Wednesday, January 19, 2000
The University Daily Kansan
Section B · Page 7
World
Custody case hits close to Castro
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The Associated Press
HAVANA — If Fidel Castro seems to be taking the case of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez personally, it may be because he was party himself to a custody battle involving his first-born son more than four decades ago.
Like Elian, Fidelito Castro Diaz had parents with very different visions for their child's future. Then, as now, the situations underscore the politics and passions that for more than two generations have torn apart Cuban families living on both sides of the Florida Straits.
While Castro recently blamed the extremist and terrorist mafia of South Florida for keeping Elian in Miami and blocking his return to his legitimate family and homeland, the Elian's battle is not between the Cuban and U.S. governments. It is a fight within the Cuban family — one that has even touched Castro's.
According to biographers, Castro's ex-wife, Mirta Diaz-Balart, filed for divorce in the mid-1950s, when he was imprisoned in Cuba for an
attack on a Santiago military barracks that launched the Cuban revolution.
Before the divorce was final, Mirta Diaz-Balart left for the United States with Fidelito, who was then 5.
During the divorce battle, the mother was granted custody, but Castro insisted that the child be returned to Cuba, Tad Szulc writes in Fidel: A Critical Portrait, a biography published in 1986. Castro's wife's brother, Rafael Diaz-Balart, was an official in the government of President Fulgencio Batista, which Castro was trying to overthrow. Castro worried about the influence the Diaz-
his son, one of eight children Castro is known to have fathered.
Castro. Fought for custody of his own son.
After leaving prison, Castro continued to fight for custody, saying that if he lost in court it would
After being released from prison, Castro went to Mexico to prepare for a guerrilla war against the Batista government.
reaffirm his principles and determination to fight until death to live in a more decent republic.
While there, Castro persuaded Mirta Diaz-Balart to send him the boy for a two-week visit. He never sent him back, Robert E. Quirk writes in the 1993 biography Fidel Castro.
Later, when Castro's sisters visited and took Fidelito for a stroll in Mexico City's Chapultepec Park, three armed men jumped from a car and grabbed the boy, Quirk wrote. Mirta Diaz-Balart flew to Mexico to pick the child up.
Despite protests from Castro's sisters, the Mexican government said the mother had custody rights to the boy.
Most of the Diaz-Balart family eventually emigrated to Miami, with the exception of Mirta Diaz-Balart, who was last known to be living in Spain.
Her nephew, U.S. Rep. Lincoln DiazBalart, RFla., has been instrumental in the battle to keep Elian in the United States.
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