By LIZETTE ALVAREZ
MIAMI, Jan. 8
_ The heated political battle over the custody of the
6-year-old boy
Elián González showed no signs of subsiding
today after
a House Republican leader subpoenaed the boy to testify
before Congress
in an effort to keep him in the United States.
The subpoena
was announced late Friday night by Representative Dan
Burton of Indiana,
the chairman of the House Government Reform
Committee, hours
after one of Elián's relatives in Miami took the first step
toward becoming
the boy's legal guardian. Mr. Burton's announcement
said that Elián
would testify before his committee on Feb. 10 so he could
remain in the
country while the courts considered his case.
With his Miami
family crying tears of joy behind him on Friday night,
Elián
waved the subpoena, a wrinkled piece of paper, back and forth in
his front yard.
At least in his
family's view, the subpoena was a temporary reprieve.
Appeased for
now, Cuban exile leaders called for a lull in the
demonstrations.
"We hope this
will protect him temporarily, at least until the judge issues
an order" in
state court, said the boy's lawyer, José García-Pedrosa.
But some Democrats
called the subpoena a political ploy, saying it does
not bar people
from leaving the country, and they questioned whether it
was even enforceable.
One Republican
committee aide said it was unlikely at this point that a
hearing would
take place on Feb. 10.
In Cuba, Elián's
father was outraged by Mr. Burton's effort to keep his
son from his
homeland.
"What right does
that man have?" Juan Miguel González said in his
hometown, Cárdenas,
where many wept during a rally for Elián,
according to
The Associated Press. "I am the father of Elián, and
immigration
has said that I am the only one who can speak for him.
"Why should it be delayed? Who is he? He is no one. I am the father."
The tug of war
over the subpoena was the latest development in what has
become an almost
daily battle of words across the Florida Straits.
Over the last
six weeks, both the Cuban exile community in this city and
its nemesis
90 miles away, Fidel Castro, have followed a common path,
turning Elián
into a political bumper sticker.
Here, in the
streets of Little Havana and beyond, where demonstrators
this week have
been hauled away in handcuffs trying to keep United
States immigration
officials from sending the boy back to his father in
Cuba, Elián
is a martyr in the making, a child who lost his mother at sea
as they fled
Cuba.
The political
firestorm here over Elián was set off on Wednesday by the
Immigration
and Naturalization Service when its commissioner, citing
federal and
international law, decided to honor the request of Elián's
father that
the boy be returned to his custody in Cuba. The decision set a
deadline of
Jan. 14 for the boy's return. Elián's father has said he did not
know his former
wife had planned to take the boy from Cuba in late
November. The
boy's mother drowned in the crossing and the boy was
found by a fisherman
on Thanksgiving Day clinging to an inner tube in the
ocean.
He has been living
with his paternal great-aunt and great-uncle in Little
Havana.
The immigration
decision sparked street protests in Miami, a visit by
several mayors
to Attorney General Janet Reno in Washington, a legal
motion to grant
the boy's great-uncle temporary custody, and, on Friday
night, the subpoena.
Elián's
relatives here and his lawyers have made sure the limelight stays
trained on the
boy. There are Elián Web sites and posters, free trips to
Disney World,
courtesy of the publicity-savvy Disney organization, and
free school
tuition. Photographers camp out at the boy's house.
In Cuba, the battle for Elián is no less fierce and political.
In the crumbling
city of Cárdenas, on the northwest coast of Cuba, the
boy is just
as much a martyr, and Mr. Castro delights in the picture he
paints of exiles
brainwashing Elián with Pokémon cards and Mickey
Mouse hugs.
Mr. Castro has
dined with the boy's father, a doorman in the beach
resort of Varadero,
and his grandparents. Along a main street in the
father's hometown,
a banner flutters, reading, "Elián's lawyer is the Cuban
people." Children
sing odes to Elián in school for the cameras. There are
regular demonstrations;
one on Friday, during which students told stories
about Elián,
brought relatives and children to tears.
For some watching
the case, even those sympathetic with the exile plight,
it transcends
a run-of-the-mill custody case. "There is no question he has
been turned
into a political pawn," said Grover Joseph Rees, a former
general counsel
for the I.N.S. and now chief counsel on the House
Subcommittee
on International Operations and Human Rights. "Fidel had
dinner with
the father and the two sets of grandparents. How often does
that happen?
On the other hand, yeah, our side inevitably sees it as a
political struggle
too."
Republicans have
seized on the case as well. They have knocked on
Elián's
door. One of them, a Miami city commissioner, arrived dressed
like Santa Claus.
This week, Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart of
Florida delivered
a black Labrador puppy called Dolphin.
Senator Trent
Lott of Mississippi, the majority leader, said he and other
Republicans
wanted to make Elián a citizen so he can stay in the country.
And today Senator
Robert Smith of New Hampshire, who was in town
for an Everglades
hearing, paid his respects to the family.
From the other
side of the ideological divide, Charles B. Rangel, a New
York Democrat
who has for years advocated lifting the Cuban embargo,
has volunteered
to fly to Cuba to deliver the boy to his father.
And Vice President
Al Gore, who is running for president and is facing a
serious backlash
among Dade County's Cuban American Democratic
voters, has
distanced himself from the Clinton administration's decision.
On Friday, he
helped pave the way for a meeting with Miami leaders and
Ms. Reno.
Mr. Castro accuses
Miami exiles of causing undue trauma to the boy's
psyche. But
in Miami, many exiles suspect the father has acquiesced to
Mr. Castro's
wishes under duress.
Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company