`I handed the boy over, reluctantly,' to the U.S. Coast Guard, the rafter's rescuer says
 
BY JAY WEAVER AND EUNICE PONCE

 After rescuing Elian Gonzalez from an inner tube two miles off Fort Lauderdale
 Beach on Thanksgiving Day, fisherman Donato Dalrymple refused to turn over the
 young Cuban rafter to the Coast Guard at sea.

 Dalrymple feared the Coast Guard would send him back to Cuba because the
 boy, clinging to the tube, had not reached land.

 ``I told them I was not giving him over unless they assured me they would take
 him to shore, because I knew that's where he would get political asylum,'' said
 Dalrymple, of Lauderhill. ``I handed the boy over, reluctantly.''

 That lifesaving exchange has supplied the Castro government with ammunition to
 accuse the Clinton administration of violating a 1995 migration accord and to
 demand Elian's return to his father on the communist island. U.S. officials counter
 that the Coast Guard and immigration officials brought Elian to shore for medical
 reasons -- in harmony with the migration agreement -- and as soon as he touched
 land he was allowed to stay under the same accord.

 His Miami relatives want to claim custody of the boy, who was 5 years old when
 rescued and turned 6 on Monday. Elian lost his mother, Elizabet Gonzalez, in the
 Florida Straits. But his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, backed by the Cuban
 government, wants custody, claiming his ex-wife kidnapped their son.

 POLICY QUESTION

 Immigration officials said they, along with the Coast Guard, were following U.S.
 policy when they allowed Elian into the country out of concern for his health. That
 changed his feet from wet to dry under the migration accord, preventing his return
 to Cuba.

 As a result, Elian will be paroled into the country Dec. 23, and the question of his
 custody will be a matter for Miami-Dade family court.

 ``It's the migration accord that allows him to remain in the United States for the
 short term,'' INS spokesman Russ Bergeron said. ``And it's the Cuban
 Adjustment Act that allows him to adjust his status for the long term.''

 That act, which took effect in 1966, allows Cuban migrants to apply for permanent
 residency in the United States.

 One of Elian's Miami cousins, Marileysis Gonzalez, said the boy has stated a
 desire to remain in the United States.

 Elian ``talks to his father on the phone almost every day,'' she said. ``He says he
 wants to stay. I don't know if one can trust what a 6-year-old says, but he says
 he wants to stay.''

 A VIEW OF CASTRO

 To fight back against what it sees as Castro's latest propaganda campaign, the
 Cuban American National Foundation in Miami portrayed the Cuban president as
 a hypocrite for his newfound concern for the welfare of Elian.

 Exile group members said Castro's current stance toward Elian is inconsistent
 with his past actions toward emigrating children and is an excuse for political
 grandstanding.

 In an emotional plea, Ernesto Rios recounted how he recently lost his sister and
 5-year-old nephew at the hands of the Cuban border patrol. Rios said that on Oct.
 21, his sister, Estrella Rios, 35, and her son, Alexis Ernesto Marques, were
 among a group that tried to escape from Cuba on a small vessel.

 Rios said the group was intercepted by members of the Cuban border patrol, who
 battered the vessel and its occupants with anchors tied to ropes. He said his
 sister pleaded for them to stop, holding up her bloodied, unconscious son, only to
 be hit again in the head by an anchor, which killed her. The vessel capsized, he
 said, and her son drowned.

 ``Since then, my family has been persecuted horribly in Cuba, and my sister's
 boyfriend has been arrested,'' Rios said. ``Why is Fidel Castro so concerned
 about Elian?''

                     Copyright 1999 Miami Herald