End the Elian Sideshow

With Elian Gonzales in his father’s custody and the spotlight off of Little Havana, Americans might have hoped for some respite. Unfortunately, some congressional leaders see it differently and are calling for hearings on Saturday’s armed raid by immigration authorities that returned Elian to his father’s custody.

If and when any hearings take place, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno should not only testify to her too-patient efforts to avoid such a raid but also disclose the full record of the tortuous negotiations she and her top aides held with Elian’s relatives, their lawyers and their lobbyists.

As this Editorial Page has said since 6-year-old Elian was rescued from the sea off the Florida coast last November and throughout his ordeal, the boy belongs with his father. That also has been the the position of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the various courts that have ruled on the father’s attempts to retrieve the boy.

Countless times, Lazaro Gonzalez, Elian’s great-uncle, said he would not voluntarily turn Elian over to the custody of his father or federal agents. Late last week, after the deadline of a Justice Department order to turn the boy over to his father had passed, the great-uncle, playing to the mob outside the Little Havana home where the boy was held, publicly challenged the attorney general to come and get Elian.

That was a challenge that Reno would not ignore, and she made the tough decision to use federal force to end a hostile standoff with the Gonzales relatives. The imagery the raid provided to the cameras was unfortunate, and everyone surely wishes the situation had not come to guns and government vans. However, “this happened because the family did not respect the legal process here that dictated the father should be reunited with the young boy,” a White House official correctly said. Now the political game fueled by the anti-Castro Cuban American National Foundation moves to Congress, where Miami Cubans have influence far out of proportion to their numbers.

Consider these early examples of what’s coming:

Elian’s Miami cousin, Marisleysis, now doing a media-event tour of Washington, recently claimed that the boy would be tortured if he returned to Cuba. She also says photos of a smiling Elian in the arms of his father after his retrieval are doctored fakes. Or the comments Sunday by Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), who claimed to see signs that the government was brainwashing the boy.

House Majority Whip Tom Delay has claimed that the Justice Department marshals did not have a search warrant to enter the Miami house. Again, as the White House put it, “this is factually not true and easily knowable, if you’re not trying to play politics.”

An appeals court will take up the issue of whether the relatives can request asylum for the boy May 11. In the meantime, Congress should do everyone a favor by calling off political sideshows. Reno can help by releasing the negotiation record.