Miamians Use Strike to Vent Outrage Over INS Raid

Business was far from usual in many of Miami’s predominantly Cuban neighborhoods Tuesday as stores, banks and gas stations closed in a general strike called by exile leaders to protest the government’s seizure of Elian Gonzalez.

In Little Havana, Domino Park, a popular gathering spot, was padlocked. Aficionados of Cuban coffee had to drive miles to find a cafecito. And three Cuban American players on the Florida Marlins active roster refused to dress for the home game against the San Francisco Giants--as did Giants star pitcher Livan Hernandez, also a Cuban immigrant.

“I truly believe that they did not do the right thing,” said Sandra Rodriguez, 41, who skipped work at a pet grooming business to wave a Cuban flag at several street-side protests, including one in front of the Little Havana home where Elian lived for almost five months.

In Washington, meanwhile, U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno met with lawmakers to defend her handling of Saturday’s predawn raid in which gun-toting federal agents seized the 6-year-old Cuban boy. He was flown to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland later that day for a reunion with his father.

After a closed-door meeting with 13 senators that lasted more than an hour, participants said Reno’s explanations did not appear to deviate in any major way from her previous public comments. They also did not satisfy her critics.

Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), the majority leader, said afterward that he expected a hearing examining the raid would take place as early as next week in the Senate Judiciary Committee. A preliminary inquiry also is in the works in the House Judiciary Committee.

“We still need to find out why this aggressive action was taken when negotiations were underway,” Lott told reporters. “I did not get an answer to that.”

Elian and Family Move to Eastern Shore

While official Washington was busy debating and explaining, Elian and his father, stepmother and stepbrother were moved from Andrews to the Carmichael Farm facility on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the U.S. Marshals Service announced. The secluded house is owned by the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational organization based in Aspen, Colo.

The institute would not comment on who had arranged or paid for the family’s stay.

State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said that four of Elian’s Cuban playmates will be allowed to visit him there for about two weeks.

Rubin said visa requests from the four will be dealt with on an expedited basis once they are received. One adult will be permitted to accompany each child.

The children are among 28 people that the Cuban government had requested be allowed to travel to the U.S. to visit the Cuban castaway.

The original Cuban visa request included eight other classmates from Elian’s hometown of Cardenas, as well as one for Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba’s National Assembly.

The department refused to issue those visas at the time but did approve visas for Elian’s former kindergarten teacher, a pediatrician and a male cousin. They have not used the visas but may do so at any time, Rubin said.

Clinton Commends Federal Agents

At the White House, President Clinton urged that Elian’s family be given “the space it needs to heal its wounds and strengthen its bonds.” He also commended federal agents for their armed seizure of the boy from relatives in Miami’s Little Havana. “They had a very, very difficult job to do with no easy choices,” the president said. “I am grateful that they were able to safely reunite the young boy with his father.”

After the stress of the last few months, said Clinton, “the thing that really matters now is that little boy and his life and his family, and I think, at least for the next several days, the less we all say about it and the more time he has to breathe the air of a normal life, the better.”

Clinton spoke at a White House ceremony about hate crime legislation, in which he praised Reno and other officials who have been under attack for using armed agents to whisk Elian away.

And for the fourth consecutive day, a contingent of Miami relatives--including Elian’s great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, his cousin Marisleysis and others who helped care for the boy after he was rescued at sea last November--were rebuffed in their efforts to meet with Juan Miguel Gonzalez and his son.

The aim of the strike in Miami was to turn it into “ciudad muerta”--a dead city--in order to express community outrage over what a coalition of exile groups called the “brutality” of the federal action.

Miami was hardly dead, however. Thousands of people who boycotted work spent part of the day waving flags at busy intersections or driving around town honking car horns--venting ire over the forced removal of the child who has come to symbolize their opposition to Fidel Castro’s Communist regime.

Officials said about 10% of Miami-Dade County’s workers took the day off. More than 35% of the county’s 2.2 million residents are of Cuban descent.

Absenteeism at public schools and some businesses ran 20% or more, according to some estimates. Cuban American singer Gloria Estefan closed her South Beach restaurant, and the Cuban-born mayors of Miami and Miami-Dade County said nonessential workers could take vacation days.

About the only people working in Little Havana were those selling flags and T-shirts imprinted with the now-famous photo of the federal agent holding a weapon near the frightened Elian. “I’ve sold about 100 in the last two days,” said Javier Sanchez, 30, hawking $10 shirts from the back of his truck.

But Sanchez, a Cuban American, said not everyone approved of his enterprise. “I’ve had people tell me I shouldn’t even be doing this,” said Sanchez, who works as a tattoo artist. “But I’ve got kids to support. And this shirt makes the point: We don’t like what happened to Elian.”

Many commercial areas outside Little Havana, however, seemed unaffected by the strike, which was to end at midnight. Miami International Airport and the seaport functioned normally, officials reported.

Phil Blumberg, chairman-elect of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, said he expected the economic effect of the strike to be minimal. “What it means to these localized shop owners is that purchases that would have been made today will be made tomorrow.”

Police presence was heavy in sections of the city where street violence had flared Saturday.

In Washington, Lott and other participants said Reno was grilled politely but firmly on the chronology of the case; the legal authority the Justice Department had for seizing the boy; whether there were any plans for a meeting of Elian’s relatives from Miami and Cuba; and whether there was an imminent possibility of the boy being taken to Cuba. Lott said he received assurances that Elian would remain in the United States at least until the courts say he is free to leave.

Case to Preoccupy Capitol Hill

Reno did not answer reporters’ questions as she was leaving the Capitol. After the meeting, Senate Democrats gave the two officials who accompanied her--Deputy Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. and Doris Meissner, commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service--an extended round of applause as they appeared at a closed-door party luncheon.

While polls show that a majority of Americans support the government’s action, the prospect of a hearing means that the case will preoccupy Capitol Hill well into the spring.

For many Republican lawmakers and a few Democrats who have been skeptical of the administration’s handling of the Elian case, a hearing would be a way to vent steam on an issue that has otherwise defied legislative intervention.

But several Democrats expressed doubt that hearings would serve any useful purpose in a case that has been analyzed exhaustively. Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), the minority leader who was in the meeting with Reno, said the Senate should beware of meddling in legal affairs that are pending. “What I don’t think we need are 100 armchair attorneys general.”

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Clary reported from Miami and Anderson from Washington. Times staff writer Esther Schrader in Washington and Times researcher Anna M. Virtue in Miami contributed to this story.

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* BILL PLASCHKE: Professional athletes join the ranks of public citizens with views on Elian Gonzalez. D1