U.S.

Happy Dads Day, Fidel!

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

June 17, 2000 / 2:56 PM EDT / CBS

Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy still living in the United States seven months into a bitter political fight over his future, has sent a Father's Day greeting to Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Elian's signature headed a letter from him and his entourage of family and friends in Washington, wishing all Cuban fathers -- and especially Castro -- a happy day.

"On this Father's Day, we want to send an affectionate greeting, and a well-deserved kiss, to all of you, especially to one father whom we love dearly for his unrivaled teachings and his infinite love for us, our Commander-in-Chief," said the letter, published in the Cuban Communist Party daily newspaper Granma.

The letter is also signed by Elian's own father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. He has been seeking the six-year-old's return since Elian was rescued at sea off Florida in November following a capsize that killed his mother and 10 other illegal Cuban migrants.

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Castro, 73, is famously secretive about his personal life. He is nonetheless known to have several children, including a daughter in Miami. He fought for custody of his first child, "Fidelito," or "little Fidel," in the years before he came to power in a 1959 revolution .

The boy's fate has split Elian's family, pitted the Castro government against its bitterest enemies in Florida's Cuban American community, and prompted a national debate in the United States over Washington's policy toward the island.

In the latest evidence of that, two prominent U.S. senators announced Friday a bipartisan proposal to set up a national commission of experts to rethink U.S. policy on Cuba. That proposal came during moves in Congress to exclude food and medicine sales from economic sanctions on Cuba.

Cuban-Americans are demonstrating this weekend outside the D-C estate where Elian Gonzalez and his family are staying. Protest organizer Emilio Vazquez says they're using the Father's Day weekend to send a message to Elian's father: stay in the U-S.

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Also on Saturday, more than 250,000 Cubans gathered in the provincial city of Camaguey to demand Elian's return, and denounce the anti-communist Cuban American groups campaigning for him to stay with U.S. relatives in Miami.

In Camaguey, Cuban demonstrators gathered beginning at dawn for the latest event in a massive, patriotic campaign across the Caribbean island that has consisted of daily marches, rallies and TV debates dedicated to the Elian saga.

Called out by local authorities, and led by Castro's brother Raul Castro, who heads the armed forces and is second in Cuba's political hierarchy, the demonstrators waved flags and chanted "Free Elian!" They also listened to a series of patriotic speeches extolling Cuba's political system and condemning "Yankee imperialism."

"We will never tire in our fight. We will not stop until Elian comes back! But our battle continues beyond that, to save our revolution, to save socialism," one young speaker said in this capital of an agricultural zone in central Cuba.

The Father's Day letter from Elian and his entourage -- which Castro critics are likely to see as staged for political benefit -- lamented that they could not be back home to celebrate the day together with other fathers in Cuba.

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"We wanted so much to be with you on this day ... But, as you know, the enemies of the fatherland are making every effort to delay Elian's return," the letter said.

"We are sure that other, happier Father's Days will come, because by then Elian will be iour land, and the millions of Juan Miguels in our country will feel the immense joy of having saved for ever one of their children."

Elian was reunited with his father April 22 after a pre-dawn raid by armed U.S. immigration agents on the house of his U.S. relatives in Miami. Those relatives had refused to give up Elian, since taking him in after the November shipwreck, arguing that he should not be sent back to live under communism.

Despite several U.S. court rulings in favour of Elian's father, the boy is still prohibited from leaving the country, and his father is awaiting the outcome of final appeal attempts by the Miami family.