ELIAN GRANDMOTHERS LEAVE FOR CUBA, 2000-01-30 (photo)

The grandmothers of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez, Mariela Quintana (L) and Raquel Rodriguez listen as the former General Secretary of the New York-based National Council of Churches Rev. Joan Brown Campbell speaks to the press at Dulles International airport on January 30. The two grandmothers left for Cuba Sunday, without the 6-year-old at the heart of an international custody dispute but grateful for having had a chance to "defend the right of our grandson to go back home." "We think we have reached part of what we were planning to do here. We came to the U.S. to defend the right of our grandson to go back home to Cuba. We think we had a step forward," said maternal grandmother Raquel Rodriguez, who had hoped to return to Havana with her grandson but instead left for home with only a pin bearing his photograph. JAW/JP