Posted on 08/01/2004 2:57:57 PM PDT by Libloather
4 years after return to Cuba, Elian a normal schoolboy
BY MAKI BECKER
New York Daily News
Posted on Sat, Jul. 31, 2004
NEW YORK - (KRT) - Elian Gonzalez, now 10, hits the books in Cardenas, Cuba, where he lives with his father.
Four years after little Elian Gonzalez was plucked from the seas off Florida's coast and sparked an international custody battle, the young boy is leading a sheltered and almost normal life back in Cuba.
Elian lives with his father in their hometown of Cardenas and he still sports the same impish grin that captivated the world back in 2000.
In an interview with NBC's "Dateline" to air Sunday, Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, says he has generally kept Elian out of the limelight, even moving to a secret location in town to avoid the press.
"The media (in Miami) intimidated him, pressured him most of all," Gonzalez said in his first interview in three years. "It totally overwhelmed him."
As Elian's American relatives fought to keep him in the U.S. and his father sought to take him back to Cuba, hundreds of reporters camped out outside their Miami home, recording every movement of the photogenic little boy.
The custody clash even led to a war of words between Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and the boy's fiercely anti-Castro American relatives.
The stalemate ended dramatically as heavily armed federal officers stormed the house in the middle of the night, snatched the terrified boy and took him into protective custody.
Elian still grieves for his mother who drowned when their boat capsized on its way to Florida, Gonzalez said, but he has adjusted to life well.
"I can truly say that since his return, my son has never had to see a psychologist, or anyone else," Gonzalez told "Dateline NBC."
Elian is learning karate and has two girlfriends, Gonzalez reports.
Yeah, that's right.
Bill Clinton, Janet Reno, the National Council of Churches, and Fidel Castro...stalwart bastions of parental rights that they are.
Elian was sold, his price set by Castro to Dwayne Andreas and ADM, whose food production plant in Cuba was not nationalized by Fidel in return for Andreas' hand in getting the boy back to his jail.
Gee the Miami Herald reports outrage for Martinez saying Castor is in essence SCUM for sending the boy back, and now we have happy happy hakuna matata images of elian is kite flying Cuba.
A slave is a SLAVE no matter what the MSM says.
Imagine his much better future in the USA.
I, for one, was in favor of his deportation.
Just as I am in favor of deporting all who enter our country illegally.
It's a shame that cuba is such a rotten place, but too bad for them.
Actually Elian did come here legally. There is a specific provision which allowed Cuban to defect to the USA. It is similar to the provision that allowed USSR defectors to come to the USA by defecting.
Elian was NOT illegal.
Elian was a SLAVE issue not a "parental rights" issue.
.
NEVER FORGET
ELIAN's -Cold Dead Eyes- in Cuba
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a395a99a7020f.htm
NEVER FORGET
.
bless you, Luis, and take care. This is what I'm doing now that we're in the surreal waiting uncertain phase up here. Hope and pray all goes well for us all, considering all that is at stake.
When is a 'cane not just a 'cane -- when it's an election year.
Oh yes I know. We watched evil prevail over good and that adds to it. We did our best and we will never feel the personal shame for it.
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