Posted on 08/01/2004 2:57:57 PM PDT by Libloather
4 years after return to Cuba, Elian a normal schoolboy
BY MAKI BECKER
New York Daily News
Posted on Sat, Jul. 31, 2004
NEW YORK - (KRT) - Elian Gonzalez, now 10, hits the books in Cardenas, Cuba, where he lives with his father.
Four years after little Elian Gonzalez was plucked from the seas off Florida's coast and sparked an international custody battle, the young boy is leading a sheltered and almost normal life back in Cuba.
Elian lives with his father in their hometown of Cardenas and he still sports the same impish grin that captivated the world back in 2000.
In an interview with NBC's "Dateline" to air Sunday, Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, says he has generally kept Elian out of the limelight, even moving to a secret location in town to avoid the press.
"The media (in Miami) intimidated him, pressured him most of all," Gonzalez said in his first interview in three years. "It totally overwhelmed him."
As Elian's American relatives fought to keep him in the U.S. and his father sought to take him back to Cuba, hundreds of reporters camped out outside their Miami home, recording every movement of the photogenic little boy.
The custody clash even led to a war of words between Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and the boy's fiercely anti-Castro American relatives.
The stalemate ended dramatically as heavily armed federal officers stormed the house in the middle of the night, snatched the terrified boy and took him into protective custody.
Elian still grieves for his mother who drowned when their boat capsized on its way to Florida, Gonzalez said, but he has adjusted to life well.
"I can truly say that since his return, my son has never had to see a psychologist, or anyone else," Gonzalez told "Dateline NBC."
Elian is learning karate and has two girlfriends, Gonzalez reports.
What I am hoping for is some kind of free trade to economically help these people out. What happened to Elian was cruel. I don't understand why he was singled out.
However, even though the United States is not the most perfect country in the world, it is the best. We cannot fit the entire population of the earth in the United States.
We need to help nations advance without it costing us outsourcing of jobs and hindering our advancement. These countries need to better themselves, so that they become an attractive place to live.
pollywog wrote: This sounds like the propoganda that is fed by the Democratic Party and John Kerry's crazies!!! Elian was NOT returned to his father. He was returned to the GOVERNMENT that CONTROLS his father. The father is a puppet, and so is Elian. Sheeeeesh!!
Returned to the father who wouldn't get on a plane FOR MONTHS to come and see his child after his child's mother died because Miguelito Gonzalez was AFWAID OF WASCALLY MIAMI WEPUBLICANS. But while he was psyching himself up to get on the plane, he remembered to get rid of Elian's puppy and tell Elian all about it on the telephone!
Same here!
LOL, there was no doubt about whose side he was on!
Yeah. LOL
Hmmmm. These news reporters make me sick. They casually mentioned NOW on Dateline that there are bodyguards surrounding the house, AFTER Elian has been kidnapped back to Cuba. But when he was here, they didn't mention all of the scarey Cuban goonies at the Wye.
Also -- they "Interviewed" Juan Gonzales at the place where he works, at some restaurant ( or pretended to work for our benefit) and there were two bodyguards with him there too, presumably making sure that he says the right things to the US reporter.
also -- the TV reporter went to talk with Alarcon FIRST, to get permission to talk with Juan.
They were all playing the reporter, like a violin, either that, or he allowed himself to be played. After he talked with Juan, he was told that he'll get an interview with Elian, later they said that Elian didn't want to be interviewed.
Dateline reported all this with a straight face, not a hint that Elian and Juan are basically Castro's prisoners.
As I said, it was sickening.
I don't much like your "jack booted thugs" comment.
My ex-husband is a federal agent and he was one of the agents in the house that night. He hated every minute of it.
It tore him up to have to participate in that. He had no choice. He did what he was ordered to do. The other agents with him didn't like it either.
So, say what you like about the Clintons, Reno, etc. , but the individual agents were not the problem.
Bull. "Just following orders"? Please.
Perhaps Elian will grow up and pitch for the New York Yankees.
Poor baby. Hope it haunts him forever.
If it was so painful to participate in, why mention it?
That is a very stupid remark.
I don't know what your problem is, but you are a really hateful person.
I can't put down what I wish for you.
I mentioned it in response to a narrow minded hateful remark about jack booted thugs that another poster made.
My ex-husband is a good man. He was not a supervisor, he was not a policy maker. He was ordered to go on the raid.
He didn't point a gun at that child.
Everything that tears the rest of us up about this case, tore him up to.
Do you think he should have refused a direct order? Do you think he should have quit his job? Do you think that would have stopped the raid?
Of course not.
Some of the meanest people I have ever seen are right here on FR, many proclaiming to be a Christian. Just like you.
Guards making sure nothing untoward was said. Someone 'watching' all the time.
What about his God given liberty?
And...I'm a Yankee fan, so I dislike you very much.
