By Marika Lynch, mlynch@herald.com. Published Tuesday, February 1, 2000, in the Miami Herald
Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, the Barry University president who hosted last week's meeting between Elian Gonzalez and his grandmothers, says she ``became a wiser woman'' after seeing the family interact and concluded in a New York Times opinion piece that returning the boy to Cuba might harm him
permanently.
Elian has ``transferred his maternal love'' to his 21-year-old cousin, Marisleysis Gonzalez, O'Laughlin wrote in today's edition of The New York Times.
``I saw fear in Elian . . . and I became a wiser woman at that moment, wincing at my own naivete. I considered what it would mean for this boy suddenly to be ripped away from his surrogate mother, how this second trauma might scar him permanently. I saw and felt, at that moment, how wrong it
would be to return Elian hastily to Cuba,'' O'Laughlin wrote.
``Elian has not yet even begun to grieve the catastrophic loss of his mother. We have to remember, too, what her wishes were: that she had weighed the cost of taking him away from his father and had chosen to come here.''
ANSWERING QUESTIONS
O'Laughlin could not be reached for comment late Monday. Barry spokesman Joseph McQuay said O'Laughlin wrote the piece to answer some of the questions she has received from the public.
The university president, who told The Herald that before last week's meeting she believed Elian should be returned to his father in Cardenas, traveled to Washington, D.C., last week with a changed view. She lobbied her close friend Attorney General Janet Reno to let Elian remain in the United
States.
Havana reacted harshly to O'Laughlin's change of mind, even before her opinion piece today.
An article published Saturday in Granma, the Cuban Communist Party daily, described O'Laughlin as ``the sinning nun . . . one more character in that contemptible circus'' in Miami Beach, the site of Elian's meeting with his grandmothers.
``She made statements that brought her closer to the line of [Jorge] Mas Santos . . . and announced that she would travel to Washington to join the Mafia's lobbying team.''
AN EXILE DYNASTY
Mas is the son of the late Jorge Mas Canosa and succeeds him as chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation.
O'Laughlin, Granma said, ``has publicly violated one of her sacred commandments: Thou shalt not lie.''
The Cuban government's demands and its seeming manipulation of the grandmothers' visit disturbed O'Laughlin, she wrote. Both women, Raquel Rodriguez and Mariela Quintana, showed signs of anxiety, ``trembling, furtive looks, ice-cold hands,'' according to O'Laughlin.
Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, also must fear the government because he has not yet come to U.S. soil to urge his son's return to Cuba.
``It troubles me that Elian's father has not come to the United States,'' O'Laughlin wrote. ``I realize how he must love Elian. What, if not fear, could keep a person from making a 30-minute trip to reclaim his son? And what might Elian's father fear, if not the authoritarian Cuban government
itself? Could we send the boy back to a climate that may be full of fear without at least a fair hearing in a family court?''
O'Laughlin urged for a quick resolution to the case, outside the eye of the cameras, in a U.S. family court.
Herald staff translator Renato Perez contributed to this report.
Copyright 2000 Miami Herald |