> >Gusano Desperation? Tall Tales Grow Gigantic > Sun, 20 Feb 2000 03:00:09 -0500 > > > Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit > > > SISTER JEANNE GIVES BIRTH TO LIVE CABBAGE; FILM AT 11 > > Sister Jeanne has now been "persuaded" to say that "she learned" > all kinds of outrageous things in a 5-minute conversation with > two Cuban women who had every reason to distrust her, and would > never have told her any of the things she alleges "she learned" > from them -- no matter how good or bad her rudimentary Spanish > may be. Maybe a guardian angel materialized to act as interpreter. > Apparently spy stories full of holes aren't enough. Now they are > pulling out all the stops with 11th hour lurid revelations from > the hysterical Miami nun. Sister Jeanne has tales of a wife-abusing > Juan Miguel, the family's advance knowledge of the planned abduction > of Elian, a defection-prone abuela who's made a "secret videotape" > where she lets it all hang out! > > It seems Elian isn't the only one having his brain washed in Miami. > What's next -- a Faget "confession?" A weeping Virgin Mary statue > appearing on Elian's front lawn? It may be ludicrous, embarassingly > bad theater to us, but will they buy it in Peoria? -- NY Transfer] > > Miami Herald Sat 2/19/00 posted 9:14 pm > > Sister Jeanne: Grandma wanted to defect > > BY MEG LAUGHLIN > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > After three weeks of silence, Sister Jeanne > O'Laughlin has decided to tell exactly why she > abandoned her position of neutrality and became > an advocate for those who believe that 6-year-old > Elian Gonzalez should stay in the United States > rather than return to Cuba. > >O'Laughlin now says that the night Elian met with his grandmothers in her >home in Miami Beach, she learned that one of the grandmothers wanted to >defect. > >She says she learned that the father and his family knew about Elian's >mother's plan to bring him to Miami on a boat 10 days before they left. > >And finally, she says she learned that Elian's father had been physically >abusive to the boy's mother. > >`I've decided to talk,'' O'Laughlin told The Herald late Friday. She said >Miami lawyer Roger Bernstein, who is fighting to keep the boy here, had >visited her and persuaded her to tell what she knew to help his case. She >said she had not done so previously because she did not want `to endanger >the family in Cuba.'' > >`But this is more about that little boy than anyone else, and I have to do >whatever I can to help him,'' she says. > >Senior U.S. District Judge William Hoeveler has scheduled a hearing for >Tuesday in a lawsuit brought by Elian's Miami relatives, seeking to force >the Immigration and Naturalization Service to grant Elian the right to >request political asylum. > >The hearing is on the narrow issue of whether Hoeveler has jurisdiction in >the case -- the INS argues he does not -- and it is unlikely that >O'Laughlin's revelations will influence those discussions on points of law. >But it is certain to reignite debate on her role in the Elian case. > >Since taking a stand three weeks ago, O'Laughlin has been at the center of >international controversy. Her house had been chosen as a neutral site for >the reunion between the grandmothers and Elian. But the day after the >meeting, O'Laughlin told reporters that the meeting had changed her mind >about where Elian should live. > >`The laws of this nation always support the bond of a parent and child >unless there is a dramatic circumstance,'' she said then. `This is a >dramatic time. Because, as I found myself imagining the child growing into >manhood, the fear that seemed to be emanating made me question the >environment this child has come from.'' > >The reasons she gave, both in her public comments and in a later article >written for The New York Times opinion pages, were vague: She believed Elian >had bonded with his 21-year-old cousin Marisleysis Gonzalez, and she sensed >fear emanating from the grandmothers, which she believed was caused by the >Cuban government. > >QUESTIONS RAISED > >But her explanations only raised more questions: How could she have formed a >credible conclusion about the child and his cousin after being with them for >less than hour? And how could she say that the grandmothers' nervousness >during the meeting was caused by Cuba rather than demonstrators outside her >house? Had her role as president of Barry University influenced her >pronouncement? > >`Sister Jeanne has to live in the neighborhood,'' was the reaction of Bob >Edgar, the director of the National Conference of Churches, which sponsored >the grandmothers' trip. > >Even as recently as Tuesday, in a three-hour interview with The Herald, >O'Laughlin refused to detail her reasons. `I had to be vague, and I know I >sounded flaky,'' she said during that interview. > >But she continued to decline to be more specific until Friday, after she >talked with Bernstein. > >She now says that at the end of the meeting at her house, after Elian and >his Miami family had left, she had about five minutes alone with both >grandmothers and then a few minutes with the mother of Elian's mother. In >that time, she says, she got convincing information. > >`I am not fluent in Spanish,'' she says. `But I understand most of what is >said to me in Spanish. And I clearly understood what was said to me that >night.'' > >CHANGE OF DEMEANOR > >Maj. Steve Robbins of the Miami Beach Police Department, who was in the >house when O'Laughlin talked with the grandmothers, says he was standing at >the bottom of the stairs when she went upstairs to see them. > >`She was happy and relaxed when she went up, but when she came down after >talking to them, she looked terribly distressed,'' he says. > >He says he thought something had happened that shocked her, and he asked her >about it. > >`But she would not answer,'' he says. `She just looked terribly >preoccupied.'' > >O'Laughlin then walked out to the gate of her house and spoke about the >meeting to the press and hundreds of people gathered there. Her comments >were neutral: `I believe in hope. It has been an informative day. I am so >thankful for this opportunity to host this meeting and to touch lives.'' > >But O'Laughlin says now that she was in fact devastated. When she went back >into her house, she wept and prayed for most of the night. > >Early the next morning, she called Sister Janet Capone, the prioress of the >Adrian Sisters in Adrian, Mich. Capone is O'Laughlin's superior. > >'SOMETHING IS WRONG' > >`I know something is very wrong, and I can't be specific,'' Capone says >O'Laughlin told her. `So, I'm going to make a vague public statement that >will be very controversial.'' > >Janet Capone: `I told her to follow her conscience.'' > >But before she did, O'Laughlin called Maj. Robbins and asked him to come to >her house to discuss the meeting with the grandmothers. Robbins says she >asked him whether he had heard anything and he said no. He asked her what >she had heard, and she said she could not tell him. He told her he had >noticed how upset she was after talking with the grandmothers. > >`She nodded, but she said nothing specific,'' he says. `But I thought >something big must have happened.'' > >`I did not tell anyone what I really knew until today,'' O'Laughlin said >Friday. > >According to the version of events O'Laughlin now recounts, one of the >grandmothers was present when her husband called Lazaro Gonzalez, Elian's >great-uncle in Miami, and told him that Elian and his mother would be making >the journey to Miami. The conversation occurred 10 days before Elian and his >mother left Cuba. > >After hearing that, `I thought that the boy must have come with his father's >blessing,'' she said. > >NEW VIEW OF FATHER > >She also said Friday that information from one of the grandmothers that the >father had been abusive to Elian's mother made her question how good a >father he would be to Elian. And finally, she says, one of the grandmothers >speaking to her about defecting made her question whether the child should >go back. > >`This talk of defecting got me to thinking; if one of the adults wanted out, >perhaps it was not a good place for the child,'' she says. > >She says that the grandmother who wanted to defect spoke of a secret video >in which she said she wanted to leave Cuba and that it would someday become >available. > >The credibility of O'Laughlin's account may hinge on the level of her >understanding of Spanish. Sister Leonor Esnard, who served as an interpreter >at the meeting with the grandmothers, said she was not present for >O'Laughlin's private moments with the grandmothers. `I translated nothing >they said to her,'' she said. > >O'Laughlin, 70, says she studied Spanish in college for four years and >passed her language competency exam for her doctoral degree. She says she >has read novels in Spanish. Sister Peg Albert, Barry's executive vice >president, says O'Laughlin often interprets what people say in Spanish. `She >doesn't understand everything, but she gets the gist,'' Albert said >Saturday. > >NOT A SPEAKER > >O'Laughlin is not known for speaking Spanish in public. She says she doesn't >because she is embarrassed. `I just don't have the tongue for it,'' she >said. > >Ever since she met Elian, O'Laughlin says, she has lain awake at night >thinking about him: because he is such a small child and she has always been >a sap for small children, and because he lost his mother at the same age at >which she lost her mother and she identifies with him. > >`My father raised me and was wonderful,'' she says. `I'm not opposed at all >to any child being raised by a loving father.'' > >And because she found the child's eyes so haunting: `He is too young to have >such old, tormented eyes,'' she says. > >`It may be too late for him,'' she says. `If he had gone back immediately >before so many people on both sides wanted control of him, he would have >been better off. But as it is now, I pray every day that whether he stays or >goes back, he can survive this.'' > >And, she says, she prays for something else: `That I do what I believe is >right and survive this, too.'' > > -30- > >================================================================= > NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems > Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us > 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 > http://www.blythe.org e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >================================================================= > >nytcov-02.20.00-03:00:12-27082 > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ >Cuba SI: http://www.egroups.com/group/cubasi/ >Imperialism NO! 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