Elian Gonzalez wishes Castro well

Herald Sun ^ | 7 August 2006

[Aussie Dasher]

ELIAN Gonzalez, the Cuban boy who became the celebrated object of a 2000 US-Cuba tug-of-war wished Cuban leader Fidel Castro a speedy recovery from surgery.

"We send you this letter so that you know that we are concerned about your health," Elian Gonzalez, now 13, said in a letter also signed by five other children in his family and published today in the official newspaper, Juventud Rebelde.

A week ago, Mr Castro, 79, handed power "temporarily" to his younger brother, Defence Minister Raul Castro, while undergoing surgery for intestinal bleeding.

In November 1999, Elian, who was six at the time, was plucked from the sea off Florida's coast after an overcrowded motorboat capsized en route from Cuba, killing his mother and 10 others seeking to enter the United States illegally.

Elian's relatives in the Cuban American community in Miami laid claim to the boy and refused to allow him to return to his father in communist-run Cuba.

In 2000, heavily armed agents broke into the Miami home of Elian's uncle after then-US attorney-general Janet Reno ordered the boy be returned to his father, who was allowed to fly to Miami to pick up his son.

Elian's return to Cuba came as a hard-fought political boon to Mr Castro, who leads the Americas' only one-party communist country, for which illegal emigration is an embarrassing everyday reality.

The boy and his father became national celebrities, with Mr Castro attending the boy's birthday parties and the father being elected to the legislature.

[jschwartz]

That's true of the entirety of Cuba. The shame of Elian Gonzalez was the revelation of Janet Reno and her President, as shameful cobardes (cowards).

[butternut_squash_bisque]

I remember that disgraceful event as if it were yesterday.

[ichabod1]

I didn't know that. Thanks. That makes it even more of a travesty.