Elian Gonzalez spent a quiet Easter with his father, feeding squirrels, scampering at a playground and watching cartoons – insulated from the debate still swirling outside.
“Finally, they have some time together, some space together, some privacy together, and some silence around them,” said Greg Craig, lawyer for dad Juan Miguel Gonzalez.
Father and son holed up at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, where they were reunited Saturday after feds seized the 6-year-old from his Miami relatives at gunpoint before dawn.
The tug-of-war tyke’s Florida relatives showed up yesterday at the super-secure base toting an Easter gift bag with a white bunny and candy. They were turned away – but angrily vowed to return.
“I demand to see Elian and I will not leave until I see this boy,” said cousin Marisleysis Gonzalez, who acted as Elian’s surrogate mom after his rescue from a raft wreck in November.
Amid calls for congressional hearings into the pre-dawn raid, Justice Department officials defended their decision to dispatch gun-toting agents to snatch Elian from Miami.
“We were forced into the action we took by the intransigence of that family,” Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said. “We probably should have taken decisive action sooner.”
The Miami relatives fanned the flames of controversy by implying that Elian’s true mental state was being covered up.
A spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service took the unusual step of publicly quashing the speculation about Elian’s whereabouts and condition.
“I can assure you those rumors are not true. He is here on the base and he is fine and he’s enjoying some quiet time with the family,” Bill Licatovich told reporters.
For now, Elian is staying with his father, stepmother, Nersy, and half-brother, Hianny, in a one-bedroom apartment at Andrews’ VIP complex. He slept on a cot in the living room.
A source at the base said it was a “normal family scene” inside the apartment – with Elian calling his father “Papa” and lavishing attention on his baby brother.
At one point, Hianny started crying and Elian patted him on the back and kissed him on the cheek to calm him down, the source told The Post.
The first-grader played with a Game Boy electronic toy and a battery-operated gorilla that boogied to “The Macarena.”
He watched kids’ shows on TV, lunched on rice and beans, kicked around a ball with his dad and posed for more family photos.
In the afternoon, a man in a white Easter bunny suit dropped by the apartment for a short visit with Elian, who gave him a playful kiss.
“It’s a wonderful scene,” said Craig, who gave the boys homemade Easter baskets. “They belong together. They are totally at ease and totally comfortable.”
Comfortable enough that Juan Miguel admonished his son for getting rowdy.
“He was being a little boy. He was jumping around and being mischievous and the father said, in an authoritative tone, ‘Elian …,'” the source said.
Juan Miguel had a few visitors throughout the day. Cuban government officials did not stay with the family around the clock, U.S. officials said.
The family was expected to remain at Andrews until Wednesday, when they move to Maryland’s Wye Plantation estate.
A court order bars Elian from returning to Cuba until an appeal in his case is over.
Juan Miguel is expected to get officially involved in the legal battle and could try to withdraw the request for asylum filed on Elian’s behalf by the Miami relatives – which could stop the case in its tracks.