Page 6 - Whether Elian News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Of cuba when he was in prison. he would say that's how the government works. they try to destroy the family. they try to keep us apart. so i was fighting for both of their freedom because i was hoping for the day juan miguel could meet with elian here and be free as well. >> the case of elian gonzalez has been a difficult one, complicated by the fact that several people other than elian's father claimed to represent him. ins has determined that elian should be reunited with his father. then we said by january 14th he's to be turned over to the ins so that he can be returned to his father. what...

Versus janet reno. >> my hope is people will look at this little boy ooand get hi into a situation where he can live a normal life without television cameras and the world in his face. >> elian himself said almost nothing in public during his time in miami. one night in january a camera caught him yelling at a passing airplane and his words quickly became a point of contention. the family disputed the initial

>> we didn't kick him out but we had to urge him to leave. >> i don't stand in the way of this father but i can tell you this i don't feel that he is free outside of his lawyer here. juan miguel said he's not going to go down to miami, so what's going to happen? >> we needed a family meeting away from the media, governments pitted against each other. the cuban national foundation against the castro brothers. we needed to get out of that and we needed a neutral third party which i thought was the catholic church. we got the blessing of the pope about using the vatican embassy in washington. >> ...

-- the attorneys for the relatives continue to demand that we revisit the issue of whether elian should be reunited. that is not what the law provides. ♪ ♪ >> reporter: demonstrators break through those barricades to try to form a human chain around this house, if indeed federal agents came to seize elian gonzalez. >> there were people in the crowds that had violent police records. there were armed individuals in the crowd. the entire event was a potential powder keg. we wanted to effect this search warrant as soon as possible. the only delays were last-ditch efforts made by the u.s. gover...

National foundation should use this as messaging of a human story, a human tragedy. that's why we brought attention to something we needed to stop. >> this is a typical tragic miami story that has to do with people trying to leave cuba and drowning at sea. we sent it out to a lot of different media. all of a sudden it became a national story. >> they made t-shirts with elian's picture on it. it caught the interest of fidel castro immediately. it made fidel castro focus laser beam on elian and said i'm going to use this opportunity to get back at the miami community and he did it perfectly. [ s...