WASHINGTON -- For Tom Sylvester, whose little girl was spirited to Austria by his ex-wife more than four years ago, it was bittersweet when government agents seized Elian Gonzalez in Miami and reunited him with his father.
He was pleased to see Juan Miguel Gonzalez regain custody of his son but embittered that government authorities have not shown anywhere near the same resolve in his case.Sylvester's Austrian-born ex-wife took off for her homeland with their 13-month-old daughter in October 1995 despite a U.S. court order granting him custody of the child. His contacts with the girl since then have been limited to brief, supervised visits.
He is among thousands of American parents who have been victims in international child abduction cases. The State Department's Bureau on Consular affairs has active files on more than 1,100 cases.
But unlike in Elian's case, these parents have not benefited from the personal intervention of the attorney general, from agents beating down doors, from government-provided planes and psychiatrists, or from extraordinary diplomatic maneuverings.
"It was disheartening that so many federal resources went into the return of a Cuban child to a Cuban father when the pleas of so many parents for assistance in the return of their American children are ignored by the federal government," Sylvester said by phone from Cincinnati.
Sylvester's grief is shared by Tom Johnson, a State Department lawyer who has had a running battle with the Consular Affairs bureau since his Swedish-born former wife ignored a custody order and took off for Sweden with their daughter Amanda in 1995.
He, too, has had only limited contact with his daughter, now 12.
Discussing the Elian case, Johnson said he was struck by the "extraordinary time and effort" the government devoted to it compared with "the lack of significant effort to bringing American children back home."
The Justice Department has spent more than $578,000 on the Elian Gonzalez case, including Saturday's raid, since the 6-year-old Cuban boy was rescued from the Atlantic Ocean on Thanksgiving, officials said Thursday. The city of Miami spent $1 million, most for police overtime, even before the street disorder set off by the boy's seizure.
Meantime, much less attention has been paid to efforts by another passenger on the sunken refugee boat with Elian, Arianne Horta, to have her daughter back in Cuba join her in Florida.
Johnson's Virginia-based lawyer, Jim Cottrell, says there is a stronger legal case for the administration to help his client than there is for assisting Juan Miguel Gonzalez.
He noted Sweden belongs to the Hague Convention, which requires member states to "secure the prompt return of children wrongfully removed to or retained in" another member country and to respect custody arrangements. It also specifies that the child be returned to the country of "habitual residence."
Cuba has not signed the Hague Convention but this has not deterred the administration from assisting Elian's father. In part, Washington wants to cooperate so as not to jeopardize its own efforts to retrieve American children who are abducted to foreign countries.
Johnson is no fan of Attorney General Janet Reno, who authorized the raid. "Reno has not given American parents the time of day," he says.
Mary Marshall, director of the children's affairs office in the State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, acknowledged the frustration of left-behind parents. She said the bureau has become far more active in helping them and staff has doubled since late 1998, with more increases planned.
"We are doing more and more," she says.
Sylvester spoke admiringly of the raid, comparing it with a failed Austrian effort to reunite him with his daughter.
Early one Friday morning in May 1996, he said, six court-appointed officials went to the home of his former wife and daughter in an attempt to enforce an Austrian Supreme Court order granting him custody.
Sylvester said that moments after the knock on the door, little Carina was hustled out the back door in the arms of her grandmother. There was no further enforcement effort and, he said, the same court that had granted Sylvester final custody reversed itself later on grounds that the child had assimilated into Austrian society and should stay there.
"I think any parent who is denied access to (a) child is going to say that we are not doing enough," Marshall said. "They always think we can do more."
She admits there is room for improvement, and the General Accounting Office concurs. The GAO said in March that left-behind parents need a more aggressive advocacy from the government.