HAVANA -- (AP) -- The Roman Catholic nun who offered her home for last week's
 meeting between Elian Gonzalez and his grandmothers was an ``instrument'' of
 Miami's anti-communist exile community, a senior Cuban government official
 said.

 Communist officials remained focused on the meeting a week after it took place,
 demonstrating the depth of their anger about the way it was handled, as well as
 their growing frustration as the international child custody dispute drags into its
 third month.

 Jeanne O'Laughlin, a nun of the Dominican order and president of Barry
 University, acted ``like one of the kidnappers,'' during the Jan. 26 meeting at her
 Miami Beach home, said Ricardo Alarcon, Fidel Castro's key man on Cuba-US
 relations. Cuba insists the 6-year-old has been ``kidnapped'' by his Miami
 relatives.

 Elian has been at the center of an international custody battle since shortly after
 being rescued from an inner tube off the Florida coast Nov. 25. The boy's mother
 and 10 other people died when the boat carrying them from Cuba to the United
 States sank.

 Elian's father and four grandparents want the child returned to them in Cuba, but
 the boy's paternal great-uncle and second cousin are fighting to keep him in the
 United States, saying they can give him a better life off the communist island.

 Speaking Wednesday during the second consecutive television program with
 Elian's grandmothers, Alarcon accused O'Laughlin of being ``an instrument of the
 anti-Cuban mafia,'' by breaking the U.S. government's rules for a private reunion
 between grandmothers and child.

 Alarcon, complained that the reunion was interrupted numerous times by another
 nun who brought notes asking that the grandmothers meet with the Miami
 relatives. O'Laughlin reportedly halted the meeting after 90 minutes, short of the
 two-hour minimum reportedly agreed to.

 Meanwhile, Elian's second cousin was allowed to stay next door where she could
 listen in and later share details about the meeting with Miami's news media, said
 Alarcon. Later, O'Laughlin met for dinner with the Miami relatives and then
 announced that she thought that Elian should stay in the United States, he said.

 O'Laughlin has said she favors keeping the boy in the United States, in part
 because she believes the Cuban government is manipulating the family, which
 Rodriguez has denied.

 O'Laughlin's behavior ``has nothing to do with Christianity. It is pure Nazi fascist
 tactics,'' said Alarcon, president of Cuba's unicameral National Assembly and
 former ambassador to the United Nations.

 Elian's paternal grandmother Mariela Quintana and maternal grandmother Raquel
 Rodriguez traveled to the United States late last month for a trip aimed at
 increasing American public opinion in favor of returning the child to the United
 States.

 The first attempt at a meeting with their grandchild failed on Jan. 24, when the
 grandmothers refused to meet with the boy at the home of Elian's Miami family,
 which was surrounded by television cameras and anti-Castro protesters. The
 Miami relatives refused to hold it any other place.

 The U.S. government ordered the Miami family to hold the meeting at a neutral
 site, and O'Laughlin, the president of Barry University, offered her home.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald