----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2001 5:27 AM
Subject: [CTRL] Castro opens Elian
museum
Sunday, 15
July, 2001, 01:50 GMT 02:50 UK
Castro opens Elian
museum
Castro waves the flag for Elian and baby brother
Hianny
By Daniel Schweimler in Cardenas
Cuban President Fidel Castro
has opened a museum where the central theme is
the story of the young Cuban
boy, Elian Gonzalez.
Right behind you, son
Elian was
shipwrecked trying to reach the United States and became the
subject of a
long and bitter custody battle between his relatives in Miami,
backed by
the anti-Castro Cuban American community there, and his father,
supported
by the Cuban Government.
The Oscar Maria Rojas Museum in his hometown,
Cardenas, 135km (85 miles)
east of the capital Havana, is known as the
Museum for the Battle of Ideas
and focuses on the fight for the return of
Elian.
It shows pictures of the boy reunited with his father, the Cuban
flag that
flew outside his grandparents' house during the ordeal and
letters of
support from both the United States and
Cuba.
Jubilation
When the courts in the United States ruled that Elian
Gonzalez could go home
there was jubilation in Cuba.
Castro has
befriended the Gonzalez family
Elian returned to his home town of
Cardenas in central Cuba in June 2000 to
in theory lead a normal
life.
But he is accompanied by bodyguards, Cubans still wear t-shirts
bearing his
face and the slogan 'We saved Elian', and President Castro
attended his
seventh birthday party.
On Saturday Fidel Castro addressed
a crowd, made up mostly of flag-waving
schoolchildren, in a square behind
the new museum.
Elian's family were guests of honour.
Elian has
become a national hero
President Castro praised their bravery and
dignity and spoke of how close he
has grown to them.
Elian's return to
Cuba after a long and highly publicised custody battle in
Miami was seen by
the Cuban authorities as a huge moral victory over the
United
States.
Elian, now seven years old, survived the shipwreck which killed his
mother,
and was taken in by his family in Miami who tried to prevent him
returning
to his father in Cuba.
They failed and Cuba's most famous
child became a symbol of what the Cuban
authorities hail as the latest in a
long list of victories over their old
enemy, the United
States.