The Washington Post
January 27, 2000
 
 
Grandmothers Meet With Elian in Miami
 
Boy Returns to Local Family After 'Tearful' Reunion at Nun's Home

                  By Sue Anne Pressley and Karen DeYoung
                  Washington Post Staff Writers
                  Thursday, January 27, 2000; Page A01

                  MIAMI, Jan. 26—Amid heavy security and with many guidelines, the
                  Cuban grandmothers of Elian Gonzalez had an emotional reunion today
                  with the 6-year-old boy, who has become the focus of a heated
                  international custody battle.

                  "He hasn't talked much. All I know is everything was fine in there," said
                  Marisleysis Gonzalez, Elian's Miami cousin, after the meeting. "All they
                  talked about was an album of photos they had brought. . . . They just came
                  up and hugged him. We feel good because those are his two grandmothers
                  and they showed their love for him."

                  The much-anticipated reunion took place at the gated Miami Beach home
                  of Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, a Dominican nun who is president of Barry
                  University, a Catholic school here with 8,000 students. O'Laughlin, a
                  longtime children's advocate, was asked by Attorney General Janet Reno,
                  described as an old friend, to provide a neutral setting for the get-together
                  after the first attempt at a meeting here failed Monday night, said Barry
                  spokesman Joe McQuay.

                  After the 1 hour and 40 minute reunion, when Elian had returned with his
                  Miami relatives to their Little Havana home and the grandmothers had
                  departed without comment on their jet back to Washington, O'Laughlin
                  emerged to tell reporters she felt good, but also sad, about what had just
                  taken place.

                  "There were no accusations or promises or trying to define the future," said
                  O'Laughlin, 70, who did not sit in on the private meeting between the boy
                  and his grandmothers. "There were only moments of tearful weeping for
                  what might have been and what was not to be."

                  The reunion, as most aspects of this complex case have been, was fraught
                  with dramatic emotions, political hijinks and the simple needs of a small
                  boy. As he waited for his grandmothers, Elian played with puzzles and an
                  Etch-a-Sketch that the nun had provided. His Miami relatives said he had
                  little to say about the meeting, and after his return home, he rode around on
                  the shoulders of a male cousin, giving well-wishers on the street the
                  peace/victory sign.

                  O'Laughlin said a great portion of her task today was quelling fears,
                  assuring the parties there were "no trap doors" and no tricks up anyone's
                  sleeves. An awkward moment occurred when one grandmother was asked
                  to turn over a cellular telephone, which the Miami relatives said she had
                  been ordered by the Fidel Castro government to bring to the meeting in
                  violation of the agreed-upon rules.

                  The grandmothers did not speak with any member of the Miami family,
                  Marisleysis Gonzalez said.

                  A small army of Miami Beach police officers stood guard this evening
                  outside O'Laughlin's cream-colored estate with black iron gates, owned by
                  Barry University, that sits on scenic Indian Creek. Several hundred people
                  waited on the street outside, shouting, "He's staying! He's staying!" and
                  unfurling a huge Cuban flag. One man held a sign that said, "Grandmothers,
                  if you love your grandson, stay in America."

                  The grandmothers, Raquel Rodriguez and Mariela Gonzalez, have been in
                  the United States since Friday, pleading their case in New York and on
                  Capitol Hill that Elian, the survivor of a shipwreck in which his mother and
                  nine others died, should be reunited with his father in Cuba. But the boy's
                  Miami relatives, who have been keeping him since his rescue at sea on
                  Thanksgiving Day, continue to fight a ruling earlier this month by the
                  Immigration and Naturalization Service that he belongs with his father.

                  Federal officials ordered Elian's great-uncle in Miami, Lazaro Gonzalez, to
                  bring the boy to the O'Laughlin home as a condition of his remaining in this
                  country temporarily while the custody issue and a federal court appeal of
                  the INS ruling are decided. Attempts to bring the two factions together
                  Monday night failed when Lazaro Gonzalez insisted the grandmothers
                  come to a dinner at his home in the Little Havana community, an invitation
                  the women refused, citing concerns about security and the circus-like
                  atmosphere of demonstrators and news media outside the home.

                  The women came to the meeting understanding that they would not be
                  allowed to take the boy away with them. "The purpose of the meeting is a
                  family visit, with no bearing on the legal matters," said Spencer Eig, a
                  lawyer on the legal team representing Lazaro Gonzalez.

                  In Havana today, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma printed
                  a letter to the grandmothers it said had been written by Elian's father, Juan
                  Miguel Gonzalez; his grandfather; and his great-grandmother. The letter
                  asked the women to take a cell phone to the meeting and to call them in
                  Cuba one hour after it began "because we want to talk to the boy there
                  when he is with you entirely free."

                  The letter also instructed the women to return to Washington after the visit
                  to continue their conversations with members of Congress.

                  "This is proof that these family members are being controlled by Fidel
                  Castro himself. He's orchestrating the whole business," said George
                  Fowler, general counsel for the anti-Castro Cuban American National
                  Foundation (CANF), who was asked by O'Laughlin before the
                  grandmothers' arrival to leave a neighbor's house where he was watching
                  the events unfold.

                  According to U.S. officials in Washington, the Miami delegation to the
                  meeting was limited by the INS to 10 people, who were to wait in another
                  room of the 13-room house while Elian met alone with his grandmothers.
                  U.S. officials said that the Miamians had received INS assurances that no
                  Cuban government officials would be present.

                  Officials with the National Council of Churches, which has sponsored the
                  women's trip to the United States, also were asked to leave the home.

                  In Washington, meanwhile, although Congress was nearly shut down
                  because of Tuesday's snowstorm, proponents of bills to grant Elian U.S.
                  citizenship held meetings and headcounts by telephone. Preliminary results
                  indicated that smooth passage of the bills, which have been introduced in
                  the House and the Senate, is unlikely.

                  But back in Miami tonight, in Little Havana, that issue was tabled for
                  another day, as the relatives rejoiced at having cleared a dreaded moment
                  in their fight to keep the boy. On Thursday, a contingent plans to travel to
                  Washington to lobby for Elian's citizenship, as the grandmothers work the
                  same ground to try to prevent that from happening.

                  Marisleysis Gonzalez, who had been vocal about her fears that Elian might
                  be snatched during the meeting and whisked away, said she was relieved it
                  was over. And she said she felt the Miami family's position was stronger
                  than ever--at least in the heart of the boy.

                  "I feel like he is more to this side than to that side," she said.

                  Pressley reported from Miami, DeYoung from Washington. Staff writers
                  Helen Dewar and Juliet Eilperin in Washington and special correspondent
                  Catharine Skipp in Miami contributed to this report.
 

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