HAVANA, 13 (AP) - The grandmother of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez says her daughter - killed in the boating accident that set the child adrift off the Florida coast - would have wanted the child returned to Cuba.
``She will not rest in peace until the child is here with his father and his grandparents,'' Raquel Rodriguez, mother of the late Elisabeth Brotons, said in an interview printed Thursday in the Communist Party daily Granma.
Brotons died at sea with 10 others when their boat sank on the high sea in late November. Elian, just one of three who survived, was found clinging to an inner tube.
The child was paroled to the care of his paternal relatives in Miami, who are trying to keep him in the United States. The boy's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, has demanded that Elian be returned to him in Cuba and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has said that the father and son
should be reunited.
Those who oppose returning Elian to Cuba argue that the mother gave her life to take him to the United States and that her wishes should be respected. Rodriguez took issue with that argument.
``Saying that keeping Elian there out of respect for my daughter's will is a bunch of lies,'' said Rodriguez.
``You can see that none of them know her,'' the grandmother said, referring to the statements made by Elian's parental relatives in Miami about her daughter. ``I was her mother and I knew her better than anyone.
``I am convinced that after this tragedy that her ultimate wish would have been that the boy be at the side of his father and his grandparents,'' Rodriguez added.
On Thursday evening, Cuba's government-controlled television showed footage of another interview Rodriguez gave at her home in the town of Cardenas to MSNBC. The grandmother told of the anguish of first losing her only child, then seeing images of her only grandchild in another country often
surrounded by television cameras.
AP-NY-01-13-00 2111EST
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press |