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Diaz-Balart brothers trace success to rise of Castro *** MIAMI -- Almost a half-century ago, Rafael Diaz-Balart stood up in Cuba's House of Representatives and foretold the future. He warned his fellow legislators they would regret freeing the young revolutionary who had recently attacked a military barracks. "I believe that this amnesty, so imprudently adopted, will bring days, many days of mourning, of pain, of bloodshed and of misery. I ask God that I be the one who is mistaken. For Cuba's sake." To his sorrow, Diaz-Balart was not wrong. He knew Fidel Castro too well. Years before, he had embraced his fellow law student as a friend, introducing him to his sister and to politics. Now, he told his colleagues his brother-in-law would install a "cruel and barbaric regime" that "would be very difficult to overthrow."

But Diaz-Balart could not predict that 47 years later his prophecy would assure his family legacy, propelling two of his sons into the U.S. Congress. On Tuesday, his youngest, Mario, 41, will be sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives, representing a large swath of South Florida. Standing at his side will be his big brother, Lincoln, 48, representing an adjoining district that now takes in a chunk of Pembroke Pines in southwest Broward County. Elected a decade ago, he has been returned four times with little or no opposition. The first Florida brothers to serve in the U.S. House together, the Diaz-Balarts will join Congress' first sister act, Loretta and Linda Sanchez, who represent Orange and Los Angeles counties in California. The brothers are Republicans, the sisters Democrats. But they share the distinction of being the first Hispanic siblings to ascend to such heights of power -- a great source of pride, and sweet irony, to many Cuban-Americans.***

Elian Gonzales is Back in America ("Cuba's Code for the Child and Youth" )***The documentary opens by introducing Operation Pedro Pan, the biggest exodus of unaccompanied children (14,048) in the Western Hemisphere, still largely unknown to the American public!

I introduce the American public to Article 5 of "Cuba's Code for the Child and Youth" from Castro's 1976 Cuban Constitution. This code - unthinkable and unacceptable for Americans - gives the state the right over the raising and education of children in Cuba, officially removing authority from the parents. If that had been explained to Americans as the events of Elian's life unfolded, the public's understanding of what Cuban Americans were trying to say could easily have been very different. The presence of Elisabet Broton, Elian's mother, throughout the dramatic moments of the film stands as a symbolic reminder of the underlying cause of the tragedy.

In this film I try to depict the ongoing, unnecessary struggles of the Cuban people resulting from Castro and his totalitarian regime. It is the story of families divided and being held hostage because of political games and the resulting intolerance for individual freedoms. It reminds the audience that Cubans have been dying in the Florida Straits since 1959 - about 85,876 to date. But the focus is on the most famous survivor of the 13 people who risked their lives seeking freedom in the U.S. Only three of them reached the land of the free. One of them was 5-year old Elian Gonzalez.

This documentary is also a rebuttal to the Clinton administration's handling of the Elian Gonzalez case and the "travesty of justice" - as some interviewees said - committed against a child and his relatives in Miami…………………. A person who saw the documentary said to me. "It left me with a knot in my throat and a desire for what would have been a more humane conclusion to this tragedy. After all, this was a private family matter that was used by Castro and the Clinton administration for political purposes."

This documentary is available on VHS and DVD through www.CubaCollectibles.com Agustin Blazquez, Producer/director of the documentaries COVERING CUBA, COVERING CUBA 2: The Next Generation & COVERING CUBA 3: Elian. Author with Carlos Wotzkow of the book COVERING AND DISCOVERING and translator with Jaums Sutton of the soon to be released book by Luis Grace de Peralta Morell THE MAFIA OF HAVANA: The Cuban Cosa Nostra