posted 05-24-2003 04:36 PM            

Thanks $eeker for a story equally at home in Nazi Germany or Republican Amerika.

Zieg!....
(heil or shut up!)

posted 05-24-2003 04:50 PM            

Cut and pastes will commense now....except on this subject, the cut and paste material is so vast...this board won't take it. I'll have to do it in bits and pieces...

NEW BACKGROUND INFORMATION

WROE transcript page 39: "…..Don Petty, Photographer, Tarrant County Coroner: . . . we would
find bodies that were burned a lot more than other bodies in very close proximity. There were bodies that were burned to a crisp, and then very nearby there was paper that wasn't burned, there was clothing that wasn't burned. I was panning the whole side and one of the Rangers came up behind me while I was still taping and hit me on the shoulder and said, you can't be doing that. So I said, okay, that's fine, no problem. And then he asked for the tape and I said well, I'm shooting for Dr. Peerwani and I'm not going to give you the tape until he says it's okay. Finally we found Dr. Peerwani, talked to him and he agreed that it was okay for me to give him the tape and so I did. They promised us that all they wanted to do was review it and they'd give it back to us the next day. And they didn't………"

WROE transcript page 39: "…..Nizam Peerwani, Coroner, Tarrant County: They told us that they had misplaced it. At one time they told us that I have it in my briefcase and I'll give it to you. In fact, we said we're going to delay giving you your reports until you give our tape back. And of course they said sure, we'll give your tape back the next time we visit your office. We, in fact, suggested we'll go to Waco and collect the tape from them. And they said no, it's in the San Antonio office. And at a certain point along this discussion they finally said, the tape is lost. We can't give it to you….."
http://www.indirect.com/www/dhardy/AGcost.JPEG Estimated costs of investigation WACMUR (2/28/93-4/8/93)
TOTAL PERSONNEL COSTS 2/28 to 4/15 $3,987,493
TOTAL EXTRAORDINARY COSTS $1,910,754
AVERAGE COST/DAY for WACMUR operations is $128,429

Summary of Article Marked for Death 10/14/94 Jerusalem Post Hiam Shapiro "…. Even though David Thibodeau looks like any one of the young people who pass through the streets of Jerusalem every day, he is not like them. His soul bears the scars of the inferno that engulfed the Mt. Carmel Center in Waco, Texas on April 19, 1993. Thibodeau is one of the 9 survivors of that fire. ……. …... He believes the US authorities, the press, and foreign governments conspired to cover up the truth. ……He says this must be so because there was little comment about the relatively large number of black people (about a third of the total number) who died during the incident. Had American blacks realized how many blacks died, they would have risen up as they did after the 1992 acquittal of four white police officers involved in the Rodney King beating, according to Thibodeau. …..He says that Britain did not intervene on behalf of British subjects in the Mt. Carmel Center, even though one third of Mt. Carmel's residents were British subjects. Had the British attempted to protect the interests of its subjects, the FBI would not have been so hasty about attacking the complex. ….."[The British government] didn't say, 'Hey! Thirty of our people are in there.' There was no political pressure on the American government," he says. …..Thibodeau speaks with almost clinical detachment about events of April 19 which resulted in so many of his friends dying. ….."

Summary of Article Marked for Death 10/14/94 Jerusalem Post Hiam Shapiro "…. "I was in the church area, the place where we heard music, the main meeting room," he says. Thibodeau had been listening to a local radio station which had been sympathetic to the Branch Davidians. He was taking notes and when he heard the attack begin, he immediately donned his gas mask--but continued taking notes. Then he heard a news bulletin which chilled his bones. The radio quoted the FBI saying that its agents had been hit by 80 to 100 gunshot blasts. The report went on to say that due to the presence of the women and children, the federal agents had not returned the fire. "My heart literally dropped in my chest," he recalls. "I had heard no gunshots. I knew this was the final lie and they were preparing the American people for a massacre and we were marked for death." …… About an hour later he saw a tank crash through the front doors, pushing back a piano which had been placed up against it. Time seemed to move very slowly, as he saw one after another of his friends die before his eyes. [The Post article does not state the cause of these deaths Thibodeau says he witnessed.] ……..

Summary of Article Marked for Death 10/14/94 Jerusalem Post Hiam Shapiro "…. Pablo Cohen, a Jerusalem resident and the only Israeli at the complex, died in the FBI raid. In fact, one of the few items which the FBI allowed into the complex during the siege was a Pessah haggada, sent by Shulamit Cohen, Pablo's mother. ……..…. About Koresh, Thibodeau [survivor] says "Some people considered him a prophet, some people considered him inspired. I like to say that he was a man who God inspired to reveal the seventh seal (mentioned in the New Testament Book of Revelations) ," he says. Thibodeau adds that that Koresh never claimed he was Jesus Christ. "However, when he spoke, he talked the Book like he had lived it - or been there. That's how truthful and real his studies were." Does he consider Koresh the messiah? Thibodeau says in a sense yes, because Koresh was the fulfillment of a section or portion of the Book, the sixth seal. ….."

Wooly_mammoth - Waco was an Intelligence Related Shutdown, like this one:

From/for wooly_mammoth concerning Chuck Byers

Ahwatukee Foothill News ahwatukee.com http://www.ahwatukee.com 1997
Phoenix, AZ Ammo Removed From AF Home
New River Munitions Manufacturer Arrested for Selling Ammo to Israel
Patty McCormac, Doug Murphy and Adriane Hopkins Staff Writers

"……New River munitions manufacturer Charles "Chuck" Byers, is back in Federal Court and hot water after a search warrant was served on his Ahwatukee Foothills home Thursday morning……The warrant was served about 11:30 a.m., at Byers' home at 11833 S. Winnebago St. by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms who were aided by the Phoenix Police Department Bomb Squad……Taken from the home were ammunition and ammunition components…..

….Byers was arrested at about 10 a.m. Thursday in downtown Phoenix on suspicion of manufacturing ammunition and selling it to unlicensed persons, a federal violation, Bettendorf said….. The charges stem from allegations that Byers had shipped 4,500 rounds of special 12-gauge shotgun ammunition to Israeli police, Bettendorf confirmed…..In the complaint filed by the federal government, this was only a portion of a $21,000 order placed by Israeli police…….

……Joe Heinzl, Byers' attorney called the charges, "more of the same," and wondered why his client was arrested by U.S. Marshals on the street when he had been so cooperative in the past. Heinzl said Byers could have come in on his own……Heinzl also said it was odd that Byers had just served a $10 million lawsuit against the federal government for blowing up his ranch in New River and then a few days later is arrested…..

….Byers, a former munitions maker, was arrested in 1989 by federal agents and charged and convicted of trying to bribe a Naval commander into buying hand grenades from his business. Byers lost his license and served time in federal prison………In October 1997, the ATF and Maricopa County Sheriffs Deputies served a search warrant on his ranch on 27th Avenue in New River, where they found tons of some identifiable and some unidentifiable chemicals. Some were blown up immediately, but authorities were nervous about moving some of the other volatile explosives and decided instead to burn them. Neighbors of the ranch objected strongly, asking what would happen to their air, water and surrounding environment…..

…..The ATF then began quietly hauling truckloads of the munitions away from the ranch. Residents around the ranch were not notified or evacuated when the removal began….. Bettendorf said Army Corps of Engineer members have been on site 24-hours a day in New River since October to make sure all remains stable…….. Byers claimed that he was being harassed by the federal government because of his past involvement with the CIA……"

Letter allegedly written by Chuck Byers to Portor Goss:

Honorable Portor Goss
February, 14 , 1998
Chairman House Intelligence Oversight Committee
US House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.

Subject: My knowledge of CIA involvement in the crash of the Gander Arrow Air DC-8 and PAN AM 103

Dear Chairman Goss,

My specialized knowledge of ordinance, explosives and pyrotechnics may provide the missing insights needed to solve several major terrorist crimes. For 15 years my company ACCURACY SYSTEMS ORDINANCE CORPORATION, provided specialized explosive devices to law enforcement, the military, Special Forces and the Central Intelligence Agency.

As you read this letter Accuracy Systems' former munitions manufacturing facilities in New River, Arizona are under occupation of the BATF who moved onto the property Sept. 20, 1997 and have been occupying the facilities there at considerable expense to the tax payers ever since. Their intent from the start has been to "blow up" the explosives magazines and burn our former research and development workshop and its contents --- and in the process --- destroy certain evidence that can link U S aircraft bombings to the CIA, a former client of Accuracy Systems…..

Three weeks after this disaster, Arleigh McCree, head of the LAPD bomb squad and a professional friend of mine, was visiting with me in Phoenix and examining items in our museum. This was where we kept samples of all of the different "Special Ordnance Devices" that we had produced over the previous twenty-something years. When Sgt. McCree saw one these items, he excitedly proclaimed that it was the device that blew up a plane. He said he would need to get federal clearance to discuss this in more detail with me. He did not reveal the exact plane at the time. Just four weeks later Arleigh McCree and his partner were killed disarming a pipe bomb that was booby-trapped. You will see from the enclosed article on this tragedy that these two deaths were also very unusual. In fact these are the only two members of the LAPD bomb squad to ever die this way.

Sometime later when I began asking questions in professional circles I started to develop serious difficulties with certain agencies of the federal government. I was framed and convicted for a crime I did not commit. An attempt was made to implicate me in a plot to assassinate Corizon Aquino. On the same day that a sophisticated assassination weapon arrived in Australia for this purpose a bomb arrived in the mail addressed to me. It killed my plant manager instead. Certainly I would like to investigate the wrongs by these federal agencies. However, the real reason I am sending you the reports of federal efforts to silence me is to emphasize the value of the specialized knowledge that I possess. As a second example, I present photos of the detonator that initiated the bomb on PAN AM 103. I know where this circuit board was manufactured in Florida, not Europe, and that it was sold exclusively to the CIA--- not to the Libyans!

…..I am sending this letter to every member of Congress in the hope that each of you will support my efforts to find answers to the haunting questions raised by the facts presented in this letter.

All of my current efforts to have local and federal law enforcement agencies (including their parent agencies in DC) investigate these matters have been unsuccessful. In fact, our US Attorney has actually defended the perpetrators and local US District Court judges have refused to act on my requests, or, in most cases, simply Dismissed them or ruled in favor of the U S Attorney. In spite of overwhelming evidence that not only am I telling the truth, but the Federal Agents are lying, filing False Affidavits or otherwise knowingly misleading the Court.

Since this matter represents a situation of extreme national importance, I am requesting you to immediately initiate hearings before the HOUSE INTELLIGENCE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE to thoroughly investigate these charges and to bring the guilty perpetrators to justice.

