(story to be published in tomorrow’s issue, April 4)
Gloria Estefan, fresh from performing at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, has lent her celebrity heft to the custody battle over Elian Gonzalez. On Thursday, the Cuban-American singer urged the U.S. government not to force the boy to return to his father in Cuba. The Latin pop diva, who was born in Havana in 1957 and came to the United States soon after Cuba’s 1959 revolution, said the 6-year-old boy should be allowed to present his case in court. “It is alarming to think that in refusing Elian his day in court the full truth in his situation may never be heard,” said Estefan. “We urge our government to grant Elian the opportunity to present his case without extraordinary and uncommon conditions.” She also confirmed that she had spoken to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno about the case; though she gave no details of the conversation, she did comment that Reno was “very kind and listened to everything I had to say.” Estefan also said Elian’s father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, should come to the United States to make his case. “If in fact Elian’s father is permitted by the dictatorship of Fidel Castro to come to the United States, then as a Cuban-American, I welcome him and urge him to make all his decisions based on the well-being and best interest of his son and not that of the Cuban government.” Miami resident Estefan is a beloved figure in the city’s Cuban community. Her father worked for Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, who was overthrown by Castro, and fought and was captured in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. The U.S. government and a federal judge have said that Elian should be returned to his father in Cuba. But the boy’s relatives in Miami, backed by Cuban exiles, want to keep him in the United States. The boy was rescued at sea in November after the boat carrying him, his mother, and a group of other Cubans capsized, drowning his mother and 10 others. Estefan is currently at work on a Spanish-language album, due later this year.