wfn.org | NCC applauds INS decision on Cuban boy

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Jan. 6, 2000 News media contact: Linda Bloom·(212) 870-3803·New York
10-32-71B{010}

By United Methodist New Service

A National Council of Churches (NCC) representative who recently visited the
family of Elian Gonzalez in Cuba has applauded the Jan. 5 decision by the
U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to return the boy to his father.

The 6-year-old has been staying with relatives in Miami since he survived
the capsizing of a refugee boat bound from Cuba to Florida. The November
accident killed his mother, stepfather and eight others. He also has been
the center of a political battle, with Cuban-Americans calling upon U.S.
officials to allow the boy to live permanently in Miami and Fidel Castro and
the Cuban people calling for his return.

The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, who retired Dec. 31 as the NCC's general
secretary, called the INS decision "right and just" and said it "must not be
tied to protracted legal battles that would delay the boy's actual, physical
return to Cuba."

For eight years, the NCC has shipped food, medicine, medical equipment and
other humanitarian supplies to Cuban churches for distribution to women,
children and the elderly. Campbell and the Rev. Oscar Bolioli, director of
the NCC/Church World Service Latin America and Caribbean Office, made a Jan.
2-5 trip to Cuba at the invitation of the Cuban Council of Churches. They
met with members of Elian's family, including his father and his maternal
grandmother.

In a statement released during the visit, Campbell described a close-knit
family shocked by the unexpected departure and death of Elian's mother and
saddened by the boy's absence. "There is some anger since they don't
understand why no one will tell them when their son, this 6-year-old boy,
will be returned," she said. Even his mother's mother wanted him back in
Cuba, she added.

"Our position has been that Elian needs to be with his immediate family,
which is a position that the United States holds in relation to family
issues, whether they be domestic or international cases," Campbell said
later in response to the INS decision. "We would rarely choose to place a
child with an extended family rather than with the immediate family,
particularly when the family is strong and loving, as this one is."
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United Methodist News Service
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