Elián Freed

Elián Freed

It didn't take long for people in Miami's Little Havana district to turn the most powerful image that emerged from the seizure of young Elián González into a weapon against the U.S. government. Even as the six-year-old boy was being reunited with his father at an air force base near Washington, angry Cuban-Americans were in the streets brandishing copies of a photograph. A federal agent, outfitted with helmet, face mask and full body armour, reaches out to grasp Elián as the boy cowers in the arms of Donato Dalrymple, the fisherman who rescued him from the sea last November. The agent's other arm cradles an assault rifle, pointed in the general direction of the boy. Within a few hours, poster-sized copies of the photo were being displayed by people protesting the raid. Emblazoned on it were the words: "Federal child abuse."

The raid at a few minutes after 5 a.m. on Saturday may have ended one chapter in the sad saga of Elián. Agents of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service swooping in on the Little Havana house where Elián's Miami relatives were keeping him managed to carry the boy out without physical harm to him or anyone else. The entire operation took just three minutes - from the time the agents broke down the front door to the moment a female agent rushed out with Elián, his face distorted in apparent terror, wrapped in a blanket. But the way the raid unfolded ensured that the bitter struggle over the boy's ultimate fate will continue, likely for months, and the feelings surrounding it grow ever more intense.

Miami, or at least its influential community of Cuban-American anti-communist exiles, had been acting for months like a semi-independent republic, openly defying federal orders to turn over Elián. The shock of the raid only deepened that divide. "I am ashamed," said Miami Mayor Joe Carollo, "of what our country did here." Dalrymple, who plucked the boy from the ocean after his mother drowned trying to take him from Cuba to Florida in a makeshift vessel, sobbed as he recounted the ordeal. "They ripped him out of my arms," he cried. "He was screaming, 'Help me! Help me!' I rescued him from the ocean but I couldn't rescue him from the United States government."

For the Cuban-Americans who turned Elián into an icon of their four-decade struggle against the regime of Fidel Castro, the timing of the raid could not have been worse. Coming on Easter weekend, it outraged the religious feelings underlying their devotion to the cause of keeping Elián in the United States. Little Havana has been decorated with billboards depicting the boy's improbable rescue at sea as a metaphor for their survival and resurrection. In the most extreme interpretations, he has been seen as a Christ-child upholding Cuban freedom. The raid violated all that. "This is like crucifying the Messiah all over again," said Ralph Anrrich, a Cuban-American social worker.

It was left to federal officials to defend their decision to go in, as well as the tactics they used. Attorney General Janet Reno - scarred by memories of the bloody 1993 raid on a cult compound in Waco, Tex. - had tried for weeks to negotiate a solution. In fact, she said, she had been trying to find a settlement until 4 a.m. on Saturday, one hour before INS agents stormed in. One idea under discussion was a compromise under which the Miami family could have had some access to Elián after he was reunited with his father. But, Reno said, "at every step of the way the Miami relatives kept moving the goal posts and raising hurdles." Her department believed there might be guns inside the house, and there were reports that armed Cuban-Americans were prepared to defend the house. As a result, Reno said, the INS showed up fully armed and prepared for the worst.

Elián's father, Juan Miguel González, has promised to keep his son in the United States as the inevitably lengthy court proceedings over what should happen to him drag on. Indeed, a federal appeals court ruled last week that he must not leave the country until his status is finally decided. That could take months, time that he is expected to spend with his father, stepmother and half-brother at a "safe house" in the Washington area. The fight for public opinion will also continue. As Cuban-Americans brandished the instantly infamous photo of the raid, Juan Miguel González's lawyer released a very different image. It shows Elián, reunited with his father just a few hours later, smiling and, as far as anyone can tell, happy to be there.

Maclean's May 1, 2000