Respectfully,
Charles M. Byers
President
CC: All Members of the House Intelligence Oversight Committee

11/23/98 http://www.softdisk.com/comp/dan/davidian-notes.html "……. There are three factions of pro-Koresh Branch Davidians: Most of the survivors have rallied around Clive Doyle as their pastor and unofficial leader. However, while they respect him as a minister, he makes no claim to being a prophet. …...A dissident faction is Hidden Manna, which follows one of the Davidian prisoners, Renos Avraam. He teaches that he is the "Chosen Vessel of the Remaining Bride," who is to offer prophetic guidance before David's Return. He has the support of three other prisoners, in Beaumont, Texas, a group of survivors in Canada, plus some new converts. …….A small faction is that of Ron Cole. He was a student who rushed to Waco right after the fire, befriended many survivors, and wrote a totally pro-Davidian book, Sinister Twilight. He became a Branch Davidian, but declared that David Koresh had failed to complete his mission as the Seventh Angel, and that task now fell to him. His relations with the survivors deteriorated quickly! I am not sure how much support he got. Wally Kennet, who had studied with David but had left the group prior to the siege, has accompanied Cole, though I am not absolutely certain he is a believer. Cole later founded the First Colorado Light Infantry militia, which passed out leaflets at the McVeigh trial. Then, during the trial, he, Kennet, and another was arrested on firearms charges. I have heard that Kennet at least has now gotten out. ….. Jesse Amen was one of the two men who snuck into the compound during the siege, and appears to have absorbed some belief in David Koresh as a prophet into his idiosyncratic beliefs before wandering off. ……. Andrew Hood called himself a prophet and wanted to set up a church on the property. A Washington Post article implied he considered himself a Branch Davidian prophet, but I don't think that was the case. His efforts were unsuccessful, and he vanished. ……. I asked one of the new converts about another proselyte I had seen on a documentary, Phillip Pope, and she said he had been expelled as a "subversive."... "

11/23/98 http://www.softdisk.com/comp/dan/davidian-notes.html "…….Now, the anti-K's! The woman you met, Amo Paul Bishop Roden, is the ex-wife of George Roden, David's rival. However, she believes that she is now the legitimate prophet of the Branch, not him. This is a one-woman faction; she has no followers. ….George Roden continues to hold himself out as the rightful leader, but he no longer has any followers. …… Charles Pace is a Branch Davidian from Canada. After Lois Roden announced her teaching that the Holy Spirit is feminine, he went her one better, adding the Holy Daughter to the Trinity. This led to his expulsion …. When George Roden seized Mt. Carmel, he moved his faction to Gadsden, Alabama. Now, he has moved back on to Mt. Carmel. Unlike the Rodens, he has an actual congregation behind him. ……Doug Mitchell is another apparent one-man faction I only learned of a couple of weeks ago myself, from some Waco Tribune-Herald articles at their AccessWaco site. …."

12/23/98 http://www.softdisk.com/comp/dan/davidian-notes.html "…….The other thing is the seeming approval of Clive Doyle's efforts to throw the anti-Ks out, when Clive is the leader of the other faction. However, the letter really does not express any opinion about him personally; it simply applauds the effort to get rid of the "squatters"…..Who set the fires is still unknown. You've seen the unlikely accusation that the "squatters" themselves set it. On the other hand, Amo Roden points the finger at Robert Arnold, a man who has joined Clive's group and goes now as just "Andrew," acting on Clive's orders. She describes him as an ex-convict hired by Clive to be his goon. My own contact with him convinces me that he is a true believer, not a mercenary. While I think he would be willing to carry out such orders, I don't see the mild-mannered Clive as the sort to give them. My guess would be that some local yahoo did it. To rebuild from the fires (and to fund some of Tom's projects), Amo and Tom Drake decided to "ask" visitors for $1 admission. …… Tom got his old friend George Roden to agree to let him manage the property as he saw fit; Amo was disputing the survivor's legal claim on the grounds that George was the legitimate owner. Amo retired to her parents' home in Florida in protest, returning to Waco only for court-related business. …. Early this year, Tom Drake left the property, and Clive's group took advantage of that to finally establish a foothold on the property. They tore down Amo's signs and museum, building their own one-room museum on the former site of her pavilion in time for the anniversary. By the time Amo returned, they were entrenched. When I was down there for the memorial service, they were even running around in the camper-trailer! …….. On the 10th, after many postponements, the court case got rolling. But another delay of two months has been declared, to see if George's children want to make a claim.... "

3/24/99 http://www.softdisk.com/comp/dan/davidian-notes.html "…….Also, I think I was planning to mention something about that "gunfire" the tourist office told you about. That was an incident where Ron Cole, Wally Kennet, and Andrew Hood came onto the property to take over Amo's museum (a building Hood had built). According to Amo, she fired once into the air, and the three backed off until the sheriff's deputies arrived and arrested Amo and Cole and Kennet, who were armed. My understanding is that the charges against Amo were ultimately dropped or dismissed, while Cole and Kennet were charged with firearms violations. ….."

Tuesday, December 8, 1998 BIG SPRING, Texas (AP) -- Former Branch Davidian leader George Roden...turned up dead Monday outside the mental institution he was trying to escape...discovered Roden's body on the north side of the grounds around 7:30 a.m. He escaped...Saturday night. It was the third time he'd fled a state mental institution since 1993.
http://texnews.com/1998/texas/branch1208.html

Not necessarily to be included but of interest..."In February 1995, the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation's Dangerous Review Board declared Roden "not manifestly dangerous." Seven months later, he fled Big Spring for three days before being caught outside the Israeli consulate in New York City, where he reportedly caused a disturbance after being denied a visa to Israel. Roden, who claimed to be Jewish, said PLO-trained hitmen were trying to kill him."

1831 William Miller studied end-time prophecies and in 1833 concluded the world will end in 1843; revised to 1844

1844 Prophecy failed; Millerite movement began to disintegrate; one of the strands, which developed into Seventh-day Adventism, believed 1844 marked the beginning of the time of the end

1863 The Seventh-day Adventist Church becomes a recognized; influenced by Ellen White, a prophet who revealed the church as God's chosen people at the end time

1915 Ellen White died; no further prophets recognized by the Seventh-day Adventist Church

1929-1931 Victor Houteff believed he was a prophet and was disfellowshipped from the Seventh-day Adventist Church; he formed the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, "The Shepherd's Rod". Its most important teaching is that God will establish a literal kingdom in Israel, ruled by Jesus Christ and his lieutenant, the "Antitypical David."

1955 Victor Houteff died. His widow Florence Houteff assumed leadership; Benjamin Roden contested leadership, saying he was a prophet.

1955-1959 Ben Roden founded the Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventists (BDSDA). There are various other splinter groups formed from the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists

1962 Ben Roden and his followers took over New Mount Carmel, formerly headquarters of the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists

1978-1984 Lois Roden, Ben Roden's widow, became president; had a vision of the Holy Spirit as the feminine aspect of the trinity; traveled widely; attracted many believers.

1981 Vernon Howell arrived at Mount Carmel Center as the handyman.

1983 Vernon Howell claimed divine inspiration; began cohabiting with Lois Roden

1985 Vernon Howell received a major revelation from God that he is the Antitypical Cyrus
http://homepages.anglianet.co.uk/johnm/chronology.html

http://www.alf.org/alfnews/alf58.html "…..There were years of conflict and even a gun battle between Howell and Roden, who owned Mount Carmel Center, ending in the Spring of 1988 when Howell and his Davidian followers paid 16 years of back taxes on Mount Carmel (after Roden went to jail for threatening a judge) and repossessed it under an agreement with the county that they would finally own the property if they occupied and paid taxes on it for five years. Carol Moore points out that "significantly, that five-year period would end during the 1993 siege." She postulates that one of the main reasons that the Davidians were reluctant to surrender to the authorities and leave the property during the siege was a fear that by giving up occupancy they would forfeit their property to the county……"

Rboatman "….What do we know about Fosters' Concord trips to Europe (Zurich?) between Feb and the time of his death? Maybe we can figure why he began to believe that the Waco debacle was 'his fault'. If it was truly a serious and easily understood National Security issue would he have felt so bad about the death of some terrorist cult members and their families to save thousands if not millions of lives? Recall that his wife said he was depressed about Waco and "felt responsible." As a key link between in the Chain of Command between the Co-presidents and DoJ and the field, he would have been privy to info on a WMD or other NatSecurity issue. Surely having saved a million lives would have offset the loss of 80 odd terrorists and their families. I think he was "depressed" because he had come to realize that the real cause of the operation at Waco was some dirty little situation that in no way could he see was worth those 80-odd lives.

….http://kreative.net/carolmoore/waco-house-hearings.html Report on July-August, 1995 House Hearings on Waco Sponsored by subcomittees of the House Judiciary and Government Reform and Oversight Committees By Carol Moore Member, Committee for Waco Justice Author, The Davidian Massacre

…."...Some new information was learned about the involvement of Vince Foster. (It was recently revealed that in 1993 Foster's wife admitted to FBI agents that he felt responsible for the deaths in Waco.) Texas Rangers disclosed that when they were in dispute with the FBI about the destruction of evidence, someone in the Texas Governor's office had given them a White House number to contact--Vince Foster's number. Representative Charles Schumer revealed that only one document had been found in the "Waco file" in Foster's office--a memorandum that Foster was forwarding the "Waco, the Big Lie" video to Treasury Department officials. When Janet Reno was questioned about whether Foster's statement about the FBI lying to the Attorney General on his "suicide note" referred to Waco, she explained it related to "Travelgate."...."

Dallas Morning News 3/2/93 "…….A caravan of armored fighting vehicles carrying National Guard troops left a staging area at a Waco college and approached the compound along a back road. Meanwhile, authorities forced reluctant reporters to move from within sight of the compound to a holding area about two miles away…….. Authorities would not say how many officers were on the scene, but they included units of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, National Guard, Texas Department of Public Safety, Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Naturalization Service, the McLennan County sheriff's office and local police departments. …… Ms. Wheeler refused to release information about the arsenal agents suspect is hidden inside the compound. "We just know from the holes in our vehicles, in some of our helicopters, and unfortunately some of our agents, that there was some very high-powered ammunition that is used in big guns," she said……. Authorities have known since at least 1987 that the Davidians possessed a formidable stock of weapons. That was when a rivalry between Mr. Koresh and the group's then-leader, George Roden, culminated in a gunbattle on the group's property. Mr. Koresh and seven others were charged with attempted murder.
The seven were acquitted, and charges against Mr. Koresh were dropped after a mistrial. Mr. Roden was sent to Vernon State Hospital in 1990 in connection with a separate criminal case.
El-Hadi J. Shabazz, the assistant district attorney of McLennan County who prosecuted Mr. Koresh, said authorities seized a massive array of weapons after the shootout. "One sheriff's deputy who helped make the arrest, said they had enough weapons and ammo to hold off all of the McLennan County Sheriff's Department, all of the Waco Police Department, and all of the local National Guard," he said. "When the jury came back with an acquittal, it sent chills through us." ….."

