Havana - Elian Gonzalez, the child at the centre of a heated custody disputebetween the US and Cuba in 2000,has joined the youth wing of the Communist Party of Cuba, the party newspaper Granma reported Monday. Gonzalez, now 14, swore loyalty to the Castro brothers who have ruled the Carribbean island for half a century. Granma featured him with a photograph and comments in its online English edition.
"We say to the leader of the revolution, Fidel Castro, and President Raul Castro that they can rely on these valiant troops, that we will continue to follow their example and never disappoint them," Gonzalez was quoted as saying.
Gonzales was only six when he left Cuba in a refugee boat in 1999 with his mother, who died during the journey. He managed to make it to land, where an uncle in Florida took him in and fought to keep him in the US.
But US courts insisted he be returned to Cuba and to his father, who with the backing of then-president Fidel Castro fought a huge publicity campaign for his repatriation.
The case incited high emotions in Cuba and in Florida's exile community in the midst of a presidential election year. The images of a US soldier holding an automatic weapon on the small Gonzalez as he cowered in a closet, and then forcibly removing him from the house, left an indelible image in the US Hispanic community.
US President George W Bush won the 2000 elections over Democrat Al Gore by the skin of his teeth in the dramatic recount of Florida's votes -in part thanks to Latino voters angry with the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton for carrying out the court order.
In the Granma story, Gonzalez acknowledged the "great challenges" ahead in school on the way to becoming "the educated individuals that our homeland needs."
