[HPN] Grand mothers fear Cuban grandson might have been drugged!

[William Tinker]

2-5-2000
TO GROUP:
Whether or not the grandmothers are correct about the drugging of Elian
Gonzalez or not our government was wrong in sticking their nose into this
childs fathers affairs,our constitution upholds a parents inherent rights to
parent these rights are so stated in our constitutions both state and
federal.
"A Brother In Strife And In Peace"
                     Bill

 NEWS HAVANA, Feb. 3 - Something odd happened on Jan. 26 when Elian Gonzalez
 finally saw his two grandmothers in Miami. The reunion fell flat, and the
 grandmothers were bewildered by what they say was a disturbingly different
 6-year-old boy than the one they knew in Cuba. Now the women are saying
they
 believe Elian was drugged.

 THE INTERNATIONAL custody battle over Elian has led to bitter
 accusations by his relatives in Miami and his family in Cuba.

 But everyone agrees on one thing - the center of attention during the
 visit was a small, fearful child. Everyone, however, has a different
 explanation for his behavior.

 After spending 90 minutes with the boy, Elian's grandmothers said they
 found a child they barely recognized. "He has always been a bit of a devil,
 always getting into mischief. Full of fun. Playing tricks on his
grandfather
 and his Uncle Tony," paternal grandmother Mariela Quintana told NBC News.
 "He's now frightened and introverted, withdrawn and silent. He's not the
 grandson I knew."

 Elian was found clinging to an inner tube in the waters off Florida on
 Thanksgiving Day. His
mother and several others who were attempting to flee Cuba for the United
 States died when their boat sank.
 Elian's relatives in Miami were given temporary custody of the boy, but
 quickly became embroiled in a legal battle with his family remaining in
 Cuba, including his father. The dispute turned Elian into a cause celebre
in
 both countries, and only after intense haggling was an agreement reached to
 bring his grandmothers to the United States to see him.

   Elian's grandmothers now suspect the child may have been drugged or
 sedated before their visit. They said in interviews this week that he was
 lethargic and unresponsive.

 "We hugged and kissed him. He didn't respond," said his maternal
 grandmother, Raquel Rodriguez. "We had to lead him to a chair. ... At
first,
 he didn't recognize photos of his family and school friends. It took at
 least an hour before he began to respond and recognize his bicycle, his
 school bag, his friends a
nd his cousin who he played with every day of his life."

 To get a response from the boy, Mariela Quintana even engaged in what
 some view as inappropriate behavior. On national television, she described
 how she playfully bit her grandson's tongue and unzipped his pants

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 Campbell believes officials from the Miami branch of the Immigration
 and Naturalization Service (INS) are responsible for this confusion,
 charging they made a unilateral deal with the Miami family. "The
 grandmothers were not purposely breaking the agreement," she said. "They
 didn't know that agreement had ever been made."

 Even Doris Meissner, the chief of the INS, reportedly complained that
 she had never been consulted or even informed that cell phones were to be
 banned.

 There are at least half-dozen more issues under contention - from
 minor complaints about who was allowed into the house and who was made to
 wait in the driveway to more serious security issues. When the grandmothers
 left the nun's home, for instance, their motorcade was abruptly stopped to
 give time to clear the helicopter pad of hundreds people who allegedly had
been allowed on the site by Miami police.

 As both sides continue to hurl charges, we know the basics about the
 highly charged family meeting: Two grandmothers finally saw a little boy
 they feared was lost to them forever. A motherless child was finally held
in
 the arms of two women he's known all his short life.

 But the meeting ultimately has intensified the conflict between
 Elian's relatives in Miami and his family in Cuba, and Washington and
 Havana, over where the boy should grow up.

 FATHER'S LETTER TO RENO

 In another development, Elian's father has written to U.S. Attorney
 General Janet Reno to reiterate that the boy should be returned to him in
 Cuba, and says that in the meantime his son should be moved to the home of
 another relation in Miami.

 "I am deeply concerned and anguished over the present condition of my
 6-year-old son, Elian Gonzalez, unfairly and cruelly separated from our
 family for over two months," Juan Miguel Gonzalez wrote in a letter sent to
 foreign news agencies early Friday by the government's International Press
 Center.

 The letter was dated Thursday and addressed to Reno and U.S.
Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner, Doris Meissner.

 Elian is staying with his paternal great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, who
is fighting to keep the boy with him in the United States. The boy's father
 wants Elian to stay with Lazaro's brother Manolo, who has said he supports
 the child's return to his father in Cuba.

 "Elian has been under constant harassment and pressure from
 politicians, journalists, lawyers, publicity agents and others unrelated to
 his family," Gonzalez wrote in the letter.

 "The boy has been forced to pose for TV cameras day and night with
 people he does not know and who are unscrupulously manipulating him," he
 wrote. "That rude invasion of his privacy and disrespect for his childhood
 innocence should cease immediately and you should guarantee that such
things
 do not happen again."

 Gonzalez made his requests, "as a father whose full and exclusive
 parental rights you have recognized."

 In addition to returning the boy and moving him to Manolo Gonzalez's
 home until such repatriation takes place, Juan Miguel Gonzalez also
demanded
 "that an end be immediately put to harassment, manipulation, psychological
 pressures and the violation of my son Elian's privacy."

 He also asked for the names and backgrounds of any and all
 psychologists who are reportedly caring for the boy, as well as any
 treatment and medications prescribed.