11/20/93 Gary Hunt Outpost of Freedom http://www.illusions.com/opf/GL931120.htm "…… Clive Doyle left Mt. Carmel Center on April 19th, 1993, just minutes after more than eighty people perished, from smoke inhalation, fire, injuries or gunshot wounds. Clive was one of only nine who survived this travesty that some might call American justice. Clive is now in McLennan County Jail awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy to murder federal agents, and other charges. He went there directly from Parkland Hospital, in Dallas, where he was taken because of the burn injuries he sustained. Parkland Hospital has filed suit against the FBI. The FBI had contacted Parkland that fateful morning to determine how much space was available for burn victims (this is confirmed on the sworn affidavit in the suit). Parkland, in an effort to collect for the services rendered, filed the action for payment of the $350,000 outstanding on the bill….. Perhaps this is why Clive has not received continued, adequate medical attention for his injuries. He has a problem with the burned area skin cracking and bleeding. He has problems writing because of the stiffness of the tissue. He is given nearly no medical treatment since the day he left Parkland. At one point we tried to get homeopathic salts into Clive, but the jail nurse does not recognize anything not approved by the AMA.

In another part of the country, Alabama, another friend sits in her cell denied what the doctors know to be a serious, and possibly life threatening illness. Lynda Lyon has a thyroid condition. She had been treating it with prescribed medicines as well as health products. ….. We have found that there is strength in our numbers. Numerous fax campaigns have had positive effects from "encouraging" the court in Texas to allow Rita Riddle to visit her daughter, Misty (where she is right now), a change in the state police policy in Connecticut, medical attention for George Sibley for his wound (which also benefited all of the prisoners in the jail). …."
http://www.morningnews.com/specials/waco/federal/w0904.htm The Dallas Morning News 9/4/93 "…..The FBI has evidence that Branch Davidian Steve Schneider fatally shot cult leader David Koresh after seeing him trying to flee the sect's burning compound and apparently deciding that the self-proclaimed messiah was a fraud, according to FBI Agent Bob Ricks. Mr. Schneider "had given up everything that he owned to this man," said Agent Ricks, who was the FBI's chief spokesman and one of the bureau's three commanders in Waco during the cult's 51-day siege this year. "In the end, we think he probably realized he was dealing with a fraud. After he (Mr. Koresh) had caused so much harm and destruction, he (Mr. Koresh) probably now wanted to come out, and Mr. Schneider could not tolerate that situation."…….. Agent Ricks' account supports the contention of FBI siege commanders and senior FBI officials that Mr. Koresh was a fraudulent sociopath unlikely to commit suicide. The account also reflects most of the other key psychologicial theories that FBI agents emphasized during the siege……"
http://www.morningnews.com/specials/waco/federal/w0904.htm The Dallas Morning News 9/4/93 "….. Tarrant County Medical Examiner Nizam Peerwani, who performed autopsies on the two men's bodies and on more than 80 others recovered from the compound after the April 19 fire, said Mr. Koresh's body was too badly burned to determine whether the single gunshot to his forehead was self-inflicted or was a homicide…… "The FBI has something we don't have: There were listening devices in there," Mr. Peerwani said. "I can't rule it out."…….. Several officials outside the FBI but familiar with the ongoing Branch Davidian investigation expressed suprise at the detail with which Mr. Ricks described Mr. Koresh's death. "I've never heard that," one said Friday. "It doesn't mean it didn't happen, but I've never heard that."……… In a recording of his Tulsa speech, Mr. Ricks stated that "evidence we have today" indicated that Mr. Koresh died trying to come out. The agent added that at least some of Mr. Koresh's followers also had been executed by fellow sect members as they tried to flee the compound....... "As we gassed, apparently, many inside decided they wanted out. Over 20-some-odd people were shot that day," he said. "As a warning to others, they were shot and executed."......"
http://www.morningnews.com/specials/waco/federal/w0904.htm The Dallas Morning News 9/4/93 "…..Citing intelligence sources he refused to identify, Mr. Ricks said Mr. Koresh ordered his followers to saturate the compound with kerosene about 10 minutes after FBI agents began inserting tear gas into the compound on the morning of April 19……… When FBI commanders allowed the tanks to push 20 feet inside the compound to inject gas into a concrete-block room where they thought Mr. Koresh and his chief lieutenants were hiding, "the order went out to light it up," Mr. Ricks said………Mr. Koresh then screamed, "Don't light it up" as he realized that the FBI was not launching a tactical assault, "but at that time it was too late," he said. Mr. Koresh then decided to try to escape, Mr. Ricks said. "His second lieutenant, Steve Schneider, shot him and then put the gun to his own head and killed himself," he said......."

posted 05-24-2003 04:55 PM            

Chronology of the Branch Davidians

posted 05-24-2003 05:04 PM            

(in reverse order – most recent to the incident in Miami)

Reuters via Yahoo! 9/28/00 Jim Loney "…..The Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez, the shipwrecked Cuban boy who was caught in a furious custody battle, sued Attorney General Janet Reno (news - web sites) on Thursday, claiming the federal raid on their home to seize Elian and return him to his father violated their constitutional rights.The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Miami, accuses Reno and others of violating the family's right to freedom of expression, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure and from use of excessive force by government...."

ABCNEWS 9/21/00 "…..Nine Cubans who survived when their plane crashed into waters off the Florida coast appear to be on the path to permanent residency in the United States...."
http://www.herald.com 9/20/00 Luis Aguilar Leon "……. A few days after President Clinton's ``routine'' handshake with Fidel Castro at the United Nations, a major New York newspaper, lacking a photo of the handshake, provided separate photos of each leader with outstretched hand, basically suggesting the occurrence. ……… The New York Times, which apparently controls the negative, denounced the legerdemain, stressing the importance of preserving the ethics of the press. Of course The Times has every right to protect that ethic and to criticize its violators, just as I do to place The Times's conduct in perspective with some recent events having to do with Cuba. ……. One of the oldest methods of deception is to reveal part of the truth while concealing most of it. Subtlety is essential here. In this way, The Times, which considers itself the ``newspaper of record,'' does lead its readers to the debatable conclusion it wants them to reach. For instance, whenever The Times reports ``objectively'' on Castro, it omits the word dictator, and too-rarely mentions his repeated international condemnations for violating human rights. Take as an example the Sept. 2 edition, with its front-page photograph of Cuban school children in impeccable uniforms. ………. The caption read, ``A famous Cuban returns to school. Elián González and his classmates . . . in the first day of class, sang songs and proclaimed: We are communist pioneers; we'll be like Che!'' …….. Not to be a grinch, but did the world-famous Times photographers visit any other Cuban schools to compare them with Elián's pristine, spacious one? Did they see if the economic crisis wrought by the ``imperialist blockade'' deprives them of basic learning tools such as lunch food? Did they question whether Elián's school could be a false front to fool international visitors? Not on Elián's life……."

Reuters 9/20/00 Francis Kerry "…..Eight survivors from a Cuban crop-dusting plane that crashed into the sea were being interviewed by U.S. authorities on Wednesday at the start of a process to determine whether they stay in the United States or go back to the communist-ruled island. The doomed plane was whisked away from western Cuba on Tuesday in an apparent attempt to flee the country. ……. A 36-year-old man was taken by helicopter on Tuesday night to Key West, Fla., suffering severe head and neck injuries. The eight other survivors -- two men, three women and three children -- were set to remain on board the Chios Dream, being interviewed by Coast Guard officials, until late on Wednesday. ….. Cuba was still trying to clarify whether the incident was a hijacking or an asylum bid -- or both. ……."

Reuters 9/19/00 ".....A small plane with 14 people on board was hijacked from Cuba on Tuesday and was heading for south Florida, Miami police and airport officials said. ....... The plane was due to land at Miami's Opa-Locka Airport, Miami-Dade police spokesman Pete Andrews said.

Cynthia Paul, a spokeswoman for Miami International Airport, said 14 people were aboard the Russian-built Antonov An-2 Coltaircraft. ``Thirteen minutes ago it was still in Cuban airspace with limited fuel...we're told its a hijack,'' she said. ....."

Yahoo News 9/19/00 Reuters ".....A small Cuban plane with 16 people on board that had been hijacked has crashed in the Florida Straits and Cuban authorities have asked for U.S. assistance in a search, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. ``The plane is down, the Cuban authorities have asked for a water search,'' said Miami International Airport spokeswoman Cynthia Paul, adding she had no further details. U.S. officials said the plane, which left the western Cuban province of Pinar del Rio earlier on Tuesday, was an Antonov An-2 with 16 people on board. ....."

Inside China 9/19/00 Reuters "...... China sees "enormous potential" in its friendship with socialist ally Cuba and will work to further increase political and economic cooperation between them, China's Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan said on Monday. Tang made the comments at the end of a two-day visit to the communist-ruled Caribbean island during which he held talks with Cuba's President Fidel Castro, Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and Vice President Carlos Lage. "My visit to Cuba was short but it allowed me to see the enormous potential in our cooperation," the Chinese minister told Cuban television after his discussions with Lage on Monday......."

9/19/00 Reuters "....Nine survivors and one body have been recovered in the Florida Straits where a small plane went down after being hijacked from Cuba, the Pentagon (news - web sites) said on Tuesday, citing the U.S. Coast Guard (news - web sites)......."

News Max 9/8/00 "……A Miami lawyer and radio commentator is facing trial after being arrested while trying to help raise bail for protesters jailed in the wake of Attorney General Janet Reno's predawn armed raid to snatch Elian Gonzalez. Immigration lawyer Grisel Ybarra is one of a handful of people to face trial out of the 435 protesters originally arrested in the aftermath of the raid, according to the Miami Herald. The rest were allowed to plead guilty and assigned to community service or so-called psychological counseling. Others, such as the brother of Miami Mayor Alex Penelas and an 11-year old boy, simply had the charges against them dropped. Incredibly, Ybarra is facing up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine, plus a possible investigation by the Florida Bar Association that could endanger her license to practice law, all for two measly misdemeanor charges involving her alleged refusal to obey police orders to stop blocking traffic. She is charged with resisting arrest nonviolently and disobeying a police officer's order. In pursuit of this two-bit case, prosecutors have compiled a court file on two misdemeanor charges of 200 pages, with testimony from 10 law enforcement officers, giving credence to her belief that she is being made an example to show the exile community what can happen if they dare confront federal power as they did in the Elian Gonzalez matter. "I am the example, so that the ghetto never rises again,'' Ybarra told the Herald. ….."

