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One Year Later, Dad Says Elian Is Doing Well
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One year after his return to Cuba,
shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez is doing very well and
suffered no apparent psychological damage from the trauma of
his bitter custody battle, his father said on Wednesday.
The seven-year-old boy's father, in an interview with NBC's
''Today'' show, said his family's life had returned to normal after
the drama of getting his son back last year from the Miami
relatives who refused to give him up.
``I feel fine and my family is very happy. A year after all these events the whole family's life
has gone back to normal and everything has gone back to normal,'' Juan Miguel Gonzalez
said in the interview from Cuba, to mark the first anniversary on June 28 of the boy's return
NBC showed television footage of the child laughing and playing with his friends at school in
Cuba, where the boy is seen as a national hero.
Elian was found floating on an inner tube on Nov. 25, 1999, off Fort Lauderdale, following a
shipwreck that killed his mother and 10 other illegal Cuban refugees who were fleeing Cuba
to come to the United States.
The child's Miami relatives took in the boy and then refused to return him to his father in
Cuba, saying Elian would be used as a political tool by Cuban President Fidel Castro (news -
web sites).
TO THE SUPREME COURT
A dramatic legal battle ensued between Miguel Gonzalez and his Miami relatives that went all
the way to the Supreme Court before Elian could return home.
The plight of the cheerful boy captured the heart of people worldwide, but the lasting picture
most have is of him screaming when he was forcibly taken before dawn from the home of his
Miami relatives by heavily-armed U.S. federal Marshalls.
After being seized, Elian was flown to Washington where he was reunited with his father,
stepmother and his half-brother at a U.S. military base. Two weeks ago, another half-brother
was born.
Gonzalez told NBC he had no regrets about his decision to bring Elian home to Cuba, or for
the way in which he was removed from his relatives' home.
The child had not suffered any psychological trauma, his father said. ``There was never any
need for him to see a psychologist because from the very beginning when I saw him in
Washington, he looked to me to be the same Elian as always.''
``He is the same boy as normal, just as expressive,'' he added.
Gonzalez told NBC of the reunion with his son and said he had
collapsed with emotion when he first saw Elian and had to be
helped to his feet.
One of his biggest concerns as a parent, said Gonzalez, was not
to be too protective of the child. The boy, he said, had no fear of
water despite losing his mother in a dramatic shipwreck that he survived.
Elian was hounded by the media during the bitter custody battle and Gonzalez said his son's
only fear was of television cameras. |
