c,
Many Merci beaucoups from
New Hampshire.
I think this is astounding
news.
Am sending this to the list so others
can see it too. Did not know you are from the UK.
Thanks,
foxter
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2001 9:14
AM
Subject: [offlist] Re: Re: [CTRL]
Castro opens Elian museum
hey foxter
from the bbc website
mailed offlist as i have used all 7 ctrls
today
c.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, July 15, 2001 1:51
PM
Subject: Re: [CTRL] Castro opens
Elian museum
Kindly, what is the
source for this?
Thank
you.
----- 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.
