Elian Gonzalez, 25 years after custody battle, seeks to bridge divide between Cuba and U.S.
Elian Gonzalez
and return him to Cuba, the now 30-year-old industrial engineer and Cuban National Assembly member reflects on his simple life in Cardenas, his mother's sacrifice and his desire to unite Cubans across the Florida Straits.
The fight over custody of Elian Gonzalez ended on April 22, 2000, when heavily armed federal agents raided the Little Havana home of his Miami family. Elian was seized at gunpoint and returned to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who was soon back in Cuba with his 5-year-old son.
Today, Elian still lives in the house where he grew up.
"I grew up with my family. I grew up with those I had to be with and that makes me very happy," Elian said during a 2023 interview with Liz Oliva Fernandez, an independent Cuban journalist for the U.S.-based media outlet Belly of the Beast.
Elian said during the interview that his life is simple, he is married and has a 4-year-old daughter. Her name is Eliz in honor of his mother Elizabeth, who died at sea during the ill-fated attempt to escape from Cuba.
"My mother was an excellent mother," Elian said. "She lost her life trying to save me. And looking for a better place to live. She was also a victim of that policy of sanctions against Cuba that makes Cubans want to emigrate."
Elian was elected to a seat in the Cuban National Assembly. He represents the city of Cardenas. He says he has never regretted returning to Cuba and that he's led a normal life despite the popularity he gained during the international custody fight that saw protests on the streets of Miami and Cuba.
"Oh, I'll never forget that day," said former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz. He was an attorney for Elian's Miami relatives. Diaz fought court battles to keep the boy in the U.S., facing off against then-Attorney General Janet Reno, whose hometown was Miami. Reno knew the passion Elian's story ignited in Miami.
"The whole thing became very political." Diaz said. "It took on a life of its own with the family pitted against each other in a very adversarial way that didn't have to be."
Liz Oliva Fernandez, the Cuban journalist who interviewed Elian in 2023, said Elian wants to reunite Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits. You can see the entire interview here at
www.bellyofthebeastcuba.com
"I really believe he wants to build bridges between Cuba and the United States," Oliva Fernandez said. "I believe he wants to find a balance between the two sides."
Elian added that he wants to make sure no other mother risks her life or the life of a child trying to escape conditions in Cuba like his mother did 25 years ago.
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Miami Herald
11 hours ago
- Miami Herald
These companies appear in secret documents of Cuba's largest military conglomerate
A Miami Herald investigation that revealed that a Cuban military conglomerate is holding billions in secret dollar reserves amid the ongoing collapse of the economy shows the island's armed services have created a network large of companies that tap into almost every string of foreign revenue entering the island.. Secret financial documents obtained by the Herald show that GAESA, the military's umbrella company that has a multitude of subsidiaries, had $18 billion in current assets as of March 2024, most of it deposited in unknown bank accounts. The Herald obtained more than 20 financial statements from GAESA's internal accounting system for March and August 2024. The Herald also obtained a PowerPoint presentation with financial information from Cimex's, the largest holding company under the umbrella. Financial statements for March and August last year, titled 'Balance de datos' (Data Balance) and 'Estado de Resultados por Conceptos '(roughly translated as income statement by concept), identify 25 companies in the conglomerate, grouped into three categories: state enterprises, 'international economic associations,' and mipymes, the Spanish acronym for micro, small, and medium enterprises. The Cuban government uses the 'international economic associations' category to authorize contracts with foreign firms to manage Cuban hotels, exploit natural resources and similar partnerships. It may involve the creation of new companies in a 'joint venture' or just a contract for services. Cimex's presentation mentioned six of its companies, though most were not named. Some of the companies named in the documents obtained by the Herald have not been previously identified as being part of GAESA. That includes Aries S.A., the company that operates the cruise terminal in Havana, which was used by several cruise companies taking U.S. travelers to the island between 2016 and 2019. Cimex is believed to be the island's largest commercial corporation, with businesses in several sectors including international trade, retail, tourism, banking, transportation, logistics and real estate among others. According to a 2020 research paper authored by a Cimex analyst, the holding had 41 enterprises at the time. It also operated 668 gas stations around the country in 2020, according to the declaration of its legal director, Mali Suris Valmaña, in a U.S. court case involving a lawsuit filed by Exxon against Cimex. In her declaration, Valmaña spilled the beans regarding Cimex's true ownership: the Cuban company is owned by Corporación CIMEX, S.A, registered in Panama. GAESA and many of its companies, including Cimex, are under U.S. sanctions, though several mentioned in the documents are not. Here is the list of the companies named in the documents obtained by the Herald: Monte Barreto, a real estate company that owns and