By John Rice, .c The Associated Press
HAVANA, 1 (AP) - The grandmothers of shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez complained Tuesday that their visit with the boy was continually interrupted and cut short. They also angrily denied claims they were manipulated by the Cuban government.
``We are not hostages. We are acting freely,'' said paternal grandmother Mariela Quintana during a 90-minute broadcast on Cuban state television.
Their comments came in response to those of Jeanne O'Laughlin, a nun of the Dominican order who hosted their meeting last week with the child they hope to bring home to Cuba.
In an NBC television interview shown in part during the Cuban broadcast, O'Laughlin suggested that the two women were under pressure from the Cuban government in the struggle to wrest the 6-year-old from his great-uncle's family in Miami.
``She is a lying person,'' said maternal grandmother Raquel Rodriguez. ``It's a lie... so many lies,'' she said, weeping as she recalled the meeting with Elian.
The boy has been at the center of an international custody battle pitting his father and grandparents against the great-uncle's family almost since he was rescued from an innertube off the Florida coast on Nov. 25. His mother and 10 other people died when the boat carrying them from Cuba to the
United States sank.
The grandmothers complained that the child - who lived most of his life in their homes - seemed quiet and withdrawn when he was brought to meet them on Jan. 26 at the home of O'Laughlin, president of Barry University.
``He looked frightened... His face was sad. He was not the boy we knew,'' Quintana said.
They said that the boy's second-cousin, Marisleysis Gonzalez, of Miami, apparently remained with O'Laughlin and another nun in a room next door and could listen though an open entryway, despite an agreement that of the Miami family would not be at the meeting.
In a column published Tuesday in the New York Times, O'Laughlin said she now favors keeping Elian in the United States with his second cousin partly because the boy ``has transferred his maternal love to her'' following the loss of his mother. She said the grandmothers seemed fearful -
apparently of their own government.
Rodriguez said Elian seemed nervous when the grandmothers questioned the presence of his cousin. ``He said, 'Look grandmother, this is my cousin.' He said it as if the boy was depending on her, that he could not be without her.''
Quintana said that Marisleysis Gonzalez had almost no relationship with Elian before the November shipwreck.
The women said their meeting with the boy was repeatedly interrupted by the nuns offering food or bringing messages. Rodriguez said one nun entered three times with the same message, asking them to meet of the Miami family.
They said that the boy was starting to warm up when O'Laughlin halted the meeting after 90 minutes, short of the two-hour minimum reportedly agreed to.
The grandmothers said they remained cheerful during the farewell for the boy's sake, but when he had gone, ``we cried a lot. That was terrible,'' Quintana said.
The two also complained that a nun and policeman took a cellular telephone from them just as the boy was starting to speak to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, in Cuba.
Quintana said they had been unable to speak with the boy by telephone either from the United States or Cuba, being told when they called that the child was either sleeping or out.
She said that the boy's father, however, had managed to speak to the boy twice in recent days.
The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has ruled Elian should be returned to his father, but the Miami relatives are trying to block that action in federal court. U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler will hear arguments Feb. 22 on whether their lawsuit should be dismissed.
AP-NY-02-01-00 2027EST
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. |