Two Rallies In Miami
A week after Elian Gonzalez was seized by federal agents, demonstrations in Miami Saturday revealed that the departure of Elian has left behind an exile community that remains defiant and a city that is bitterly divided, CBS News Correspondent Jeffrey Kofman reports.
Organizers pledged this would be the biggest Elian protest yet and it was. Tens of thousands of people ambled along the street the sentiment was more one of frustration than rage. A peaceful—at times subdued—demonstration with no echoes of the violent clashes of last weekend.
Nearly half of the 2 million people who live in Miami are Cuban-Americans, yet for the last five months it has seemed theirs is the only voice that has been heard.
But that is changing. Many in this city are still shocked by this week's house-cleaning at Miami City Hall, when the Cuban-born mayor, angered because he wasn't given advance notice of last week's raid, sacked the city manager and tried to sack the chief of police, who resigned in a rage.
The aftermath of Elian, it seems, is a Miami in which there is no middle ground.
Dueling airplanes buzzed over the city, dragging banners that read "America, love it or leave it—comprende?" and "Don't fight your battles here, go home and fight your war" versus "By dawn's early light U.S. violated Elian's human rights" and "Save Elian."
"Janet Reno, we love you and we want the chief of police to come back to his position," said a marcher at another protest Saturday called the pro-America rally. While not nearly as big as the march in Little Havana, it was significant because it was the first major counter-demonstration of its kind.
"It's just about time that we stood up, the non-Cubans in this community," said another marcher.
All week, Cuban exile leaders speaking via Spanish radio have urged people to participate in the rally, planned for Saturday afternoon.
"This is a moment where the three generations of Cubans that are here are coming together in favor of supporting the child Elian and denouncing the aggressive way that they entered his home," said Andres Nazario Sargen, of Alpha 66, an anti-Castro group.
A strike last Tuesday shut down much of Little Havana and other Miami neighborhoods. Public schools were open, but nearly one in three students - roughly 115,000 pupils - were absent.
It also affected professional baseball games across the country, as a number of players sat out games to show their support for the strike.
Many Cuban exiles took to the streets in protest after INS agents raided the home of Elian's Miami relatives. The demonstrators set more than 200 fires, burning mostly tires and trash, Police clad in riot gear arrested more than 350 people and cleared away thousands more from Little Havana.
Lazaro Gonzalez, Elian's great-uncle made a plea for the community to remain calm.
"Elian is gone for now an my heart is broken," he said in a statement released Friday. "But South Florida must stay united. We cannot allow this tragedy to destroy our community."
Elian's Miami relatives are concerned about the "chasm that has developed in the wake of Elian's illegal seizure Easter weekend," Lazaro said through his spokesman Armando Gutierrez.
"We must not allow our community to he divided by the same people who are always trying to divide us," he said. "We must continue to fight for Elian's rights to live in freedom in America."
Miami Police Chief William O'Brien and City Manager Donald Warshaw said their pending departures would not affect the city's ability to ensure that Saturday's protest would be safe and orderly.
Cuban-Americans are the largest ethnic group in Miami-Dade County, with 800,000 residents—the nation's largest Cuban population.
Elian, found adrift on an inner tube Thanksgiving Day after his mother and 10 other Cubans drowned, was reunited with his father after the raid.
The 6-year-old boy must remain in the United States until a federal appeals court rules on the Miami relatives' bid for him to have an asylum hearing. For now Elian is living at the rural Wye River retreat in Maryland with his father, stepmother and half-brother.
Fernando Remirez, Cuba's diplomatic representative in Washington, went to the State Department Friday afternoon to ask for a continuing Cuban diplomatic presence at Wye, a department official said.
The official, asking not to be identified, said the request was under discussion, but added that the department did not believe there was a compelling reason to grant it.