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Castro Celebrates Elian's 9th Birthday - Fatherland or Death! *** But few 9-year-olds have a museum dedicated to the fight for their custody - a struggle communist officials call "the battle of ideas." Few see the Cuban leader show up at their school and take a seat beside their father, as Castro did Friday beside Juan Miguel Gonzalez. Castro also appeared at Elian's 7th birthday. After a tumultuous, screaming greeting from the children, Castro joined the students in roaring with laughter at a troupe of clowns and sat solemnly as 11-year-old Cynthia Berrio read a welcome praising his "infinite tenderness" and ending with her echoing Castro's traditional cry: "Fatherland or death!"

The 76-year-old Castro, dressed in a military uniform, tossed an arm around her shoulder, questioned her about the school and gave students a brief history lesson of the sort Elian would not have received in Miami. When she said students were studying the history of colonialism, Castro broke in, "Colonialism or neo-colonialism?" Colonialism, he explained, was the 400-year era of Spanish rule in Cuba. "Then came neo-colonialism, when the neighbors to the north (Americans) ... made themselves owners of everything in their path," he told the children.***