The re-conquest by Colonial Ecuador.: Elian Gonzalez leaves Cuba for first time since bitter custody battle

Monday, December 9, 2013

Elian Gonzalez leaves Cuba for first time since bitter custody battle

Note from Blog: Remember this boy? If he is antying like the THOUSANDS of other Cubans who are migrating to Ecuador.....he will finnally get his wish to leave Communist Cuba. Unless..they have not already brainwashed him.

By Bill Hutchinson AND Irving Dejohn / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Monday, December 9, 2013, 10:31 AM

Ismael Francisco/AP

There's no question where Elian Gonzalez' allegiance lies. Gonzalez, now 20, is a military cadet studying engineering. He left Cuba for the first time since the bitter custody dispute in 2000.

Elian Gonzalez has taken his first trip out of Cuba since his ill-fated 2000 escape from the Communist island that thrust him into an international custody dispute.
Gonzalez, who turned 20 on Friday, traveled to Quito, Ecuador, with a 200-person Cuban delegation for a weeklong youth conference, according to reports.
RELATED: TEN YEARS LATER: GROWNUP ELIAN GONZALEZ ISN'T HOLDING A GRUDGE

ALAN DIAZ/AP

The international fight over where Gonzalez would live ended with him returning to Cuba. In this picture, armed federal agents seized Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives before dawn, firing tear gas into an angry crowd as they left the scene with the weeping 6-year-old boy.

Despite being out of the international spotlight for more than a decade, Gonzalez told Cuban reporters that the infamous guardianship battle continues to make him a recognizable face.
“Wherever I go there’s always a child, an old woman that comes to me and wants to meet me,” Gonzalez told CNN. “Not because I’m famous, but because they suffered with my family.”
RELATED: OBAMA FREE TO CHANGE U.S.-CUBA POLICY

JORGE REY/AP

Then-leader Fidel Castro led the charge in Cuba to get Gonzalez returned to his native land. Gonzalez recently called the infamous Castro a 'father' figure.

Gonzalez was 6 when he was found off the coast of Florida clinging to an inner tube after a rickety boat sank, killing his mother and nine others.
He was placed with relatives in Miami, but his father Juan Miguel successfully fought to have him returned to Cuba.
RELATED: ELIAN JOINS YOUNG COMMUNISTS

Adalberto Roque/AP

Cuba's President Raul Castro (left) and Elian Gonzalez attend an official event in Havana in 2010. The two appeared together to mark the 10-year annivesary of the politcally charged custody battle.

The nation’s leader at the time, Fidel Castro, battled to have little Elian returned to his native Cuba. Protesters flooded the streets at the peak of the controversial cusody fight, which ended in the boy being sent back to Cuba.
Gonzalez is now studying industrial engineering and is a military cadet, CNN reported.
RELATED: ELIAN FINE 4 YEARS AFTER: DAD
Gonzalez, who has clearly become a die-hard Cuban nationalist, recently said that his reverance for Castro is boundless. Gonzalez’s image of Castro is an blend of deity and dad.
“Fidel Castro for me is like a father,” Gonzalez recently told a Cuban paper. “I don’t profess to have any religion, but if I did my God would be Fidel Castro. He is like a ship that knew to take his crew on the right path.”
idejohn@nydailynews.com
Follow me on Twitter: @IrvingDeJohn