GLYNCO (GEORGIA), AUG 16: The US Government on Tuesday honoured 114 Federal agents who snatched Cuban castaway Elian Gonzalez in a pre-dawn raid at the home of his Miami relatives in April.In Glynco, Immigration and Naturalisation Service Commissioner Doris Meissner lauded the agents for staging "Operation Reunion" - a US Government plan to reunite Elian with his father - successfully in the "emotionally charged atmosphere" of Miami's Little Havana."You not only did the right thing, you did it extraordinarily well," Meissner said. "The objective of the operation was to remove Elian safely from the home of his great uncle and reunite him with his father. That was accomplished."The Federal raid on the modest Miami home of Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez provided a spectacular climax to a tense stand-off between Cuban exiles and Washington over the fate of the 6-year-old boy who survived a disastrous migrant smuggling voyage in which his mother and 10 others died.Elian was rescued off the Florida coast last November 25 after surviving two days at sea alone on an inner tube.He immediately became the focus of a highly politicised custody battle between his father, who wanted him returned to Communist Cuba, and Miami exiles opposed to Cuban President Fidel Castro who said the boy should be allowed to grow up "in freedom" in the United States.
