Lawyers, Kin of Elian Meet on Deadlines

Lawyers for Miami relatives of Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez met over the weekend with the kin to consider deadlines issued by the Justice Department as they fought to keep the boy in the United States rather than let him be sent back to his father in communist Cuba.

After a federal judge’s ruling Tuesday that backed the government’s stance that the 6-year-old at the center of a bitter custody battle should be repatriated, the Justice Department sought to speed up the relatives’ legal appeals by issuing a timetable.

If the Miami relatives don’t agree to the deadlines, Elian could be sent home as early as this week.

The boy’s mother and 10 other people drowned during their voyage from Cuba to Florida in November.

The boy survived, only to become caught up in an international tug of war that has not only pitted members of an extended family against each other but has fired up long-standing enmity between Cuban President Fidel Castro and Miami’s large Cuban community.

On Sunday, Castro said that he feared the Miami relatives of Elian and their Cuban exile supporters might harm or kill the boy if they lost their fight to keep him in the United States.

“They are capable of killing the boy instead of returning him safe and sound to his country,” Castro said in a speech closing a congress of university students in Havana.

Castro’s government has directed a nationwide campaign of public protest marches and rallies to back the demand by Elian’s father in Cuba for the return of his son.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Michael Moore responded to a lawsuit by the Miami relatives by upholding an Immigration and Naturalization Service decision that Elian should be reunited in Cuba with his father, tourism worker Juan Miguel Gonzalez.

The Justice Department said Thursday the relatives must agree to begin appeal proceedings by Friday.

In response, the Miami relatives’ lawyers suggested a panel of independent arbitrators should be set up to decide Elian’s fate.