Thursday May 4 8:59 PM ET Cuba Official: Fla. Kin Kidnappers By ANITA SNOW, Associated Press Writer HAVANA (AP) - Fidel Castro's point man in the Elian Gonzalez case expressed amazement on Thursday that the Miami relatives he refers to as the boy's ``kidnappers'' have not been punished for defying the federal U.S. government. Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly, noted that the U.S. government had warned Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez that had violated the law when he failed to relinquish the boy over last month. The government revoked Gonzalez's temporary custody of the boy and more than a week later launched a raid by armed agents on the family's Miami home to take the child. ``How is it possible that they have not been charged, that they have not been arrested?'' Alarcon said on the evening roundtable discussion of the Elian case broadcast on live television every week night. Castro has attended most of the discussions and was present Thursday night. He did not speak. Alarcon also complained that Justice Department officials never provided Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, with the names and backgrounds of the medical and mental health professionals who saw the boy when he was staying with his great uncle. Instead of investigating the names and backgrounds themselves, Alarcon said, the officials said they would ask Lazaro Gonzalez for the information. Now that the son and father have been reunited, the Justice Department has assigned a social worker and a child psychiatrist to visit Elian every other week to help monitor Elian Gonzalez while an appeals court weighs the boy's fate. But Alarcon said that Juan Miguel Gonzalez was never asked what he wanted. The father ``appears to deserve less respect than the kidnapper,'' he said. Nevertheless, Alarcon said that early statements made by Paulina F. Kernberg, the child psychiatrist who is to report on Elian to the government and to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, showed ``common sense.'' Kernberg has told the court that Elian displays a ``sense of well-being and happiness with his father'' and appears unlikely to suffer any lasting trauma from the raid by heavily armed Border Patrol agents. Earlier Thursday, a group of California grandparents met with Elian's grandparents in Havana to express support for the fight to bring the 6-year-old back to his communist homeland. ``It doesn't make any sense - especially now that the boy is with his father'' that Elian has not yet been returned to Cuba, said Timothy Harding, a grandfather of seven from Santa Barbara, Calif. ``I knew that I just had to make some kind of contact with them and let them know how we felt,'' said Dorothy Fox, Harding's wife. ``Most grandmothers in the United States think that this little boy should be back in Cuba with his family.'' The couple was among about a dozen grandparents who met briefly with Elian's family here. <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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html <A HREF="http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