I find it hard to believe they were so torn up from the get go. Did they know that they were on call until the right moment, being the moment that Kendall Coffey was finalizing the arrangements to hand over Elian to the father as long as Father Vallena [sp] and Marisleysis and her parents could be present for two weeks to counsel Elian as the handover took place? I doubt it.
Just like I doubt their versions of the raid: no profanities, no violence, no physical contact with the cameramen, NO GUN POINTED AT ELIAN! I'll continue to believe Gustavo Moeller, cameraman who had to be put in an ambulance, and Tony Zumbado and Alex Diaz and friends of mine including Donato who were there during the raid.
So if he felt bad afterward, when he had all of the facts, I'd at least hope he sat out the picnic, the plaques and the promotions.
That is what happens when you don't have all of the facts, but that's the job he's in. Yes, he is to follow orders, and find out if the orders were moral or not afterwards. Or not, it's up to him. I know men who have quit those jobs or given up their dreams of working in those jobs because they have been repulsed by the direction those agencies were taking, making law abiding citizens into enemies. What do you think the founding fathers would say if they saw the Elian raid?
Like your homepage says, "it takes courage and faith...."
I have a dear German friend who was at a boarding school during the Nazi control, and she and her roommate knew that one of the teachers, a Swiss widow, in a room adjacent to them, had an illegal radio. They could hear the radio through the thin walls and the two children knew that if the SS were to walk in on them, they would be in just as much trouble as the teacher for not reporting their knowledge of the radio, but they still made a pact at age 10 that they would defend the teacher.
Would you like to know why she especially knew that the Gestapo meant business? Because before she was at the boarding school, she had been riding a train with her father as he imprudently made a joke about Hitler. She says that even the children on the train, all Germans, were speechless for a long painful time, looking around the train as if to see if someone on the train would be an agent of Hitler and carry her father away. Well about a week later, they did, took him to Dauchau and she never saw him again. AND STILL she talks about a collective shame that all Germans felt after the war and still feel to this day. Even though she doesn't have an anti-semitic strand of DNA in her body.
Do you think he should have refused a direct order? Do you think he should have quit his job? Do you think that would have stopped the raid?
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Nazi guards would have answered No! No! No!
But you point out that I am "mean" and "stupid", a "mean and stupid" person, "proclaiming to be a" Christian you like to point out, so I guess I'm being labelled a hypocrite too?
I sure am THANKFUL that my children or elderly relatives weren't in the vicinity of Elian's house that day when federal agents were ordered to break the law and ordered to circumvent a court order and ordered to carry out a broken promise by an atty. general. So if your ex-husband is a good man, he was still part of an unrighteous, dishonest undertaking that evening. If he was only following orders, did he repent? If not, it is the same spirit of NO UNDERSTANDING and NO REPENTANCE that turned Jews' skin into lampshades in Nazi Germany!
I don't know the condition of your ex-husband's heart. Only God knows. Only God can judge salvation. But I hope that your ex-husband is not naive to think that there is any forgiveness for the unrepentant. He should read See Rabbi Blech's teaching on forgiveness
God will judge each man according to his works (deeds), not according to how much he says he believes or is saved by grace or not.
May God reward your ex-husband according to his works, pressed down, shaken together, as he has done to others, may it be done to him.
Ex 34:7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
Nu 14:18 The LORD is longsuffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.
Re 13:10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
Pr 24:12 If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?
Jer 25:14 For many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of them also: and I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the works of their own hands.
Mt 16:27 For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.
2Co 11:15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
2Ti 4:14 Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:
Re 2:23 And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.
Re 18:6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.
Re 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. 13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Once a person starts a walk of faith, it is imperative that he continue in righteousness. If not, he can be cast away. Ezekiel 33 has a full explanation of the principle. It is saying, if you start a race, then finish it well. To not finish is to fall away. It's the same principle found in Hebrews 12. And 1 Corinthians 9.
Amazing how, all of a sudden, liberals picked up family values.
Look, I don't know what is wrong with you.
My ex-husband was NOT in the house.
There were hundreds of law enforcement officers there.
Only a few were in the house. Only a few knew anything about the details of the raid.
How can I get through to you that he was not in the house and had no knowledge of what they had planned?
You have no right to say some of the things you have said about my exhusband's spiritual standing with God.
Repentance? For going to work?
ONCE AGAIN, HE WAS NOT IN THE HOUSE.
HE WAS NOT IN THE HOUSE.
HE DID NOT POINT A GUN AT ANYONE.
HE DID NOT SPRAY ANYONE WITH TEAR GAS.
HE DID NOT BEAT UP PROTESTERS
What is wrong with you?
You have not paid any attention to what I have told you. You persist in carrying on with this crap, trying to blame him for this.
Stop judging my husband. You have no idea of what you are talking about.
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