President Fidel Castro bade personal farewell yesterday to four of Elian Gonzalez's schoolmates as they flew out of Havana to join a swelling Cuban entourage hoping to "rehabilitate" the boy in the United Sates. President Castro chatted with the four friends of the six-year-old shipwreck survivor Elian - all around his age and from his provincial hometown of Cardenas - before they boarded a direct charter flight from Havana to Washington. Three of the children's mothers, and a Cuban pediatrician, Dr Caridad Ponce de Leon Narvaez, were also on the small Lear jet. The US State Department had stipulated the children should be accompanied by one parent each, and the US Interests Section gave the visas earlier yesterday.
Those who left yesterday will join Elian's father, stepmother, baby half-brother, cousin and former kindergarten teacher in the growing group of Cubans who have travelled to set up a homestyle atmosphere for the boy while awaiting a final court appeal in the five-month-old custody battle.
The four children, dressed in the red-white-and-blue uniforms of the children's "Pioneers" movement, held Cuban flags aloft as they boarded the aircraft.
Among them was Hanser Orlando Muniz Pedroso (6), whose fame in Cuba is second only to that of Elian. The two shared a desk at their school in Cardenas, and Hanser's face has been reproduced on posters all over Cuba next to Elian's empty chair adorned with a sign saying, "This chair is untouchable." Cuba also wants to send more doctors and friends from an original list of 28 people it proposed to join Elian. At one point, Havana even mooted sending Elian's desk too.
Meanwhile, a government-appointed psychiatrist who examined Elian this week said that he and his father "appear to enjoy a rich, varied relationship" but that a visit by their Miami relatives "would not be advisable in their current angry state".
Referring to Elian's Miami cousin, Marisleysis, Dr Paulina Kernberg has said in an affidavit that the cousin "may be an idealised love - rather than a maternal - figure".