CARDENAS, Cuba -- (AP) -- Elian Gonzalez's family was like tens of thousands
 of other Cuban families: forced apart by politics and the Florida Straits but united
 in kinship.

 Of the six siblings who once lived in the family home in Cardenas, four left Cuba
 to make their lives in the United States. Two others -- including Elian's grandfather
 Juan -- stayed behind in the house on Cossio Street, where Elian used to play
 marbles and fly kites with his cousins.

 Elian's grandfather remained loyal to Fidel Castro, serving in his Interior Ministry.
 Still, he stayed on good terms with his Miami relatives, keeping in touch by
 telephone. When Elian's great-uncle, Lazaro, and other relatives visited Cuba last
 year, they stayed in the house on Cossio Street with Juan and his family --
 including Elian and his father, Juan Miguel.

 ``We didn't talk at all about politics here,'' said Yoslaine Llama Garrote, 28, a
 relative whose son used to play with 6-year-old Elian.

 Now those family ties have been torn apart -- largely because politics no longer
 could be ignored.

 Elian, who survived a shipwreck off the Florida coast that killed his mother and 10
 others, is now in the custody of his grandfather's brother, Lazaro -- and the focus
 of a tug-of-war between the Miami and Cuban branches of his family.

 Adamantly opposed to returning the boy to Cuba, Lazaro Gonzalez claims Elian's
 father at first even suggested his son should stay in Miami, something the father
 denies.

 Moved by the boy's rescue, anti-Castro exiles in Florida transformed Elian into a
 poster child for their 41-year struggle against Castro's communist government.
 U.S. Congress members brought him toys and a puppy. One posed with him for
 news photographers and draped him in an American flag.

 Cuban officials say Elian's father asked for their help in bringing his son home.
 Castro responded with a massive publicity campaign. Cuba began using the case
 to whip up patriotism at home, while putting a spotlight on the unusual law which
 gives Cuban exiles treatment unlike any other immigrants to the United States.

 Soon, Elian's fate was transformed into a political struggle on both sides of the
 Florida Straits -- and an internal family rift became an international incident.

 The two sides of the family began exchanging insults and accusations. They
 stopped speaking by telephone, although Elian was allowed to phone his father.

 In Miami, Lazaro and his brother Delfin have accused Castro's government of
 manipulating their Cuban relatives and have brought their battle to keep the child
 to federal and state courts.

 In Cuba, their relatives maintain Lazaro and Delfin are being manipulated by the
 Cuban-American National Foundation and ``the mafia of Miami,'' Cuba's term for
 anti-Castro activists.

 Divisions have arisen even among the Miami brothers. Delfin, who lives with
 Lazaro, reportedly sold two boats to help finance the battle to keep Elian in the
 United States. But another brother, Manuel, told radio stations in Miami that the
 boy should return to his father in Cuba.

 When Elian's grandmothers visited the United States last week, they refused to
 even meet with the Miami relatives. Lazaro, meanwhile, refused to let Elian meet
 the grandmothers at his brother Manuel's house.

 The Gonzalez brothers also have a sister, Caridad, who lives in the Miami area. In
 an interview with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Elian's father
 said Caridad mentioned a multimillion dollar offer by an unnamed church.

 ``Caridad, my father's sister, told my father that the church would take care of us,''
 the boy's father said. ``I could go there with all my family and would be taken care
 of and could have a job if I wanted to work, but with the money offered I would not
 need to do so. That's when I hung up the telephone.''

 Elian's father also expressed irritation at seeing his son on television showered
 with expensive gifts he cannot afford to give him.

 ``What angers me most is seeing how the family has behaved,'' he told CNN last
 week.

 ``What they did is offend all of us -- their brother, me, my mother the
 grandmother,'' he said. ``They have not behaved like family.''

 Llama, who is Manuel's wife's niece, said the case has not affected her
 relationship with her aunt. But, she said, wounds to the other side of the family
 would linger even after Elian's future is resolved.

 ``I think nobody can cure that, she said.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald