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Thursday, May 11, 2000
By Torsten Ove, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
One guy who drove by yelled "Get a life!" and another told coordinator Jason Crawford to get a job, but for the most part, Downtown motorists honked their approval yesterday for the 30 people who turned out for a rally to keep Elian Gonzalez in the United States.
"I think a lot of people are supportive of us," said Donna Kueny of Frazer, a 42-year-old mother of four who joined the "Americans to Keep Elian Free" protesters in front of the federal building. "Elian should have his day in court. It should be his choice to stay or return to Cuba...It's not about the father's rights. It's about freedom."
The rally, one of 14 at federal buildings nationwide, was timed to draw attention to today's hearing before the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which is being asked to decide if the 6-year-old Cuban boy should receive an asylum hearing.
The hearing will last about 40 minutes, but a ruling could take several weeks.
The court has ordered that Elian remain in the United States until the judges rule. Since federal agents removed him from his great-uncle's Miami home on April 22, Elian has been staying with his father, stepmother and 6-month-old half-brother at a secluded plantation in Maryland.
Scattered protests have been held in Miami since the federal raid, but yesterday's demonstrations were the first national rallies in support of Elian's "moral right to stay in America," according to organizers.
"I don't believe this child should go back to a Communist dictatorship," said Crawford, a 20-year-old Carnegie Mellon University student from Maryland who gave a speech at noon. "We believe Elian should be allowed to stay in this country. We believe in freedom. Communism is evil."
In addition to expressing outrage over the removal of Elian from the Miami home, Kueny and others said the boy's freedom supersedes the rights of his father, whom they said is under the control of Fidel Castro.
"I feel he is a pawn of Castro," said Kueny, who was joined by her 22-year-old daughter, Mary Startiff of New Kensington. "I don't think he can stand up and say what he wants. He might want the boy to stay in the United States. We don't really know."
Crawford said the rallies were also held yesterday -- mother's day in Latin America -- to honor Elian's mother, Elizabeth, who drowned on the raft trip from Cuba to Florida.
"We want to remind everyone," he said, "that Elian's mother died trying to come to America."
In addition to Pittsburgh, demonstrations were held in Miami, Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Houston, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.