Posted on 04/24/2005 9:27:23 PM PDT by FairOpinion
MIAMI - The Little Havana home that sheltered Elian Gonzalez during his five months in Miami is still scarred from the swift raid in which armed federal agents stormed the house to reunite the boy with his father.
Elian's Miami relatives didn't repair the holes created when, five years ago last Friday, authorities kicked in the bedroom door. It is a reminder to visitors that a Border Patrol officer confronted family friend Donato Dalrymple, as he tried to hide in a closet with the boy — an image captured in a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photograph.
An enlarged version of the picture is part of the now-makeshift museum and shrine to Elian's tumultuous saga in the United States. It is joined by display cases full of Elian's toys, the clothes and costumes he wore, photo montages and the race car bed the family said federal agents broke during the raid.
"Since this was a historic event, I thought it was necessary to have this as an homage to the community here, for all that they've done," said Delfin Gonzalez, Elian's great uncle who bought the home and made it into a museum.
Gonzalez, 67, will never forget the throngs of people who camped out in front of the house as another of Elian's great-uncles, Lazaro Gonzalez, and the boy's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, waged an international custody battle. For months, the crowd prayed and held demonstrations on Elian's behalf.
Reliving that morning
The morning of the raid, federal agents sprayed tear gas on or knocked down many of the demonstrators while rushing the home. Today, when some of those people come to the house, they break down crying, Delfin Gonzalez said.
"They get depressed," he said. "They cry. They feel very close to what happened."
Sylvia Iriondo, president of Mothers Against Repression, is among those with painful memories. Iriondo, who was at the Little Havana house when federal authorities took the boy away from his relatives, thinks of Elian often and laments the circumstances of his departure.
"I can still see his face and I'm sure that everybody that was there and everybody that was caught in that probably feels the same way," said Iriondo. "We didn't want for the process of law not to happen, but we didn't want that process of law to be interrupted."
The early-morning raid was the climax of a battle that pitted the young Cuban castaway's relatives against Juan Miguel Gonzalez. Their attorneys fought for months in state and federal courts, but momentum swung toward the father after a Miami-Dade circuit judge threw out a custody claim Lazaro Gonzalez had filed in family court, saying she had no power to hear the claim because it was an immigration matter that only the federal courts could decide.
The miracle child
Elian was 5 years old when he was found clinging to an inner tube in the ocean off Fort Lauderdale on Thanksgiving Day in 1999. Cuban exiles nicknamed him the "miracle child" for being among the survivors of a shipwreck that killed his mother and several others after they left Cuba.
After the raid, Elian went to live with his father at the Rosedale estate in the Cleveland Park section of northwest Washington. He returned to the island in June 2000, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the custody case, letting stand a federal appeals court ruling that federal officials had the authority to determine that only the boy's father could speak for his son.
While Delfin Gonzalez tends to the memory of Elian's time in Miami, the two other relatives who received the majority of media attention during the custody battle have gone on with their lives, more or less quietly.
His brother, Lazaro Gonzalez, 54, the man who cared for the boy, is a bus body technician with Miami-Dade Transit.
Lazaro Gonzalez and his family are plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit against six agents they say used excessive force during the raid. The case is on appeal before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.
Lazaro Gonzalez's daughter, Marisleysis, considered Elian's surrogate mother by those who wanted to keep the boy in the United States, runs a beauty salon in Miami. According to public records, she married in 2003 and divorced a year later.
While her father has participated in the occasional news conference or Elian-related commemoration, Marisleysis Gonzalez, who was hospitalized several times for stress-related ailments during the Elian saga, has shied away from the spotlight.
Painful memories
At Marisleysis Hair Design on a recent afternoon, Marisleysis Gonzalez was in the middle of coloring the hair of one of the handful of patrons inside her small shop. Dressed in a black apron and wearing disposable gloves, she politely declined comment.
She doesn't like hanging around the home that was home to her and Elian, Delfin Gonzalez said.
"Marisleysis doesn't come because she still feels all of this very deeply," he said.
As for Delfin Gonzalez, he bought the house, built himself an apartment in the back and serves as a tour guide to visitors.
He hopes that maybe one day, when there's a change in Cuba, Elian can come back to the United States, perhaps for a visit.
Alan Diaz / Associated Press File
In this third of seven sequential photos from the April 22, 2000, raid on Lazaro Gonzalez's Miami home, government officials find Elian Gonzalez hiding in a closet with Donato Dalrymple, one of the two men who rescued the boy off the Florida coast.
Cuba PING
Related articles:
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Elian Gonzalez Thanks U.S., Cuba for Help
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1389618/posts
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Five years later, Elián, now 11, is living a ‘normal’ life
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1385689/posts
======
SITUATION IN COMMUNIST CUBA
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1390422/posts
Massive Demonstrations Planned for Democracy and human rights for May 20, 2005
How can you tell when a Federal agent is at work? - becuase he's usually violating the Constitional rights of an American citizen.
Ruby Ridge
Mt. Carmel
Elian
On or Off Cuba Ping.
Elian today... with his "Father" Castro, who promised to not use him for propaganda. Look the grip Castro has on the poor kid, and how Elian is gripping the arm rest with his left hand. You can tell how "happy" and "free" he is in Cuba.
It will NEVER be forgotten and will NEVER go away.
Many prayers still for Elian. He needs them.
"Many prayers still for Elian. He needs them."
I agree.
But maybe, just maybe Castro and communism won't last much longer in Cuba.
Massive demonstrations are planned in Cuba for democracy -- I hope they will succeed.
It was announced here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1390422/posts
A group of organizations inside Cuba are planning to have large demonstrations for democracy and human rights on May 20th 2005 in Havana, Cuba. Castro's crimes against humanity and democracy have to stop.
Notwithstanding the risks we face under this repressive system, we believe it is necessary to carry out this massive event that constitutes a vital sign in the history of this bloody dictatorship. This is why we are soliciting international support to carry out this important expression of self-determination that represents the dignity and the will of the Cuban people.
Five years and one day ago I was still proud to be an American.
"I've overcome"
"You put that outside and you keep it in your heart but you do have to move on in life. He's alive, and I thank God for that."
"He has a very sad face, I don't think he's doing very well."
"They don't even allow me to talk to him and I don't think I did a bad thing,"
"I took care of him and he loved me very much, so I guess I did a very good job."
"Nothing lasts forever and he's still young and I'm still young,"
"Someday Cuba will be free, and if not so, I'll go visit him sometime. But I will see him again."
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Thank you for the link!
my part-Hispanic blood is still boiling.. WOULD THEY HAVE DONE THIS TO A WHITE CHILD OR A BLACK CHILD? Oh, no, fuggetaboutit... but to a brown hispanic kid, they point a machine gun.
Clinton was eager to please Castro.
It's a terrible shame the the people here in the US bought the ludicrous argument that the "boy should be with his Father" -- totally ignoring the reality of the situation, that Elian was being sent back into slavery.
It is also amazing how uninformed people are about communism.
Yes, it breaks you heart to look at those pictures...
No it really isn't. I bought it then, and I buy it still. Sending Elian back to his father was the right thing to do (even if the sleazy Clintons had mixed reasons for doing so).
He was not snatched. His mother died, in vain , trying to bring him here. She failed because Castro had a friend in the White House . Some good came out of this travesty however. It angered enough voters in Florida to just barely give W. victory over the RATS.
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