WorldNetDaily 8/31/00 Charles Smith "…….. Countering reports that Elian Gonzalez lays injured in a Cuban hospital with a broken jaw, a U.S. mayor said yesterday that he met with Elian Gonzalez last week and that the boy is "OK." Reports have circulated widely, particularly on the Internet, about a Miami-based doctor who claimed that Elian was recently beaten by his father and is in the hospital. Indeed, David Hoech, a retired doctor living in Miami with extensive connections inside the Cuban and diplomatic community, said: "We heard news that Elian was being treated for a broken jaw in a Cuban hospital. The next day, we established communication with humanitarian service entities and were told that he was in a Children's Hospital in Cienfuegos." ……… But the dire reports about Elian brought a rebuttal from Oakland, Calif., Mayor Jerry Brown. On ABC's "Good Morning America" yesterday morning, the former California governor said he met Elian last week, during a visit to the communist country aimed at enhancing relations between his California city and the eastern Cuban city of Santiago. Saying Elian is "OK" and not injured, Brown also discussed his views for improved trade relations with Castro and Cuba. ……"

NewsMax.com 9/1/00 Carl Limbacher "…… A federal judge in Miami has denied a motion from lawyers for Attorney General Janet Reno, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder and INS Commissioner Doris Meissner to halt discovery in the civil rights lawsuit spurred by the government's April 22 seizure of Cuban boat boy Elian Gonzalez. The claim, filed by Judicial Watch in May, seeks damages in excess of $100 million on behalf of more than 50 plaintiffs, including Donato Dalrymple, who rescued Gonzalez from the ocean ten months ago only to have to turn him over at gunpoint to federal agents. Family friends and neighbors from Gonzalez's Little Havana block who say they were assaulted or otherwise harmed during the raid have also joined the suit………"

The Associated Press 9/1/00 "……Cuban officials announced Friday that Fidel Castro plans to travel to New York to attend the U.N. Millennium Summit, the first time the Cuban president has visited the United States since 1995. Cuba has requested visas for Castro and other top officials, who would arrive in two Cubana de Aviation jets at an undisclosed date, and has already discussed preliminary security arrangements with the U.S. secret service and New York Police department, the Foreign Ministry said in a press statement. The Millennium Summit, which begins Wednesday, will bring together more than 150 world leaders. ……"

The Associated Press 9/1/00 "…..Cuban officials announced Friday that Fidel Castro plans to travel to New York to attend the U.N. Millennium Summit, the first time the Cuban president has visited the United States since 1995. Cuba has requested visas for Castro and other top officials, who would arrive in two Cubana de Aviation jets at an undisclosed date, and has already discussed preliminary security arrangements with the U.S. secret service and New York Police department, the Foreign Ministry said in a press statement. ….."

Miami Herald 8/22/00 Rui Ferreira "……. Attorneys for two alleged Cuban spies were unsuccessful in a bid to bring a Cuban military officer to Florida to testify as a defense witness at their clients' trial. Jack R. Blumenfeld and William Norris, who represent defendants Luis Medina and Antonio Guerrero, visited Havana Aug. 6 to 11 to try to persuade Interior Ministry authorities to let the officer -- identified only as ``Col. Escalante'' -- appear live at the trial, which is expected to begin Nov. 6. The lawyers came back empty-handed and now hope that Escalante will submit a written deposition to U.S. District Judge Joan A. Lenard, who is hearing the case. ……"

The Cuba Free Press Project 8/17/00 Onelio Perez Rodriguez "….. Havana-Beginning in 1959, Cuba implemented censorship and prohibitions over open manifestations of ideologies; political, cultural or economic. The Castro government created a unsurmountable barrier so that the population would have no knowledge of the advancements, developments, prosperity and triumphs of the Western Nations. With this, he took the population to a point of complete ignorance about many events of great relevance. …… On the other hand, there is a great detail and time given to everything that happened in the so-called Socialist block Countries; exaggerating their successes while hiding their failures. It became evident that this had a clearly propagandist motive to show that only under socialism was a Nation able to develop and reach a consistent and leveled life style. Time took it unto itself to prove the contrary when the Berlin Wall fell, the USSR disintegrated and all the communist dictatorships disappeared from Eastern Europe. ….."

Vietnam Veterans of Florida State Coalition 10/4/99 Michael Benge "…… Cuban officials, under diplomatic cover in Hanoi during the Vietnam War, brutally tortured and killed American POWs whom they beat senseless in a research program "sanctioned by the North Vietnamese."(1) This was dubbed the "Cuba Program" by the Department of Defense (DOD) and the CIA, and it involved 19 American POWs (some reposts state 20). Recent declassified secret CIA and DOD intelligence documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal the extent of Cuba's involvement with American POWs captured in Vietnam. A Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report states that "The objective of the interrogators was to obtain the total submission of the prisoners..."(2) ……….. According to former POW Air Force Colonel Donald "Digger" Odell, "two POWs left behind in the camp were 'broken' but alive when he and other prisoners were released [1973 Operation Homecoming]. ... They were too severely tortured by Cuban interrogators" to be released. The Vietnamese didn't want the world to see what they had done to them."(3) ………. POWs released during "Operation Homecoming" in 1973 "were told not to talk about third-country interrogations. .... This thing is very sensitive with all kinds of diplomatic ramifications."(4) Hence, the torture and murder of American POWs by the Cubans was swept under the rug by the U.S. Government. ……."

NEW YORK POST ONLINE 8/28/00 Laura Italiano Maria Malave "…..Dr. Charles Wetli, the chief medical examiner of Suffolk County, became an expert in the palo mayombe religion when he was a coroner in Miami, where the practice is not uncommon among Cuban-Americans. She was found floating, head up, in a knee-high jar of formaldehyde - a fully formed, perfectly preserved newborn girl with olive skin and a shock of straight, black hair. For now, she has no name, no mourners and no explanation. …….. But Manhattan police and prosecutors are sifting for clues in a grotesque collection of human remains and other black-magic relics from a Washington Heights apartment, where the baby was discovered after a tenant died in a car accident last month. …… Stillborn or murdered, the baby girl's body fell into the hands of 74-year-old Margaret Ramirez. Investigators believe that Ramirez, and possibly her son, Michael Grajales, 54, were, at the least, using the body and other remains in their practice of palo mayombe, an ancient Afro-Cuban religion related to Santeria. ……. Followers of this black-magic art - called "paleros" or "ngangaleros" - believe they can use human body parts to contact, and enslave, the spirits of the dead. The spirits are then compelled to do the palero's bidding - almost exclusively in the service of evil. "These people, these paleros, redefine evil," said one investigator, who asked not to be named. "You're dealing with the devil himself." ...... Ramirez was struck dead by a car July 17 while crossing the street near her apartment - the accident that led police to her West 164th Street chamber of horrors. ......, Her son, a recluse whose yellowed hair and beard reach down past his shoulders, became "extremely unstable" upon learning his mother died, and had to be escorted out in cuffs, Menig said. A Vietnam veteran, Grajales remains in a locked psychiatric ward of the Veterans Affairs Hospital on East 23rd Street. ……. Police found two skulls, one from an adult, the other from a 1- or 2-year-old child. The child's skull was in a ceremonial palo mayombe cauldron called an "nganga," and was coated with rotting flesh, dried blood and candle wax. ...... One recovered jar held pieces of flesh, floating in murky formaldehyde. Rank-smelling dirt - possibly gathered from a cemetery - was scattered on the floor, and statues of saints were in every corner. ...... A palo priest from Astoria, Queens, began equivocating when asked what purpose a baby's body could serve in his religion - at first asking if the body had been cut in any way (it hadn't), then pausing to think, then saying that he didn't know, and that such a use is "crazy, crazy!" "That's secret. That's secret," he added, brushing the question away with a wave of his hand. ……. "She would use the body to make an agreement with el diablo - with the devil," the priest said finally of the baby. "But it gave her no power. She didn't know what to do with it." ......... Ramirez's violent death was proof enough that she was in over her head, he said. Her spirits - maybe even the spirit of the baby girl in the jar - turned against her. "That could have happened, that the baby killed her," he said. "She may have paid with her life." ….."

Fox News 9/17/00 Terry Spencer AP "…..Lazaro Gonzalez pulled a brown paper towel from his pocket and wiped his eyes as the closing credits rolled during a preview of The Elian Gonzalez Story. Lazaro had laughed, shaken his head and bitten his lip while watching the nearly two-hour-long TV movie, which depicts the events that thrust his family into the international spotlight. He wept when the movie showed federal agents raiding his home to seize his nephew, 6-year-old Elian. And now he was angry. "Nothing is reality in that story," Gonzalez said. …….. The family's attorneys and advisers all said the movie, which airs on the Fox Family Channel at 8 p.m. EDT Sunday, does not reflect accurately what happened during the five months that Elian lived in Miami's Little Havana with his great-uncle Lazaro. ….. "Detail after detail was wrong - they couldn't even get the chronology right," said Coffey, who is not depicted in the film. Events shown in the movie as occurring simultaneously - such as Elian's December birthday party and the government's January decision to return him to Cuba - actually occurred weeks apart. The order of other events is flip-flopped. ……. Robbins said many witnesses and participants were interviewed, including Lazaro, and writer Dennis Turner then recreated the dialogue. Overall, he said, the movie is accurate in substance and tenor. "Nobody was a fly on the wall, but we believe the movie is extremely fair," he said. "We wanted people to understand why everybody fought so hard for that boy." ……. The more controversial scenes start after the boy's rescue, last Thanksgiving Day. Lazaro (Miguel Sandoval) is depicted as devoted to Elian but blinded by his attachment to the boy, by his unwillingness to anger Miami's Cuban-American community by returning him to his father, and by bad advice from Gutierrez and others. Lazaro's 21-year-old daughter, Marisleysis (former Miss USA Laura Elena Harring), is shown as a caring young woman who comes to view herself as the boy's mother. Coffey said the Miami family had one motivation: to fulfill the final wish of Elian's mother that he grow up in freedom. ……. But Robbins said his movie portrays the Miami family much as the national media did. "It is how they were viewed by the rest of the country," he said. …….Two other scenes drew hard anger. One shows Elian's first phone conversation with his father back in Cuba; Elian asks when he is going home. That didn't happen, Lazaro said. The boy would not answer when his father asked if he wanted to return to Cuba. ...... The other scene is the pre-dawn raid on April 22 in which agents from the Immigration and Naturalization Service snatched Elian from the Miami home. On film, the raid is slower and less chaotic than in reality. The agents use less force - for example, the film's agents do not fire pepper gas at the crowd outside the home, as real agents did. "They should have talked to us," Lazaro Gonzalez said. "We could have told them what really happened." ……"

Judicial Watch 9/5/00 "……A federal court judge in Miami, The Honorable Federico A. Moreno, ruled last week that discovery may proceed in a civil rights lawsuit on behalf of the family members, friends, and neighbors hurt during the Easter-eve raid on Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives' home. The $100 million lawsuit names Attorney General Janet Reno, INS Commissioner Doris Meissner, and Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder as defendants. Judicial Watch represents the 54 plaintiffs in the case. The Clinton-Gore Justice Department had tried to stay discovery in the matter, but was overruled by U.S. District Court Judge Federico A. Moreno in an August 29, 2000 order that read: ……. The court has considered the motion and the pertinent portions of the record, and being otherwise fully advised in the premises, it is adjudged that the motion is denied. ……. The judge's ruling means that discovery may proceed in the case. Discovery would include obtaining government documents on the raid and depositions from those with information about it, such as Ms. Reno, Ms. Meissner, and Mr. Holder. (In an earlier decision, Judge Moreno ruled that the deposition of Elian Gonzalez might have to take place in Cuba, if it were to occur.) The lawsuit alleges violations of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights of the Elian protestors who had peaceably gathered the night of the violent raid. The plaintiffs were gassed, beaten, kicked, cursed at, and had guns brandished at them during the raid. The lawsuit also alleges battering rams were used on the protestors and elderly women were gassed as they prayed the Rosary……."

