By Madeline Baro Diaz, .c The Associated Press
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) - The nun who was host of the reunion between Elian Gonzalez and his grandmothers said today she now favors letting him stay in the United States because of the way Cuba has tried to manipulate the situation.
Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin told The Associated Press that before the meeting, her opinion was, "I would go with the law that the child should be with the father, but what I saw and felt really frightened me for the child.''
She blamed both sides but also specifically cited the Cuban communist government.
With a backdrop of 200 chanting, flag-waving demonstrators nearby, the trembling grandmothers, Mariela Quintana and Raquel Rodriguez, met with the boy Wednesday.
They brought the 6-year-old shipwreck survivor, the center of an international tug of war, a photo album filled with pictures of his family and friends back in Cuba, and the three played with an Etch A Sketch and stuffed animals.
The grandmothers did not comment as they left the meeting. Today, Cuba's communist government complained that the "the loving and heroic grandmothers'' were treated shabbily, saying that the reunion was repeatedly interrupted and cut short abruptly before their time was up.
In response, Sister O'Laughlin said: "The Cuban government ... has said we were not nice to the grandmothers, that we had spies. This is just not true.''
She told the NBC "Today'' show that "I believe that there are people with political agendas that take the child as a pawn, and perhaps the grandmothers also.''
"I think I am a wiser woman today, and I understand how blessed we are to understand what it is to be free and not full of fear,'' she said.
Sister O'Laughlin had said that both sides were so mistrustful that she had to show them there was no chance Elian could be snatched away.
She showed her visitors that ``windows couldn't be opened, that doors couldn't be invaded, that helicopters could not land in fake grass, that there were no disappearing trap doors.''
She said today that ``what I experienced yesterday about tangible fear gives me real concern about the future of the child ... and when I look at the real fear I say he would grow to greater freedom of manhood here.''
She said she would tell officials in Washington "the truth as I experienced it. I don't represent pro-Castro, anti-Castro or INS. I only have the sense that I felt when I blessed that boy when he was leaving here.''
At one point during the meeting, one of the grandmothers' cellular phone went off and was confiscated. It was unclear who was trying to call, but a letter issued Wednesday by the Cuban Communist Party from the boy's father and grandfather in Cuba said they would call during the meeting.
Today's editorial in the Communist Party daily Granma that criticized the meeting complained about the confiscation of the phone and said a "counterrevolutionary mafia'' is responsible for ``the monstrous and traitorous kidnapping.''
In Washington, Attorney General Janet Reno said today that "it sounded like it went as anticipated and gave the grandmothers time with Elian.''
The child's Miami relatives want him to stay here and grow up in the United States rather than in Fidel Castro-controlled Cuba. But his father and grandmothers hope to have him returned to Cuba.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service is pressing to have him returned to Cuba, citing the father's right to custody, while the Cuban-American relatives are fighting in federal court and are backing efforts in Congress to make the boy a U.S. citizen.
``Tomorrow they're going to make me an American citizen,'' Elian said in an interview broadcast over the Spanish-language Radio Mambi after the reunion.
In a document filed today as part of the court case, the Justice Department argued the judge should dismiss the relatives' case either on grounds the court lacks jurisdiction to review the immigration decision or that his great-uncle, Lazaro Gonzalez, lacks standing under federal law to speak
for Elian.
It said a victory for the Miami relatives would ``ignore accepted international practice in cases involving a sole surviving parent located in the United States, where we would expect the foreign country to immediately return the child to the surviving American parent.''
After the meeting, the grandmothers went back to Washington to state their case again. Elian's cousin Marisleysis Gonzalez and other Cuban-American relatives also went to Washington today and lobbied for their side of the dispute.
On Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott indicated he had no solid plans for handling legislation to give Elian citizenship, removing the boy from the jurisdiction of the INS.
President Clinton supported the grandmothers' cause, hinting he might veto citizenship legislation if it passes. And senators seeking Elian's return to Cuba suggested they might use delaying tactics to keep the Senate from debating the measure.
Elian was found clinging to an inner tube off the Florida coast Nov. 25. He had left Cuba with his mother, who died along with her boyfriend and nine others when their boat capsized.
The fight over where he should live had dominated headlines in Florida and Cuba. During the reunion, hundreds of farmers gathered in a Havana auditorium for the latest in a series of government-organized protests calling for the child's return.
Castro's government has scheduled a much larger demonstration on Friday, the anniversary of the birth of Cuban independence hero Jose Marti.
AP-NY-01-27-00 1203EST
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press |