Reno holds talks with Elian's kin

Attorney General Janet Reno met with the relatives of Elian Gonzalez's for 2 1/2 hours Wednesday in Miami, trying to persuade them to take the 6-year-old to his Cuban father in Washington.<br><br>The

Thursday, April 13th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Attorney General Janet Reno met with the relatives of Elian Gonzalez's for 2 1/2 hours Wednesday in Miami, trying to persuade them to take the 6-year-old to his Cuban father in Washington.

The meeting ended without a concrete agreement or deadline to hand the boy over, although Justice Department officials had said before the meeting that Ms. Reno was prepared to order the family to hand over Elian at a Miami airport on Thursday or Friday.

Ms. Reno met with the family at the home of Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, the president of Barry University. The family chose the Miami Beach site as a refuge Wednesday, and the home was also the site of an earlier, controversial encounter between the Miami family and Elian's grandmothers.

Elian attended the meeting, Sister O'Laughlin said, moving from lap to lap at the table.

Sister O'Laughlin said there was talk of a meeting tomorrow in Washington involving the Miami relatives and that attorneys for the two sides would speak either late Wednesday or early Thursday.

"She was very respectful, and they were very honest," she said. "The pain of this family and their understanding of the pain of [Elian's father] . . . was very evident. They have expressed over and over again their . . . desire to be a loving family whole again."

Before Ms. Reno arrived, the nun told reporters that the Miami relatives sensed that the boy's ordeal, after nearly five months, appeared near its end.

"I think the family is getting more reconciled and facing what perhaps could be pain," she said.

Ms. Reno's trip followed a confusing night Tuesday in which the boy's custodian, his great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, appeared to agree to take Elian to Washington only to reject the pact, saying Elian did not want to go.

Mr. Gonzalez has fought a January government decision that Elian should be returned to his father. The boy has stayed at Mr. Gonzalez's Miami home since he was rescued Thanksgiving Day after a boat wreck in which his mother and others fleeing Cuba were killed.

Demonstrators have maintained a steady vigil at Mr. Gonzalez's home in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood. Sister O'Laughlin said the boy's primary caregiver, cousin Marisleysis Gonzalez, had chosen her home because of the constant stress from demonstrations and the increasing pressure to resolve the boy's fate.

The nun's home, however, soon drew its own small crowd Wednesday afternoon. About 50 protesters gathered and trucked in a 6-foot statue of San Lazaro, a Cuban saint.

"We brought him here to see if he gives us a hand and performs a miracle," said the statue's owner, Reinaldo Ramos, 57, who moved from Cuba in the 1950s. "This is a big day for us because [Elian] is with the monjita [little nun]."

Sister O'Laughlin, a friend of Ms. Reno's, became a divisive figure in the Elian case after hosting an earlier encounter of the Gonzalez family. Ms. Reno chose the college president's beachside home as a neutral site for a meeting among the Miami relatives, Elian and the boy's grandmothers when they traveled from Cuba in late January.

After the encounter, Sister O'Laughlin called for keeping Elian in the United States. She said another custody transfer would harm the boy and that she sensed fear from the grandmothers because of close oversight by Cuban authorities.

Sister O'Laughlin emphasized again Wednesday that Elian and his cousin had formed a strong bond. She said the boy had refused to leave his great-uncle's home unless the family traveled first to the hospital where the cousin was recovering from stress-related exhaustion.

At Sister O'Laughlin's home, Ms. Gonzalez emerged from a car carrying Elian.

While in Miami, the attorney general also plans to meet with community and political leaders. She grew up in south Florida and served there as an elected prosecutor.

"The attorney general is very much involved in this process now," Justice Department spokesman Myron Marlin said. "It is her desire that all parties get together and work out an agreement."

Ms. Reno's arrival sent a stir through the small group of demonstrators who began chanting, "Justice for Elian."

Left waiting

The failed agreement for the family to take Elian to Washington on Wednesday left Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, waiting at the Washington-area home of a Cuban diplomat - and his attorney fuming about what he said was a broken agreement.

"We were surprised by Lazaro's announcement at midnight last night that he would not be traveling with Elian to Washington, D.C., today," attorney Gregory Craig told reporters. "Every day of delay, as we have seen in the recent hours, does enormous damage to Elian."

Juan Gonzalez came to the United States a week ago. His arrival emboldened the Justice Department, which stepped up pressure on Lazaro Gonzalez to hand over the boy.

Leaders of a Cuban exile group said the family, led by Elian's great-uncle, never agreed to transfer the child to the father.

"The meeting was not to be a hand-over of Elian," said Jorge Mas Santos, head of the Cuban American National Foundation. "The meeting was a forum so this family, among themselves, could decide as a family what was in the best interest of Elian."

But Mr. Craig has repeatedly told federal officials that the father won't meet with the family unless it was to retrieve custody.

"To us, the essence of yesterday's agreement was precisely that - the voluntary transfer of Elian's custody," he said.

The broker of Tuesday's night agreement was Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., whose home state includes a large Cuban exile population. A spokeswoman for the senator on Wednesday declined to describe the senator's role or why the agreement fell apart.

David LaGesse reported from Washington and Nancy San Martin from Miami. The Associated Press contributed to this report.