AFP 9/7/00 "……US President Bill Clinton and Cuban President Fidel Castro came face-to-face for the first time, White House officials said Thursday, while downplaying any significance to the encounter.They said Castro initiated the encounter Wednesday after a lunch hosted by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for leaders attending the UN Millennium Summit."I understand it was initiated by Castro," a senior official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. ..."

NewsMax 9/12/00 Camille Paglia "……. Fidel Castro's propaganda agency, Granma, is trumpeting his handshake with Bill Clinton. In an account he gave his press agency, Castro inferred that he really did not seek out Clinton, the meeting as simply accidental. Castro reports that "following the lunch given by the UN secretary-general, after the opening session of the Millennium Summit had ended, we were told to walk to the place where the official photo would be taken. We walked toward that spot, almost one by one, along a narrow path among the many tables." ………"

AFP 9/9/00 "……Vladimir Putin will be the first Russian president to visit Cuba since the end of the Soviet era, and the trip later this year will mark a spectacular rapprochement between Moscow and Havana. Putin and Castro agreed Friday to promote closer economic relations between their countries, ties that have been essentially stagnant since the collapse of the Soviet bloc, a Russian diplomatic source said. Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Putin would make the trip by year's end. …."

The Miami Herald 9/9/00 Terry Jackson "……When Fox Family Channel's made-for-TV movie The Elián González Story debuts Sept. 17, it's sure to raise debate in South Florida both for the way it portrays some key players in the custody saga and over the factual basis for parts of the script. ……. In the film -- the first Elián project to reach TV screens -- Gutiérrez is portrayed as a political wheeler-dealer who put the political interests of Miami's Cuban exile community ahead of the González family's wishes that Elián's future remain a family matter. ``That's what I get for not taking their money,'' Gutiérrez said after being told about his character's role. ……. A spokeswoman for Fox Family Channel in Los Angeles reaffirmed Friday that the movie is based on interviews with people close to the Elián story, including an interview she said Canava did with Lázaro González. ……. Democracy Movement leader Ramón Saúl Sánchez, a key activist in the fight to keep Elián in the United States, and Spencer Eig, one of the González family lawyers, said they had not been interviewed, although both are major characters in the film. The movie, a copy of which was sent to the nation's television critics, is highly sympathetic to Lázaro González. …….."

CNS 8/10/00 Jim Burns ".....The Miami relatives of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez are upset that the Immigration and Naturalization Service plans to honor the team of federal agents that forcibly removed Elian from his Miami relatives in "Little Havana" over Easter weekend. "I think it's a waste of taxpayers' money," said Armando Gutierrez, a spokesman for Elian's Miami relatives. "Honoring people that went into the house with machine guns to scare the hell out of a little boy -- a house where there was no guns, just simple people. It's incredible and I never knew that they would honor people for doing that," ..."

UPI 8/9/00 "……Immigration officials Wednesday planned to honor the team of federal agents that snatched Elian Gonzalez from his Miami relatives and returned him to his father. The ceremony for as many as 131 agents is set for Monday and Tuesday in Glynco, Ga., the site of Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. The 131 took part in the raid, many of them in support roles. Commissioner Doris Meissner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service said she would be there to honor the agents "for a job well done" during the raid..."

Chicago Tribune 8/8/00 "……After a dramatic defection that took them from a Zimbabwe jail cell to several Swedish safe houses, two Cuban doctors finally have arrived at their intended destination: Miami. On Monday night, dentist Noris Pena Martinez, 25, and physician Leonel Cordova Rodriguez, 31, stepped off Delta Air Lines flight 885, the final leg in a journey that began two months ago halfway across the world. They were greeted at Miami International Airport by reporters and about 30 Cuban community activists carrying Cuban flags and roses. ……"

La Razon, Madrid 7/31-8/2/00 Alberto Rubio "……. Happened to check the news at one of my favorite websites, lanuevacuba.com which has the latest articles re: Cuba and the largest online collection of newspapers from Spain and Latin America, they posted an article from a newspaper in Madrid about Nelson, the little boy Spain is calling the "Spanish Elian". I guess you could call him the reverse Elian, or the other Elian. …….. Castro impedes reunion of child with his mother exiled in Spain for two years! July 30, 2000 The reverse Elian, 10 year old Nelson, lives with his sick grandmother and suffers psychological trauma because he has not been allowed to join his mother in Spain. As the media and the world talked of Cuban castaway Elian Gonzalez and world opinion praised Fidel Castro for defending the rights of children to live with their parents, he all the while had another child hostage, Nelson Manuel Aguilera, and Castro ignored the mother's request for reunification. Cuban authorities were even cruel in their treatment of the child since they said to his face that they would never allow him to leave and see his mother as if they were carrying out a vendetta to say it to his face and even though Spain had granted the child a visa. ….."

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette 7/26/00 Paul Greenberg "….. I've got a five-dollar bet with another inky wretch here at the paper that this year's Pulitzer Prize-winning picture--the one that shows the federal trooper snatching a terrified little Elián Gonzalez out of that closet in Miami--won't win the Pulitzer. Why? It's politically incorrect. Besides, people don't want to think about this any more……..Elián is not just old news by now. He's not even history. He's well on his way to becoming an unperson, his every trace fading. The great, devouring beast that is the public's hunger for the sensational fell on this story and chewed it to death--day after day, sometimes hour after hour. Till fickle public opinion grew sick of the whole subject and anything to do with it……."

Freeper dejavu 7/22/00 "……. Sources tell me, immediately after he made his public decla- ration, he then asked for political assylum in Venezuela, (he was told that the ministry was going to give serious thoughts to his petition). THEN HE INFORMED THE MEDIA THAT HE WAS GOING INTO HIDDING, BECAUSE HE FEARED RETALIATION FROM CHAVEZ, OR WORST, THAT FIDEL CUBAN INTELLIGENCE WOULD PICK HIM UP BY FORCE AND TAKE HIM BACK TO CUBA. That was the last time he was seen. In my view, he should have gone straight to the American Embassy and requesting political assylum there. I think he would have had a better chance there, now his worst fears about Chavez came true, In my personal opinion, if he is lucky enough not to get caught by the Venezuelan police or the Castro Intelligence, his only hope is to cross the border into Colombia, and somehow find help to be able to get to the American Embassy in Bogota. Request assylum there, BUT REQUEST THAT HE URGENTLY NEEDS TO GET IN TOUCH WITH REPRESENTATIVE ILEANA ROSS-LEITNAM, SHE will make sure that he is given assylum. Lately, even the personel working in our Embassies, have orders (from top level of Government) to avoid giving political assylum to any cuban that wishes to defect, WHY?, Clinton does not want to make waves with Castro. The symbol of freedom and respect our Embassies stood for world wide,this Administra- tion has brought to the ground. That is probably the rea- son why the poor Rosabal is facing the predicament he is in now. Let us pray that he be able to escape the clutches of Chavez/Castro, and get to freedom. If he does, he will be able to tell the world the insides of the Castro commu- nist regime. I have a few contacts in Venezuela, and I will keep all of us informed on Rosabal s quest for freedom. ……"

Freeper Prodigal Daughter 7/21/00 "….July 21, just got news that another of Castro's estimated 1,500 security agents defected in Venezuela today. I have not heard anything more on the captain referenced in the article above except that Hector Fabian, a Cuban military expert, reported that the husband who defected in the 80's, Florentino Azpillaga, was apparently quite a defection. He was the supervisor of some 300 agents for Castro in Europe, (some were Cuban nationals but many Europeans and others) and when he defected, Castro tried to get them all called back or out of the way before all of the information was spilled, and apparently the information was pretty damaging because someone in England shot at Azpillaga and almost killed him……."

Las Vegas Sun 7/18/00 AP "……President Clinton has suspended for an additional six months a law that would allow Americans whose property was confiscated by Cuba to sue foreigners who use those assets to do business, his spokesman said Tuesday. The right to sue is contained in sanctions legislation approved by Congress in 1996. But Clinton has the authority under the law to waive or enforce the provision at six-month intervals. Clinton has consistently exercised his waiver authority since the legislation was approved. …….."

AP/Yahoo 7/18/00 Anita Snow "……With Fidel Castro in the wings, Elian Gonzalez was shown on state television Tuesday night reading the book that the Cuban president gave him to commemorate the boy's successful completion of first grade. As the camera panned over the dedication that the Cuban leader wrote to Elian in the ``The Golden Age,'' a children's book by Cuban independence hero Jose Marti, Castro's voice could be heard in the background reading it aloud. ``For when you are in the fourth or fifth grade and can enjoy one of the most tender works of Marti,'' Castro read off-camera. ..."

yahoo.com 7/19/00 Jim Abrams AP "…..The House voted Wednesday to bar the rescheduling or forgiving of Russian debt until Russia shuts down its intelligence listening post in Lourdes, Cuba. Supporters said it made no sense to give Russia debt relief when it is pouring billions of dollars into an operation that props up the Havana government while eavesdropping on America's military, companies and private citizens. But the administration opposes the legislation, arguing that Russia, like the United States, needs intelligence facilities to monitor and verify arms control agreements. Many Democrats opponents of the bill said it was a continuance of a 40-year-old failed policy of trying to isolate Cuba. The bill passed 275-146. ……."

NewsMax.com 7/14/00 Carl Limbacher "……"Christ chose the fishermen, because he was a communist," Castro said during a National Assembly debate on the fishing industry. State media reported the wacky comments Friday. ……Castro's brother and second in command, Raul, naturally agrees. "I think that's why they killed Jesus, for being a communist, for doing what Fidel defined as revolution ... that is to say, changing the situation," he said. ….."

Reuters 7/14/00 "…..President Fidel Castro has met with Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old Cuban boy over whose custody the communist leader launched the biggest patriotic crusade of his four-decade rule, the government said on Saturday. In what was believed to have been the first meeting between the 73-year-old Castro and Elian since the boy's June 28 return from the United States, Castro ``was able to meet and greet Elian'' on Friday during a visit with his family, a short official statement said..."

