By Anita Snow, .c The Associated Press
HAVANA, 26 (AP) - Elian Gonzalez's father asked to be included by telephone in the boy's Wednesday meeting with his grandmothers in Miami Beach and asked that the child's great-uncle not be permitted in the gathering.
The letter from Juan Miguel Gonzalez and Elian's two grandfathers and his great-grandmother was printed in Wednesday's edition of the Communist Party daily Granma.
They said that after the meeting, they would like Elian's grandmothers, Mariela Quintana and Raquel Rodriguez, to return to Washington for more meetings with lawmakers in their fight to prevent Congress from giving Elian U.S. citizenship against his father's will.
In the letter, Elian's Cuban relatives asked that the grandmothers bring a cellular phone to their two-hour meeting with the boy and asked that the gathering be extended for a third hour with the relatives in Cuba participating by telephone.
``We want to talk to the boy there when he is entirely free with you,'' the letter said.
After the 1 1/2-hour meeting, the nun who hosted it said one of the grandmothers had a phone with her - a violation of the rules. The phone was taken away after it rang during the gathering, said Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin. It wasn't clear who was calling.
The letter also asked that the boy's Miami relatives, including Elian's great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, not be allowed in the meeting and that there be no media access.
The letter said it was ``unfortunate'' that the media and the Cuban exile community already knew where the meeting was being held and begged that there be no ``cameras, protests or circus'' outside.
The relatives in Elian's hometown of Cardenas, about a two-hour drive east of Havana, said it was fine with them if the grandmothers met with other relatives in Miami who reportedly support returning Elian to his father in Cuba.
Meanwhile, hundreds of farmers gathered in an auditorium at the Revolutionary Armed Forces headquarters in Havana in the latest in a series of government-organized protests calling for the child's return to his homeland.
Wearing straw hats and waving paper red, white and blue Cuban flags, the farmers praised Fidel Castro's government and called for ``our Elian'' to be reunited with his father on the communist island.
The Castro government has scheduled a much larger demonstration on Friday, the anniversary of the birth of Cuban independence hero Jose Marti.
AP-NY-01-26-00 2122EST
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. |