Grandmothers Drop By but Don’t Visit Elian

A plan to reunite Elian Gonzalez with his Cuban grandmothers broke down in anger and mistrust late Monday, when family members battling over custody of the 6-year-old boy could not agree on a neutral site for a meeting.

During four hours of negotiations after the women arrived here unexpectedly, they refused to travel to the Little Havana home where the boy has been staying.

And Elian’s Miami relatives apparently rejected entreaties to take him to another location.

“We were not confident of the security arrangements, especially when we discovered the family wanted to make this a circus,” said the Rev. Robert W. Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ, which sponsored the grandmothers’ U.S. trip.

Edgar said that Raquel Rodriguez and Mariela Quintana have been frightened by the thousands of people they have seen protesting in Miami over the last two months against Elian’s repatriation.

The little boy was found in an inner tube off the Florida coast on Thanksgiving Day, two days after a boat capsized while carrying him, his mother and 12 others from Cuba. His mother was among 11 people who drowned. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has ruled that Elian must be sent home to his father in Cuba, but his Miami relatives have filed a lawsuit to block that move.

Edgar said that the grandmothers were headed to Washington for meetings today with lawmakers but that they “remain ready to come back at a moment’s notice.”

As the plane carrying Rodriguez and Quintana was taking off, a car carrying some of the Miami relatives was pulling into the airport. The group did not include Elian.

“I don’t understand why they are rushing away,” said Armando Gutierrez, a family spokesman.

Several hundred Cuban exiles cheered Lazaro Gonzalez, Elian’s great-uncle, and other family members at their home Monday night. Many held flowers that they had planned to throw at the grandmothers’ feet to welcome them.

“I just think this is so sad,” said Spencer Eig, one of several attorneys representing the family. “Elian was very excited. He was all dressed up and scrubbed and waiting for them to arrive.”

When Rodriguez, Elian’s maternal grandmother, and Quintana left Havana Friday for a trip to New York and Washington, they had no plans to stop in Miami.

But relatives insisted that a meeting was the best way to resolve the custody dispute. So, in a letter, they invited the grandmothers to dinner.

“They are the ones saying he has been kidnapped,” said Marisleysis Gonzalez, 21, Elian’s cousin. “Why don’t they come here so they can see the truth and hear the truth?”

On Saturday, Elian’s grandmothers--both 51 and both making their first journey outside Cuba--met with Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and top immigration officials in Washington. In New York, they attended church services Sunday and appeared on NBC’s “Today” show.

The women said Monday that, although they had not spoken to Elian in five days, they are certain he wants to go home to Cardenas, Cuba. “He’s crazy to go back to Cuba,” Quintana said. “He misses everything there. His school, his classmates, everybody--his father’s love. To be able to kiss and hug his father. He tells us every day.”

Underlying the arguments of many who want Elian to remain in the U.S. is the suspicion that the boy’s father may be voicing sentiments scripted for him by the Castro government.

But the grandmothers made clear to many observers that they were representing the true wishes of the family in Cuba.

While Elian’s grandmothers took center stage in Miami, their husbands took part in a two-hour protest by thousands in Havana, the latest in a 6-week-old “Let’s save Elian” campaign.

Alternating between genuine tears and angry chants of “Return Elian!” the audience, many wearing Elian T-shirts, heard a succession of speakers praise “the valiant grandmothers who have taken the battle to the United States” and demand that the “terrorist mafia in Miami” allow the two women to return to Cuba with the boy.

In Washington on Monday, Congress jumped into the tumultuous case, introducing a spate of bills that would make Elian a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident and increase the likelihood that he would stay in America.

The legislation, sponsored by Florida lawmakers and some Republican conservatives, could be taken up in the Senate on Wednesday. The House, which is off for much of this week, is not likely to act until early or mid-February.

The move to grant Elian citizenship is likely to become a political rallying cry for Republicans, who see an opportunity to strike out against Cuban President Fidel Castro, and a headache for Democrats, who are divided on the issue.

President Clinton, who supports the decision by U.S. immigration officials to return the child to Cuba, has not yet said whether he would veto such a measure. Vice President Al Gore, campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, has avoided taking sides.

The action by GOP lawmakers was largely a preemptive tactic: Sen. Connie Mack (R-Fla.), chief Senate sponsor of the legislation, insisted at a news conference that the measure “does not dictate [any specific] outcome” to the case but is merely designed to get the case “out of the jurisdiction of the INS.”

Nevertheless, Mack conceded that if the case were handed over to a family court in Miami--as Elian’s U.S. relatives are asking--it would be unlikely that the boy would be returned to Cuba. The local court would have only limited power to order such a move, and U.S. law makes it difficult to deport a citizen.

The outlook for legislation is uncertain, however. Although Republicans clearly will have the votes needed to push the measures through both houses, Democrats may be able to prevent them from mustering the two-thirds majority they would need to overturn a veto.

Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), a vigorous opponent of efforts to keep Elian in the U.S., introduced a resolution Monday, signed by nine Democrats and one Republican, urging that the boy be sent home.

Clary reported from Miami and Pine from Washington. Times staff writer Mark Fineman in Havana and researcher Anna M. Virtue in Miami contributed to this story.