Miami Herald Online 7/16/00 Sandra Garcia "…….In their first interview since defecting in Zimbabwe, two Cuban medical workers said Saturday they plan to go to the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden, on Monday and make good on a written offer for asylum in the United States. Noris Peña Martínez and Leonel Córdova Rodríguez, who arrived in Sweden a week ago, told The Herald that they have recuperated from the trauma of being abducted and jailed in Zimbabwe for 32 days and now ``we want to complete the [asylum] process we began'' ..."

newsmax.com 6/4/00 Carl Limbacher "…… Excerpts of a still-unreleased Clinton administration report on the April 22 raid that seized Elian Gonzalez indicate that the internal government review has exonerated a federal SWAT team charged with using excessive force. ……. Several of the conclusions reported by CBS are contradicted by accounts already on the record from Gonzalez family members and other eyewitnesses to the assault on the Gonzalez home. "Team members made no threats to use force against anyone in the home. ... No one on the team threatened to shoot anyone during the operation," concluded the probe. The assertion that agents didn't threaten to shoot anyone is contradicted by at least three sources present during the raid. ……Both Elian's cousin, Marisleysis Gonzalez, and the person from whose arms the boy was snatched, Donato Dalrymple, have repeatedly asserted that agents shouted at them, "Give me the boy or I'll shoot." …….. Just minutes after the raid, NBC camerman Tony Zumbado told his network that agents physically restrained him and "told me not to move or else they were going to shoot." ......"

newsmax.com 6/4/00 Carl Limbacher "…… Another point of contention: "No team member struck anyone with a weapon during the operation," claims the report. But again, cameraman Zumbado's account of what happened to NBC sound man Gustavo Moeller flatly contradicts that denial. "My sound man got hit with a shotgun butt on the head," he said, adding that Moeller was "dragged outside - he was halfway in - and he was dragged to the fence and left there, and they told him if he moved they'd shoot." ......Kerry Sanders, a third member of the NBC crew, later told NewsMax.com that he saw clear evidence of the attack on Moeller: "Gustavo doesn't make it in. Gustavo's outside. He said one of the agents takes the butt of his gun and bangs it right into his forehead, causing him to fall down. I saw the blood on his forehead." The report also challenges Zumbado's claim that he was assaulted during the pre-dawn raid. "I was kicked in the stomach and pushed down and they kind of like put their foot on my back...," the cameraman told NBC. Fellow crew member Sanders later gave NewsMax.com this account: "Tony is hit in the stomach and goes down. And then the agent puts his foot on Tony's back and puts a gun to him and says, 'Don't move or I'll shoot.'" Zumbado was hospitalized four days after the assault, which Sanders said severely aggravated a pre-existing back problem. ......,, But according to CBS, the Clinton administration's after-action review showed that "no one was pushed or held to the floor in the Gonzalez home, that a video cameraman was not touched in the home. ..." ……."

Washington Times 6/2/00 "…..The Elian Gonzalez saga appears to be coming to a close. While many Americans have been pleased to see the small boy reunited with his father, it has to be considered what kind of life Elian - and his immediate family - will be returned to. Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has been a tireless and significant actor in the Elian affair from the start, exploiting the case for political gain. Should Elian return to Cuba, as now seems more likely, Mr. Castro will continue to hold considerable sway over the life of every one of them. …….. The court's ruling wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement of the INS decision, noted Kendall Coffey, a lawyer for Elian's Miami relatives, who have tried to keep Elian in the United States. It simply stated that the INS had the authority to make policy on the Elian case and that the courts didn't have the jurisdiction to reverse it. President Clinton said Thursday the case was "about the importance of family and the bond between a father and son." Mr. Clinton's observation is misleading, since granting Elian U.S. asylum would have given Elian the option of living in the United States, not the requirement to do so. ...... It is a grim childhood. As an adult, the Cuban model hardly allows families to provide for their most basic needs. Religious people, including children, indure severe repression. The regime is the ultimate arbiter of what career one may choose……."

U.S. News & World Report 6/12/00 Toni Locy "……It's almost over. A federal appeals court closed the door on Elián González's Miami relatives by ruling that U.S. immigration officials have the power to decide that Juan Miguel González speaks for his son-even if he is a communist. The Miami family members can seek a rehearing before the entire U.S. Court of Appeals and appeal to the Supreme Court. That makes it tough to say how soon the elder González might take his son home to Cuba, but given the nature of the court's ruling, it looks as if that's more a question of when than if. ……… Second thoughts. The ruling came from the same trio of judges that seemed willing in April to consider allowing anyone to file an asylum application on behalf of a young child. Legal experts say the judges obviously rethought that position. But it wasn't easy. The contrast between the legalistic text of the ruling and the more emotionally worded footnotes indicates the judges were torn between distrust of Cuba's communist government and their conservative commitment to staying out of immigration matters. ……"

Wall St. Journal 6/5/00 Robert Bork "…… If anything good came out of the appellate court's decision that the Immigration and Naturalization Service had the authority to deny Elian Gonzalez's petition for asylum, it was that the court performed its constitutional duty admirably. In the process, it revealed that Bill Clinton and Janet Reno have been lying steadily about their role in this case, and debunked some of the fallacious arguments that seem to underlie the widespread support (even among conservatives) for sending Elian back to Cuba………The relevant statute provides that "any alien" present in this country "may apply for asylum." But as the court correctly pointed out, the statute left it to the INS to decide "whether a six-year-old child has applied for asylum within the meaning of the statute when he, or a non-parental relative on his behalf, signs and submits a purported application against the express wishes of the child's parent."……. The court also emphasized repeatedly that the INS could have chosen other policies: "It has been suggested that the precise policy adopted by the INS in this case was required by 'law.' That characterization of this case, however, is inaccurate. . . . When the INS made its pertinent policy, the preexisting law said nothing about the validity of asylum application." So much for the Clinton administration's false and self-serving claims that it was merely enforcing the law......."

Miami Herald 6/5/00 Mario Garcia "…… I have never felt such confusion, never awakened to feel like a citizen in limbo. Mario R. García is president of the García Media Group and member of the faculty of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg. There is a new Cuban American in the United States: melancholic, reflective, talking a little slower, wondering what that Anglo co-worker is thinking and trying desperately to put the Elián saga behind him. I know. I am of them. ………. For the first time -- and this may be one of the blessings following Elián -- we Cuban Americans are experiencing a sense of strange solidarity. ...... What matters most today is that we all are badly hurt by what has taken place since the rescue at sea of a little boy with a cute, photogenic face. ……."

Albuquerque Tribune Via WorldNetDaily.Com 6/5/00 Bob Schwartz "…..Somewhere between the flames of Los Alamos and the smoldering of our everyday news, a little boy has been lost. Just a few weeks ago, the clanging over Elian Gonzales was shattering the stemware. Now he has been tucked away in a poll-driven purgatory, surely to emerge grafted to his father and his obviously rented suit and tie. But Elian's fate still thunders in the head of Dagoberto Ruiz. Born and raised in Cuba, Dago is a very successful Albuquerque businessman. Every cell in his body believes Elian has been betrayed by the United States. He ought to know. At one time, he fought with Castro in the Cuban revolution. ……. Dago was jailed. After months, he managed to get out and get to the United States. Like most of the Cuban refugees flush from the Castro double-cross, he, his wife and infant child went to Miami. But he couldn't find work. Catholic Social Services channeled his family to Albuquerque, where the Hispanic bedrock might offer better footing, and it did. Although a part of Dago's heart is still nestled in Cuba, his take on the Gonzales' quandary is not particularly predictable. He thinks Bill Clinton, Janet Reno, Fidel Castro, and Elian's Miami Uncle Lazaro should be charged with child abuse. He believes the solution is a constitutional one. The courts. Unlike many of us native Americans, Dago is still willing to put his patriotism and faith in that branch of government charged with finding, without asterisks, "the best interests of the child". ……… He believes the courts should have pre-empted the Barnum and Bailey media battle over the child, as well as the SWAT-adorned assault on his bedroom. That was the first moment, he says, he has ever felt sorry for and ashamed of America. ……He believes the boy should be with his father, but if they are both in Cuba, Dago is convinced, the courts cannot find that to be in Elian's best interest. In Cuba, they tear families apart to keep the communist regime together. Cuba is a country where another sugar cane-chopping kid is less useful than the inner tube Elian was rescued from. ….."

NewsMax 6/15/00 "……NewsMax.com has learned that Kirkland & Ellis, the former law firm of Ken Starr, has joined the legal team around Elian Gonzalez's Miami family. Kirkland & Ellis reportedly helped the existing legal team, headed by Miami attorney Kendall Coffey, prepare the appeal that is being filed today with the 11th Circuit in Atlanta. The new appeal will argue that the ruling by the 11th Circuit three-judge panel should be overruled. The appeal argues that a May Supreme Court decision involving a Texas case demonstrated the INS did not have the right to deny Elian an asylum hearing. The addition of Kirkland & Ellis, while bringing some higher caliber legal minds to the Miami family's legal team, also strengthens the legal team's ties to establishment Democratic party circles…….."

Reuters 6/15/00 Angus MacSwan "…..The Miami relatives of Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez launched a new bid on Thursday to block the boy from going home to Cuba with his father, asking a U.S. appeals court to reconsider its decision denying Elian a political asylum hearing. The latest legal move will further delay Elian's return to Cuba and a resolution to a saga that turned into a fierce political battle between Cuban President Fidel Castro and Cuban exiles in Miami and has provoked a national debate on U.S. policy toward the communist-ruled island. ……… Coffey said the appeal was based on the fact that the appeals court judges, while not explicitly endorsing the INS decision that Elian should go home with his father, had deferred to its authority as a government agency. A new Supreme Court ruling on a labor case showed that the court did not have to defer, he said. ``They felt they had to stand behind the INS decision. ... Now there are questions on giving deference in these kinds of circumstances. The extension of deference as wrong,'' he said. …….The appeal also insisted that the judges were wrong in their decision that Elian, as a child, did not have a constitutional right to a political asylum hearing. …..Coffey accused the INS of ``gross irregularities'' in its decision-making. The lawyers distributed copies of INS documents and notes they had obtained which they said showed the U.S. government was trying to appease the Castro government rather than acting in the best interests of the child. One handwritten note included the words ``Show Fidel we gave back child.'' ......"

