Isabel Vincent. National Post. Monday, February 21, 2000
'I've decided to talk': Cuba denies claim grandmother wanted to defect
MIAMI - The father of Elian Gonzalez, the six-year-old Cuban boy who washed up on the coast of Florida last November, approved his former wife's plans to spirit him to the United States and has been calling for his son's repatriation only because of "intense" Cuban government
pressure.
That's the story being told by Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, the nun and university president who brokered a meeting between the boy and his Cuban grandmothers when they visited the United States earlier this month seeking the boy's return to Cuba.
"I've decided to talk," said Sister O'Laughlin, president of Barry University, a private Roman Catholic university near Miami.
In an interview with the Miami Herald on the weekend, she broke nearly a month's silence on the issue, emphasizing yet again she feared for the boy's well-being if he goes back to the Communist island.
"This is more about that little boy than anyone else," she told reporters. "And I have to do whatever I can to help him."
Sister O'Laughlin said that the night she met Elian and his grandmothers at her Miami Beach home, one of the women said the boy's family in Cuba and his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, had supported his escape to the United States.
"The laws of this nation always support the bond of a parent and child unless there is a dramatic circumstance," said Sister O'Laughlin after her meeting with the grandmothers earlier this month.
"But this is a dramatic time. As I found myself imagining the child growing into manhood, the fear that seemed to be emanating made me question the environment this child had come from."
At that time, one of the grandmothers confessed to Sister O'Laughlin that she also wanted to defect to the United States. The confession coupled with comments made by the grandmothers that Mr. Gonzalez had been abusive to Elian's mother became a turning point for the nun, who had previously
supported returning the child to Cuba.
"This talk of defecting got me to thinking; if one of the adults wanted out, perhaps it was not a good place for the child," she said on the weekend.
Although she made headlines at the time for such an abrupt change of heart, Sister O'Laughlin had refused to elaborate.
In a recently published opinion piece for The New York Times, she said only she wanted Elian to stay in the United States because he had bonded with his 21-year-old cousin, Marisleysis Gonzalez, and she sensed the grandmothers were quite frightened of the Cuban government.
"I'm not opposed at all to any child being raised by a loving father," she said, adding she fears if Elian returns to Cuba he is at risk of being looked after by an abusive father. "He [Elian] is too young to have such old, tormented eyes."
Since the boy was found near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Nov. 25, he has been caught up in an intense political tug of war between the powerful Cuban exile community here and the government of Fidel Castro. He had set out on a crowded boat with his mother and 11 other people. Most of those on
board, including his mother, drowned, and Elian was rescued by fishermen on Thanksgiving Day.
"This child is the victim of a flagrant violation," Felipe Perez Roque, Cuba's foreign minister, told the National Post.
"He has been kidnapped to score political points. We hope that the United States government will enforce its duty to return the child to Cuba soon."
Cuban officials also questioned the veracity of Sister O'Laughlin's revelations yesterday, noting she speaks only rudimentary Spanish and could not have possibly understood what the grandmothers had said to her at their meeting.
Tomorrow, a senior U.S. district judge is scheduled to hear a lawsuit brought by Elian's great uncle here. Lazaro Gonzalez is trying to force the Immigration & Naturalization Service to grant Elian the right to ask for political asylum.
Last week, the INS was rocked by more Cuban intrigue when the Federal Bureau of Investigation found its most senior Cuban American official, Mariano Faget, had been allegedly passing secret information about Cuban defectors to the Cuban government.
However, INS officials said on the weekend the alleged spy was not involved in the service's previous ruling on the Elian Gonzalez case. The INS ruled the child should be returned to his family in Cuba.
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