By Pascal Fletcher
HAVANA, Jan 27 (Reuters) - A senior Cuban official on Thursday sharply criticised a meeting in Miami between Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez and his grandmothers, saying it had been more like a ``prison visit'' than a family reunion.
Speaking in Havana, National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon pilloried the U.S. Catholic nun who hosted the meeting Wednesday at her Miami home, accusing her of acting like a prison ``warden'' and saying she showed no appreciation of motherly love.
``(It) really did not resemble at all a neutral setting, nor a family reunion...it was like some people visiting a person in jail,'' Alarcon told reporters after greeting a visiting delegation from the U.S. city of Pittsburg.
His bitter comments seemed certain to add to the furore in Washington, Miami and Havana over 6-year-old Elian.
The boy is at the centre of a politically-charged custody battle between his father and family in communist-ruled Cuba, backed by President Fidel Castro's government, and more distant relatives in the United States, supported by Cuban exiles.
Alarcon reserved his most virulent criticism for Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, the Dominican nun who hosted the meeting at her Miami residence between Elian and his grandmothers from Cuba.
The grandmothers were on a mission to the United States to try to take the boy home to his father on the island.
Wednesday's meeting in Miami was the first face-to-face contact between Elian and family members from Cuba since he was rescued Nov. 25 off Florida after the sinking of a boat carrying illegal Cuban migrants. His mother was among 11 who drowned.
O'Laughlin had agreed to host the meeting at the request of U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, who has repeatedly backed a U.S. Immigration and Naturalisation Service (INS) ruling that the boy should go back to his father in Cuba.
But O'Laughlin said Thursday she thought Elian should stay in the United States rather than be returned to the island. She cited what she said was the sense of fear she had perceived in the grandmothers, Mariela Quintana and Raquel Rodriguez.
In angry response to her comments, Alarcon accused O'Laughlin of siding with Elian's Miami relatives, whom he called ``kidnappers,'' and of not allowing the boy to speak by telephone to his father in Cuba during the meeting with his grandmothers.
``Who does she think she is? Is she the U.S. government? Is she also a kidnapper?'' Alarcon said.
He said O'Laughlin had violated previously agreed ground rules for the reunion by cutting it short after one hour and 40 minutes. ``Elian was in a sort of prison...and at some point, the warden arrived and ended the meeting,'' he said caustically.
He recalled that Catholic nuns made three vows to God to preserve a state of poverty, chastity and humility.
Addressing the reporters, he said sarcastically: ``Poverty. I don't know what your impression was of the mansion (O'Laughlin's Miami home), it doesn't seem to be a very poor house.''
He went on: ``Chastity. I don't contest she may have respected that vow, but if she has, then she doesn't have any knowledge of motherhood, or any experience of loving a child and she demonstrated that very well yesterday.''
Elian's father in Cuba, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who also met the Pittsburg delegation, said he felt ``indignant'' about the way the meeting had been handled by O'Laughlin and the INS.
``They did everything the opposite from the way it had been foreseen,'' he said, complaining that a cellphone on which he was going to talk to his son was taken away from the grandmothers.
O'Laughlin said it was agreed before the meeting that telephones would not be permitted.
Earlier, Cuba's ruling Communist Party had also fiercely criticised the handling of the family meeting in Miami, saying the grandmothers were subjected to ``deceits, lies, tricks, betrayals, humiliations, and an inhuman and despotic treatment.''
Alarcon repeated his government's call for Elian to be returned to Cuba in line with the INS ruling.
``It is never too late for the U.S. authorities to do what they are supposed to do...they should do that right now,'' he said.
Cuba's President Castro has launched a fervent patriotic crusade to obtain the return of Elian, sending millions of Cubans into the streets in well-organised official mass demonstrations that have continued almost daily over the last two months.
20:36 01-27-00
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