our country always deals with cases where custody is in dispute. And of course, the father's wishes are often determinative. But that decision is supposed to be made according to the best interest of the child." After meeting on Wednesday night with President Clinton aboard Air Force One, Ms. Reno broke off a trip to a Montana Indian tribe today and returned to her office where she conferred with aides. In the meeting as the president and Ms. Reno returned from a memorial ceremony for the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, they discussed "all aspects of the issue," a presidential aide said. Privately, however, some White House aides have been critical that Ms. Reno had demanded the transfer of the child, but had failed to match her rhetoric with action. "There is some concern that Justice may be talking tough but not making a decision to follow through," one official said. "We just want to make sure that what they say matches what they are going to do." The White House aide said that presidential advisers had grown "fed up" with Eli�n's Miami relatives who had "used up any good will they've had," but expected that the Justice Department would win little praise for removing the boy. "When Justice eventually acts they will be roundly criticized," the official said. "The fact that Reno has bent over backwards to use restraint will be some inoculation against that." Today, Joe Lockhart, the presidential spokesman, said Mr. Clinton approved of Ms. Reno's handling of the matter. "The president believes the attorney general has moved forward in a deliberate way, which he believes is appropriate, allowing all sides their chance to have their say both to the attorney general and in the court of law." Other administration officials were less generous. They said there was a sense within the government that Ms. Reno's problem is largely her own doing. They said Ms. Reno, who knows her native Miami so well, appears increasingly paralyzed by weighing too many considerations. "A lot of us think she cannot make a decision on this to save her soul," one official said. "She has done this to herself and everybody's wondering how the hell is she going to get out of this." But today's deliberations at the Justice Department seemed to bring to an end what some advisers said had been a painful period of indecision. Through what they said was a mix of good intentions and extreme caution, Ms. Reno had edged close to the brink of a potentially violent clash between the government and Eli�n's supporters in Miami. Practically speaking, the officials said, she had run out of alternatives. She could continue to do nothing, but waiting any longer before ordering the child's removal seems like an unlikely possibility confronted as Ms. Reno is with heavy pressure from inside and outside the government to bring an embarrassing South Florida soap opera to a finish. Some officials said Ms. Reno seemed to have misread the depth of the political passions swirling through Miami's Cuban-American community, which have solidified support behind the relative's refusal to voluntarily hand over the boy to the authorities. Moreover, they said, she seemed to have misread the attitude of the appeals court, believing that the law was on her side, a view that was shaken when the court rejected the government's request to lift the emergency order barring immigration officials from allowing the boy to return to Cuba. The New York Times, April 21, 2000 US Politics Bad Week for a Crucifixion by Mark Steyn HAPPY anniversary: Columbine, Oklahoma City, Waco. All the big ones fall this week: the Bay of Pigs, Easter. If Janet Reno had thought about it, the minute that Cuban kid washed up on Florida's shores she should have pencilled this week on the calendar and booked her vacation in Acapulco, or whatever it is America's inscrutable Attorney-General does to relax. But April is the cruellest month and, having dithered and dawdled and let those Cuban-Americans make all the running since November, it was inevitable that Miss Reno would find herself in Waco Week with yet another kid problem. Just the one this time, and an increasingly creepy specimen to judge from that video his Miami relatives released the other day. Elian doesn't want to go back to Cuba and informed his father with Clintonesque finger wagging. Translated from the Spanish, it boils down to: "I will not have parental relations with that man." So in this interlude between Waco Wednesday and Easter Sunday the Attorney-General has to figure out her next move. She didn't want to send the Feds in on the anniversary of her bloodiest bungle. On the other hand, springing the kid over Easter isn't such a good idea, given that Marisleysis, his 21-year-old cousin and self-described "surrogate mother", claims images of the Virgin Mary are appearing in the mirror of Elian's bedroom and that some of the more excitable Elianistas jumping up and down in the street regard him as a new Christ child. "God gave His hand to Elian," says Alina Gonzalez (no relation). "He's a miracle child," says Elvira Gonzalez (also no relation), who compares Elian to Moses, who also started out on a raft, floating down the Nile. As for the presidential election, that's pretty much on hold. Al Gore's gone to ground after his pandering to the Miami mob backfired. Poor old Al got cocky. It never occurred to him that, even in the Clinton era, it's still possible to over-pander. And, with Al enrolled in the Federal Candidate Protection Programme, Dubya has also dropped off the radar screen, cutting back his hectic schedule to spend more time playing video golf on his palm pilot. Dubya, never one to over-tax himself, is grateful for the intermission. Al, who was looking forward to boring the pants off the electors 24 hours a day between now and November, must be champing at the bit. He no longer cares what happens to the kid as long as it happens quickly. But Elian's locked in the embrace of the appeals system and he'll be around a while yet. Even if Miss Reno seizes the boy to return him to dad, there are now certain operational difficulties: the court has ruled that Elian must stay in America, and the Cuban Interests Section in Maryland, where Juan Miguel is currently holed up, is technically Cuban soil. Meanwhile, with each victory Great-Uncle Lazaro becomes more emboldened. But if you were a swaggering, drunk-driving mob-inciter with no legal custody who doesn't even speak English but who'd succeeded in cowing the chief law enforcement official of the most powerful nation on earth, wouldn't you be emboldened? Janet Reno is easily the most influential political figure of the past decade. Her bloodbath at Waco in 1993 helped to fire up the conservative talk-radio guys who, in turn, galvanised the "angry white male" vote that swept Newt Gingrich into power in 1994. It also led to the Oklahoma bombing in 1995, and Clinton cannily used that to stick it to the "Right-wing hate-mongers" and regain control of his presidency. Since then, the Attorney-General has managed to ward off the more awkward inquiries into her boss, but has also allowed his administration to become mired in interminable inconclusive investigations. And now Al Gore finds that, like little Elian and little Bill, his fate too depends on big Janet. Suppose she blows it yet again? It's not just hordes of obscure Cuban-Americans camped outside that house. There are real live celebrities, too: Gloria Estefan, Andy Garcia and, for all Al knows, Desi Arnaz, Xavier Cugat and Carmen Miranda. Suppose Miss Reno goes in guns a-blazing? And suppose, when the smoke clears, Ms Estefan and Mr Garcia are lying face down in the smouldering rubble? Al can only marvel. For years he's shamelessly exploited ill-fated relatives: his car-struck son in the '92 convention speech; his cancer-felled sister in his '96 speech. For this year he was no doubt already riffling through his Rolodex of stricken cousins. Now he finds he's up against Lazaro Gonzalez, a guy who exploits relatives even more shamelessly than he does. Who knows? Maybe Al also has a great-nephew in Cuba - little Alian Gorzalez. If so, I'll bet he's wishing he'd sent the kid an inner tube and a map of the Florida coastline. He'd have the convention speech to end them all. The London Telegraph, April 21, 2000 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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