-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- Just when you thought you'd heard it all... Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin admitted today she was never alone with Elian Gonzalez's grandmothers and they never told her the things she earlier claimed the grandmothers had told her. Today's editions of the Miami Herald reported that Sister Jeanne claimed one of Elian's grandmothers had told her privately that she wanted to defect; that Juan Miguel Gonzlez, Elian's dad, had been an abusive husband and father; that the father's side of the family had known about and acquiesced to Elin's mother's plan to bring the child to the states; and that Lzaro Gonzlez, Elian's great uncle in Miami, had been told about the plan 10 days before the trip. Commenting on this story, I noted that the Herald reporter, who for once exercised at least a bit of healthy journalistic skepticism, raised questions about whether Sister Jeanne in fact could have had such a conversation with one or both of the grandmothers. She reports that Sister Jeanne is not known for speaking Spanish and that, at most, it is claimed she usually understands "the gist" of what is said in this language. I also pointed out that the claim that Lzaro Gonzlez's family had been notified in advance about the trip is brand new; that this family, through Lzaro's daughter Marisleysis, has said repeatedly (to justify their keeping the child) that the child's dad contacted them and asked them to look after him after the child had been found. This account basically coincides with that given by the boy's dad, although he could not, of course, imagine that his own uncle would try to keep the boy permanently against his wishes. Now the Associated Press is reporting that Barry University spokesperson Michele Morris, on behalf of Sister Jeanne, claims that Sister Jeanne claims that she heard the story, not from the grandmothers, but "from people she [sister Jeanne] trusted." A paper statement attributed by the University spokesperson to the nun states categorically: "I never met with the Grandmothers alone." ``While some of the specifics noted in the Herald contributed to my decision, it is untrue that I heard any of that from the grandmothers. Any information attributed to them came from other sources,'' the statement said. For its part, the Miami Herald is sticking by its story. Executive editor Martin Baron put out a statement affirming, ``We can say without hesitation that our story was an accurate account of what Sister Jeanne told us.'' Moreover the discussion with Sister Jeanne about her understanding of Spanish which is reflected in the Herald story tends to corroborate the Herald's statement. Such a discussion would have been pointless unless the claim was that Sister Jeanne's source was one of the grandmothers. * * * So here's the quick rundown. Sister Jeanne, who claimed to be neutral, as soon as the grandmothers had cleared town used the prominence and credibility she had gained as "neutral" host of their meeting with Elin to openly join the counterrevolutionary campaign to impose U.S. citizenship on Elin as a way of making his kidnapping permanent. To justify her supposedly abrupt shift, Sister Jeanne claimed that she was able to see that Elin had "bonded" with Marisleysis Gonzlez, his 21 year old second aunt (as many Cubans reckon these things) or second cousin (as Americans do). She also claimed that an ambiance of fear surrounded the grandmothers, and that she was able to somehow intuit that this fear was inspired by Fidel a couple of hundred miles away in Cuba rather than by the packs of jackals and hyenas of the Miami annexationist mafia that were all over and around the meeting site. As recently as last Tuesday, Sister Jeanne was sticking by this story of her conversion, version 1.0. She then met with the lawyers for the kidnappers, who impressed on her the need to come up with something dramatic to torpedo Elian's repatriation if Judge Hoeveler tells them to go to hell, as legal experts widely anticipate. Thus was born the nun's story, version 2.0, which the Herald caused a sensation with as soon as they web-published it last night. As often happens, Version 2.0 is quite a different product from 1.0. In this version, she admits what she said before made her seem like a flake, and it wasn't the true dope. Apart from the apparent linguistic difficulty, and the contradiction with the known facts of the case, there were, of course, bugs in the 2.0 story, as is common with any point-oh version of anything. The main one being, if Sister Jeanne knew this all along, why didn't she tell anyone, not even her friend, the attorney general of the United States, who, oh happy coincidence, actually has the power to do something about the outcome of the case on the basis of the information? Hence an upgrade became urgently necessary and now we have version 2.1, where sister Jeanne changes her mind because unnamed "sources" that the good sister "trusts" claim that the grandmothers have been saying these things. And who are these "sources"? Did THEY have it first-hand from the grandmothers, or were they, too, intermediaries for alleged hearsay. Were they in a position to know what the grandmothers really thought? At what time, in what place, and under what circumstances were the "sources" taken into the grandmothers' confidence? And why did they decide to betray the grandmother's trust to Sister Jeanne? And why don't these sources themselves come forward with their accounts, instead of leaving it to a poor, 70-year-old-nun to do all the heavy lifting? As we can see, version 2.1 is even more buggy than version 2.0. Which leads one to wonder, why was it released at all? It certainly does not make sister Jeanne sound any more credible or judicious. Now instead of her OWN observations and intuitions, sister Jeanne is basing her conversion to second, third or fourth-hand rumors about what the grandmothers supposedly said. In fact, she NOW says she was so conscious of how this would sound in public that that is why she did not mention it, because she herself had no personal knowlege of the matter, and those who putatively did weren't speaking. Version 2.1 doesn't help the standing of the lawyers for the kidnappers at all. In the Herald article, they are portrayed by sister Jeanne as having played a key role in convincing her to come forward with her now (admittedly false) version 2.0 at this time in a transparent attempt to influence the outcome of pending litigation by extrajudicial means. The one merit version 2.1 does have is that it takes Sister Jeanne off the hook, legally speaking. Obviously, it would have been necessary for INS to take what Sister Jeanne claimed to have been told by the grandmothers into account. But to do so, the INS would need a sworn version of the story. This would have required some form of official interview, statement, affidavit or deposition. I suspect as soon as it became clear to Sister Jeanne that she would be forced to swear to version 2.0, she hatched version 2.1 and rushed it out the door. No wonder it was buggier than a Microsoft operating system. But version 2.1 does have a great virtue: it is utterly lacking in probative value for legal purposes. Sister Jeanne won't have to swear to this one, it's all hearsay, she now claims there's nothing she can vouch for of her own, direct, personal knowledge. Which puts her in the same category as everyone else in Miami who is supporting the kidnapping. I'm sure on any day you can get 100 people at any streetcorner in Little Havana to swear they've been told by someone they "really trust" that Juan Miguel is a wife beater who wanted his ex to run away with his son, that the grandmothers all want to defect, and much else besides, like that Fidel eats little babies for breakfast. Such is life in "la cuba de ayer" at the dawn of the 21st century. So, once again, another cowardly counterrevolutionary propaganda ambush blows up in the face of its perpetrators. Serves them right. 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