Arkansas Democrat Gazette 6/13/00 Carrie Rengers "….. The federal Trading With the Enemy Act that Congress adopted in 1963 doesn't specifically mention President Fidel Castro as public enemy No. 1, but he was the inspiration for the trade sanctions, travel restrictions and spending limits the act imposes on American relations with Cuba. That didn't keep two members of Arkansas' congressional delegation from acceptng gifts from Castro worth more than the allowed $100 and bringing them into the United States. Berry, Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln and 14 other Arkansans each accepted an autographed box of Cohiba cigars from Castro. ……"It's a situation that you basically don't know what to do, but you do know you're not supposed to be rude,"says Democratic Rep. Marion Berry. He says that's often the case with a gift from a head of state. …..An employee at Costello's Cigars in Lttle Rock says each cigar is worth $25. Each box has 25 cigars for a total value of at least $625. …..Another source associated with the cigar industry says a box of Cohibas autographed by Casto "could easily be sold at Christies' auction for $10,000." …..According to the governing regulation, 31 CFR, Section 515.560, the limit on allowable imported goods is for "a foreign market value not to exceed $100." ……"

Judicial Watch 6/14/00 "….Your help is needed now! The patriots that were harmed in the illegal raid to seize Elian Gonzalez over Easter weekend are in need of your help to defend their rights and hold corrupt government officials like Attorney General Janet Reno personally accountable…….. On April 22nd, over 150 armed government agents attacked and raided the home and persons of Elian Gonzalez' Miami family and neighbors. At the time, dozens of Americans showing their support and gratitude for Elian and his family were gathered outside of the home. These patriotic Americans, present under the shield of the Constitution and gathered in peace were, reminiscent of Nazi Germany, gassed, beaten and abused by armed government agents acting under illegal orders of Attorney General Janet Reno, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, INS Commissioner Doris Meissner and others, working in collaboration with Communist dictator Fidel Castro. Thanks to our cases, we now have documents proving this Clinton-Gore Administration - Castro collaboration! See www.JudicialWatch.org………..Judicial Watch has formed the Elian Justice Fund to fully support and assist those Americans harmed in this illegal raid through its court litigation against Janet Reno, Eric Holder, Doris Meissner and other corrupt officials in the Clinton-Gore Administration. They must be legally punished so this unconstitutional Nazi-like outrage never happens again in our great country!……"

Newsmax 6/13/00 Jack Thompson "…… Even more disturbing news today out of Miami: It was confirmed today on Spanish-language radio station WWFE (670-AM) that substantial monies raised by the station to secure Elian Gonzalez high-quality legal representation have remained unspent. Today, Dulce Cuetara, one of the three trustees of the the "Elian Legal Defense Fund," called into WWFE to explain what had happened to the funds received to make sure Elian had proper legal help. The trustee said that months ago $210,000 was raised from listener donations, 90 percent of which was in anonymous gifts of $20 or less, many of those $5 or less. To date $40,000 has been spent on expenses, leaving more than $170,000 still sitting in the bank. The trustees say the unspent $170,000 will be given to La Liga Contra Cancer, which helps provide cancer treatment to indigent patients in Miami. ….. That's nice. Should I be so bold to ask a simple question: Did anyone tell the many people who contributed to save Elian, including hard-working immigrants, that their money was going for a cancer cure? ….. The revelation that a substantial war chest has been available for months to retain expert legal counsel, and was never used, is just one more piece of evidence that the Democratic Party hacks who have controlled Uncle Lazaro and the Miami family had no intention of saving the boy. ….."

Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 6/9/00 Luisa Yanez "……The federal agents who carried out the Elián González raid said they were the picture of professionalism, according to an internal Department of Justice report released this week. They uttered no foul words. Used no physical force. Shoved no guns in anyone's face. Used no tear gas. They went in, grabbed the boy and rushed out. Mission accomplished, the report states. But this week, one witness who was inside the house and says he has no stake in the outcome of the Elián case is challenging the veracity of the government's 51-page report on the controversial raid. "It's a pack of lies; a whitewash," said Tony Zumbado, 45, of Miami, the freelance NBC cameraman who ran inside the Little Havana house steps ahead of federal agents who stormed in at 5:15 a.m. April 22. …….."To read the report, you would think this was the most perfect, uneventful mission they ever carried out," said Zumbado, a veteran who has been on numerous police SWAT-team missions. Zumbado said the agents did everything they said they didn't do in their report. ……."The agents were physically and verbally abusive; they said every bad word in the book and kept me from doing my job," said Zumbado, who had become so tied to the story that other reporters had dubbed him "the Mayor of Camp Elián," at the media tent set up across the street from the home of Elián's Miami relatives. Others, including the boy's Miami family, attorneys and supporters who were at the house, have given a version similar to Zumbado's, but they were players in the drama. Zumbado was not. ……"

CNS Senior Staff Writer 6/9/00 Jim Burns "…… CNSNews.com has learned that two Cuban doctors who were abducted in the middle of the night and jailed in Zimbabwe after making a highly publicized appeal for asylum have been granted "refugee status" to come to the United States. A source close to the case tells CNSNews.com, the doctors will be traveling to Nairobi, Kenya "shortly" before they travel to the United States. It is not known when the doctors will be leaving for the United States or their exact destination. Leonel Cordova Rodriguez, 31, and Noris Pena Martinez, 25, were abducted by Zimbabwe armed soldiers last week and nearly shipped back to Cuba after they requested political asylum at the Canadian embassy in Harare. Zimbabwe authorities, for several days, denied they had detained the doctors. When they finally admitted to seizing the physicians, Zimbabwe officials also admitted they had tried and failed to return the doctors to Cuba. ……."

Washington Times 6/9/00 "…… The Clinton administration has insisted for months it acted independently in its handling of the Elian Gonzalez case. But Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) e-mail recently made public through the courts indicates that the White House was in very close, and probably daily, communication with the Cuban government to discuss the Elian case. Even more potentially damaging to the administration is an INS memo that strongly suggests the government agency first decided to return Elian to Cuba and later sought to find a legal justification for its decision. In other words, U.S. policy with Cuba, rather than the law, would have been the INS' overriding priority. ………..An INS e-mail dated Jan. 19 said, "DOS [Department of State] wants to have a daily conference call to coordinate press guidance and communications with the Cubans." If the INS were simply following U.S. laws, irrespective of the concerns of the Cuban government, then why would daily coordination for communications with the Cubans be necessary? This coordination would hardly seem appropriate if the INS were independently resolving immigration issues related to Elian. …….Meanwhile, an undated INS e-mail memo asks, "What is INS going to say if someone asks why, if the [regulation] didn't really require us to give notice [to Elian's father], we moved forward as we did?" The memo goes on to say, "As noted, it is my view that the [regulation] is clear. INS has no LEGAL obligation to contact the father. The INS may have no legal basis to make a determination on that issue." …"

Massachusetts News 6/13/00 "…….The boy was barely ashore before the Globe began printing large "editorials" on its front page. Only two weeks after his rescue, the paper printed a saccharine four-column piece on page one by a reporter it had dispatched to Cuba. It began this way: ……… "The first-grade classroom at Marcelo Salado Primary School contains a single green desk, on top of which rests a folded Cuban flag, six neatly stacked books, and a pencil holder. A message is taped to the back of the tiny chair: 'Elian, your seat is untouchable.'"…….."

Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel 6/11/00 Luisa Yanez "……The NBC cameraman who disputed last week the official Department of Justice report on the raid to retrieve Elián González has been invited by immigration officials to tell his side of the story. Veteran cameraman Tony Zumbado, 45, of Miami, who was assigned by the network to camp across the street from the Little Havana home where Elián lived, said he is set to meet with officials at 2 p.m. Tuesday at U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service headquarters in Miami. "I'll tell them whatever they want to know," Zumbado said. "As a witness, I always thought they would talk to me before they issued their report, but they never did." ……. Zumbado, one of the only people inside the house during the raid who did not have a stake in the outcome of the Elián case, is disputing the agents' accounts of their behavior. He called the government's 51-page report "a whitewash." Accompanying Zumbado will be attorneys for NBC, which has filed an official grievance with the federal agency over the treatment its crew received during the April 22 pre-dawn raid. …….. The INS invitation came in the wake of Zumbado's disputing of the agents' claims that they did not manhandle anyone inside the house or use foul language or tear gas. Zumbado said they did all those things. …….Zumbado, one of only two journalists to make it inside the house footsteps ahead of the federal agents, said he was struck in the back, thrown on the ground and kept at gunpoint near the front door, which prevented him from videotaping the dramatic events unfolding inside the house. ……Meanwhile, agents outside the house struck his sound man on the head, he said. ……"

Nano times 6/13/00 Ken Guggenheim AP "…..The number of people who flew directly from the United States to Cuba jumped by almost 50 percent last year as travelers took advantage of eased restrictions aimed at planting democratic seeds on the communist island. Last year, the Clinton administration streamlined procedures for students, athletes, artists and other groups and individuals to visit Cuba. The administration also allowed a greater variety of direct flights, which previously operated only between Miami and Havana. ……."

Miami Herald Online 6/9/00 Chris Gaither Sandra Marquez Garcia "….. The United States agreed Friday to take in two dissident Cuban doctors who were abducted and jailed in Zimbabwe after making a high-profile bid for political asylum, paving the way for their arrival in this country within days, government officials and diplomats said. ……. The decision came after an INS official from Nairobi interviewed the physicians Friday in the Harare prison where they had been detained since Cuban and Zimbabwean officials tried to clandestinely return them to Havana one week earlier. U.S. Rep. Lincoln Díaz-Balart, R-Miami, who had been in touch with U.S. officials in Zimbabwe, said he was pleased with the outcome. ''I hope that these two physicians will soon be able to live in freedom.'' The INS move came two days after the United States forcibly repatriated Cuban baseball star Andy Morales, who was among 31 Cubans intercepted at sea. ….."

Judicial Watch 6/9/00 "……Further refuting recent spin by Clinton-Gore Administration spokesmen, additional Clinton-Gore Administration documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, Inc. in its lawsuits show that the Clinton-Gore Administration "collaborated" with Cuba on the Elian Gonzalez matter. Copies of these additional documents are available at Judicial Watch's Internet site at www.judicialwatch.org. …. Just yesterday, the Clinton-Gore Administration turned over a December, 1999 e-mail showing that INS Commissioner Doris Meissner, as part of the most "beneficial" litigation strategy, sought to work with the State Department and the Communist Cuban government to arrange a secret meeting with Juan Miguel Gonzalez - despite evidence that he was being coerced by the Cuban government. Additionally, an undated e-mail produced last week shows that the INS knew it had no legal basis to act on behalf of Juan Miguel Gonzalez. The document states that the "INS is giving him rights in violation of law."………. "When will the Clinton-Gore Administration begin telling the truth about their collaboration with the Castro regime? As part of their 'litigation' strategy, they sought to conspire with Fidel Castro to obtain a secret meeting with Elian's father. The Administrations actions were despicable and contrary to what they had been publicly telling the courts and the American people, " said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton……."

