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Politics : About that Cuban boy, Elian -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: marcos who wrote (9054)	6/27/2001 10:33:00 AM
From: George Papadopoulos	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9127

dailynews.yahoo.com 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.