Miami Herald 6/7/00 Chris Gaither and Sandra Marquez Garcia smarquez@herald.com "…… A U.S. State Department official who monitors Zimbabwe said the abduction of the Cuban doctors -- yanked from their beds during a pre-dawn raid Friday by two machine gun-toting soldiers --was a brazen snub of the refugee agency's mandate to assess their asylum claim. ``This was more forceful of an intervention than you would expect,'' said the official, noting the long-standing bond between Fidel Castro and Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe. ``The government of Zimbabwe has chosen in this case to do Cuba a favor.'' United Nations officials asked authorities in Zimbabwe Wednesday to give them access to two asylum-seeking Cuban doctors believed to be in police custody in that country, but the government continued to deny knowledge of their whereabouts. …….In a letter to Zimbabwe's foreign minister, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees in Geneva asked to meet with Leonel Córdova Rodríguez, 31, and Noris Peña Martínez, 25, who have not been seen since Friday when armed security agents tried to force them aboard a flight connecting to Havana. ……"

Miami Herald Online 6/9/00 "…… Andy Morales's fame makes him vulnerable to reprisal. The Immigration and Naturalization Service's decision to repatriate Cuban baseball-star Andy Morales, after he and 30 others were stopped in the Florida Straits aboard a smuggler's boat, underscores the muddle that U.S. policy is toward those who seek escape from Cuba. ……… After the overloaded speedboat was stopped by the Coast Guard, an INS officer interviewed each of the 31 Cubans to determine if any met the international test for political asylum: The ability to demonstrate that they fled because of a ``well-founded fear of persecution'' for their political or other views. The INS officer determined that none met that test and thus had to be repatriated. Mr. Morales reportedly gave as a reason for leaving Cuba his desire to play Major League Baseball. That answer, while truthful, flunked him. Yet the odds are high that Mr. Morales will, in fact, suffer for acting on that dream. He is not just any freedom-seeking Cuban; he was the Cuban all-star team's third baseman, a household name whose home run last April helped humiliate the Baltimore Orioles. ……"

Miami Herald Online 6/9/00 Andres Viglucci "….. Embarrassed by the attempted defection of baseball star Andy Morales, the Cuban government Thursday disparaged his talent and suggested his career was in decline, while an agent hired by the athlete's relatives in Miami said the ballplayer may explore legal ways of leaving the island. Morales, meanwhile, arrived home in a small town outside Havana, apparently unscathed but with his personal and professional future very much in doubt. Morales was forcibly repatriated Wednesday by the U.S. Coast Guard after being stopped at sea with 30 other Cubans on board an alleged smuggler's speedboat. Cuban officials insisted that Morales -- the highest-profile athlete turned back to Cuba by U.S. authorities -- would suffer no reprisals, even as a government TV commentator minimized his contributions to Cuban baseball. ……."

AFP 6/10/00 "….. Luxury residence, limousine, bodyguards and private swimming pools are all now part of the daily routine for six-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez. Elian, leading the life of Riley with his family and entourage of school friends and a teacher shipped in from Cuba, is waiting for the outcome of appeals court hearings in the United States. The castaway-turned-VIP's high public profile has been curbed since the April 22 armed federal raid in which the boy was wrested from the grip of his Miami relatives. …….. The house was exchanged on May 25 for a more central location at the Rosedale estate in Washington's Cleveland Park area, a 2.6-hectare (6.5-acre) estate, used by the non-profit organization Youth for Understanding International Exchange. The family apparently wanted to be closer to stores, restaurants and other city attractions as well as to their lawyer Greg Craig. ……..Agents follow the limousine back and forth on trips to the tourist attractions made occasionally after classes taught by a kindergarten teacher brought in from Cuba. ….."

NewsMax.com 6/11/00 "…….Cuban dictator Fidel Castro is keeping two defecting Cuban doctors scheduled to come to the U.S in a Zimbabwean prison, diplomatic sources told the Miami Herald. Leonel Cordova Rodriguez, 31, and Noris Pena Martinez, 25, were due to fly from Harare, Zimbabwe to Nairobi, Kenya yesterday after the U.S. offered the pair refugee status, but thanks to maneuvering by Castro - a close ally of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe - they remain locked up at the Goromonzi detention center, the Herald reported this morning. Yesterday Castro tried to block their departure for the U.S., saying his government would issue them documents valid to travel anywhere in the world - except the United States, sources told the Herald. ……."

Fox News 6/7/00 George Gedda AP "…..The hopes of Cuban baseball star Andy Morales for a major league career in the United States were dashed Wednesday when the Coast Guard repatriated him and 30 others, five days after they were picked up at sea while trying to flee. A U.S. official in Washington said Morales was returned because he did not qualify for political asylum. Morales was among 31 Cubans who were repatriated after being picked up by a Coast Guard cutter last Wednesday near Key West. Two suspected smugglers were turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol, Coast Guard spokesman Robert Suddarth said in Miami. Morales is a 25-year-old third baseman who hit a home run last year in a 12-6 victory by the Cuban national team over the Baltimore Orioles in Baltimore. The decision to return the 31 was made by U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agents who interviewed them. To qualify for admission to the United States, Cubans who attempt to flee must convince the INS they have a credible fear of persecution if they are returned. …….."

Miami Herald 6/6/00 Chris Gaither and Sandra Marquez Garcia "……. A desperate note written by two dissident Cuban doctors is the last trace of two would-be defectors who were reportedly abducted hours before a scheduled asylum interview in Zimbabwe, according to witnesses and diplomatic sources. Leonel Cordova Rodriguez, 31, and Noris Peña Martinez, 25, members of a Cuban medical assistance mission in Zimbabwe, were taken from their home by armed soldiers in the pre-dawn hours Friday, just days after making international headlines for publicly denouncing Fidel Castro. The hastily written note was slipped into the hand of an Air France employee Friday in Johannesburg, South Africa -- the country next to Zimbabwe -- as security agents attempted to force the doctors aboard a Paris-bound jet with a connection to Havana. Diplomats believe the two were returned to Zimbabwe after Air France refused to board the distraught doctors, who threatened to kill someone if placed on a plane back to Cuba. ……"

foxnews.com 6/2/00 Ed Asman "…… Too much Elian? Yes, I know. A lot of you are sick of the subject. But the case just keeps chugging along, and it really is high drama that forces us to focus in on subjects fundamental to our way of life: the right of a father to speak for his young child; or equally important, the question of whether a father who subjects his child to the will of a tyrant is being abusive. Or simply the haunting imagery of a mother's self-sacrifice and Elian's miraculous survival at sea ...... Not that there aren't some silly moments to all this. Like a president impeached for flouting the law invoking the sanctity of "rule of law" to make his case for sending a refugee back to a Communist dictatorship. Some of the most ridiculous comments of all, however, have come from members of my own trade: journalists who have simplified the conflict into a straight-forward custody battle, as if Elian were being asked to move from Miami to Cincinnati. ……"

Miami Herald Online 6/6/00 Jay Lefkowitz "……. Thursday's decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was a bitter disappointment to those of us who wished for freedom for Elián González. Yet when Elián is finally dragged back to communist Cuba, as now seems inevitable, it won't be the fault of the three judges who handed down the ruling. Rather, as their opinion makes clear, the blame lies with President Clinton and his administration. ......... The court's unanimous decision to defer to an executive-branch agency -- even one whose policies and procedures that court clearly was skeptical of -- shows that judicial restraint is alive and well, even after nearly eight years of liberal judicial appointments. And despite the tragic consequences for Elián, in the long run Americans will be better served by a judiciary that generally defers to the decisions of the political branches and the specialized agencies that, unlike federal judges, politically are accountable. ……"

NewsMax.com 6/7/00 "……Some Clinton-Gore Administration documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, Inc. in one of its lawsuits show that the Clinton-Gore Administration "collaborated" with Cuba on the Elian Gonzalez matter. Other documents show that Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) Commissioner Doris Meissner planned the January, 2000 visit of the Elian's grandmothers in consultation with Cuba and that INS knew that they could not seize Elian without a court order. Meissner also sought to hide the INS' role in orchestrating the Cuban grandmothers' visit. Copies of these documents are available at Judicial Watch's Internet site at www.judicialwatch.org. ……… "These 'smoking gun' documents help prove what we've suspected - that the Clinton-Gore Administration was doing the bidding of Fidel Castro when they raided the Gonzalez home using 151 armed federal agents," stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. ….."

Weekly Standard 6/6/00 Christopher Caldwell "…… Last week's 11th Circuit opinion, which effectively resolves the Elián Gonzánlez case and clears the way for young Elián to be sent back to Cuba, leaves us feeling a sickening sort of vindication. At no point in the whole Elián affair were Clinton administration officials "upholding," "obeying," or "abiding by" the rule of law -- to take a mere sampling from the steady stream of cant that accompanied their pronouncements on the issue. They were making it up as they went along. Let us be perfectly clear about what the court ruled. It did not find that the White House was right to send Elián back to Cuba. (Although the president continues to insist, disingenuously, that it did.) No: The court found that the White House had chosen to send Elián back to Cuba by executive fiat, and there was nothing within the bounds of judicial restraint that the court could do to stop it. Elián will soon be on his way back to a totalitarian torture state not because U.S. law requires that outcome, but because the Clinton administration has decided to send him back. ……."

National Review 6/5/00 Jonah Goldberg "….In short, there's not much left to be said, and there's no one left to persuade. Almost every angle's been covered and the American people just don't care. So, Elián will go back to Cuba and everyone will be happy and peppy and bursting with love (what's that from?). Then, when Elián comes back to the United States in fifteen years or so, either on a raft - if Castro's alive - or on an American Airlines daily nonstop - if he's dead - and says "Why did you send me back there?" Americans in huge majorities will say they were against it at the time, etc. Indeed, this reveals the key reason why Bill Clinton will go down in history as a mediocre President. People don't remember the back story or context of a decision, they only remember the decision. ……."

Miami Herald/Wall StreetJournal 6/6/00 Jay Lefkowitz "……Thursday's decision by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was a bitter disappointment to those of us who wished for freedom for Elián González. Yet when Elián is finally dragged back to communist Cuba, as now seems inevitable, it won't be the fault of the three judges who handed down the ruling. Rather, as their opinion makes clear, the blame lies with President Clinton and his administration. The court's unanimous decision to defer to an executive-branch agency -- even one whose policies and procedures that court clearly was skeptical of -- shows that judicial restraint is alive and well, even after nearly eight years of liberal judicial appointments. And despite the tragic consequences for Elián, in the long run Americans will be better served by a judiciary that generally defers to the decisions of the political branches and the specialized agencies that, unlike federal judges, politically are accountable. ……."

Miami Herald 6/6/00 Ana Acle Jay Weaver "….. An attorney for the Miami relatives of Elián González has asked -- once again -- for a private meeting with the Cuban boy and his father, this time directing the request to attorney Gregory Craig. Reacting to comments Craig made on ABC's Nightline with Ted Koppel, suggesting that reunion requests go through him, the relatives' attorney, Linda Osberg-Braun, wrote Friday: ``As you know, the González family in the United States loves Elián deeply and wishes to see him and spend some time with him. Although they have their differences with Juan Miguel [González], he is certainly family, and it would be beneficial to Elián for the families to meet and mend their problems. …..``We have repeatedly requested a meeting in every way possible, and in our view, we have been rejected. Nonetheless, please consider this letter another formal request.'' ……"

Miami Herald 6/7/00 E