operates the Miramar Trade Center, an office and retail building complex in Havana in a joint venture with Ceiba Investments Ltd, a company registered in the Isle of Guernsey, a tax haven. Azul Inmobiliaria, a real estate company that manages condominiums in partnership with an Italian company, BD International. Logística Hotelera del Caribe (LHC), a joint venture based at the special development zone in Mariel that sells food and supplies to hotels in Cuba. Complejo de Museos Históricos Militares, (Military History Museum Complex), an enterprise that manages the Museum of Revolution, the Morro Castle and the Cabaña fortress in de Aceite Ecasol (Ecasol Oil Marketing Company), a cooking oil commercialization company. Comercializadora de Aceite Ecasol (Ecasol Oil Marketing Company), a cooking oil commercialization de Servicios Generales de la Marina (Maritime General Services Company). The Herald could not find public information about this company. Empresa de Servicios Ingenieros Dirección Integrada de Proyectos Mariel (Mariel Integrated Project Management Engineering Services Company), a company handling port, logistics, infrastructure and building projects at the special development zone in Inmobiliaria Almest, a real estate company investing in Importadora Tecnotex, (Technical Products Importer and Exporter Company, also known as Tecnoimport), a company mired in an alleged corruption scandal in TRD-Caribe, one of the island's largest hard currency stores S.A., an airline flying Universales S.A., a logistics company that handles operations at the port of Antex S.A., (previously known as Corporación Antillana de Exportaciones, SA), a corporation contracting doctors and managing businesses in S.A. (also known as Empresa Comercializadora y Exportadora de Productos Agropecuarios y Agroindustriales, S.A.) is an importer and exporter of agricultural products, which functions as an intermediary for private enterprises importing food y Extracción de Petróleo y Gas S.A (Oil and Gas Exploration and Extraction S.A.). The Herald could not find public information about a company with this name. A similarly named company (Unión de Exploración, Perforación y Extracción de Petróleo) merged with Union del Combustible in 1992 to create CUPET, Cuba's main oil de Turismo Gaviota S.A., GAESA's flagship tourism companyInmobiliaria Caribe S.A., a real estate company providing 'rental services in prime areas of the capital,' according to its Facebook Marítimos S.A. (Maritime Services S.A.). The Herald could not find public data about a company with this name. Cuba's Communist Party newspaper Granma reported last year that a new Cuban company named Servicios Marítimos Mariel S.A. operating at the special development zone in Mariel, would offer customs services, processing of manifests and supplies to ships and crews at the port of Automotores S.A., a company importing and selling cars and car de Auditoría S.A., a company providing auditing services with its main office in Miramar, in a company that operates the cruise terminal in the port of Havana. It was previously believed to be affiliated with GEMAR, a holding company part of the Ministry of Importadora y Exportadora de Productos Técnicos (Technical Products Importer and Exporter Company, also known as Tecnoimport), a company sued by Russian truckmaker Ural for Moncada, a new cement factory built last year in Santiago de Cuba. The administration of the plant was offered as an investment project in 2021, according to a document by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment. Agencia Importadora Caribe Surl, an importer Grafo Caribe Surl, an advertising company. Both are linked to TRD Caribe, the store chain, the documents show. Cimex Mariel, a company based in the Mariel Special Development Zone that produces and sells coffee under the brands Cubita and Financiera CIMEX, a company handling remittances and credit cards transactions in Cimex S.A., a real estate S.A. ( Zona Especializada de Logística y Comercio, ZELCOM S.A), a free trade zone near Tarará S.A., a lodging and rentals S.A., an information technology company offering 'applications, technology and network solutions,' according to its profile on Facebook.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
In Cuba, Castro's 'influencer' grandson causes a stir
Cuban influencer Sandro Castro has chosen a very different path to his revolutionary grandfather Fidel, using his name to pursue online fame while occasionally poking fun at the island's dire shortages of food, medicine, power and fuel. It is a pastime some find entertaining, even fair commentary, but the 33-year-old is coming under increasing scrutiny from those loyal to Cuba's communist project for disrespecting his ancestor's legacy. For others locked in a daily struggle for survival, the younger Castro's high-flying lifestyle and apparent lack of empathy is offensive on a whole different level. On his Instagram account, Sandro regales his 127,000 followers with images of him partying, at times with scantily-clad women, often with a beer in hand. He is sometimes dressed as a monk or a vampire, sporting cat whiskers or the jersey of the Barcelona football club. From time to time, he mocks the struggles engendered by the country's worst economic crisis in three decades. "I woke up today with my favorite recipe, chicken with beer... but there is no chicken,' he says in one post while holding up a bottle of the national lager, Cristal. He also jokes about the power outages that have plagued the island, suggestively addressing a woman with the words: "If I caught you like the UNE (electric company), I'd get you every four hours, Monday to Monday." The character entertains some, annoys others, but never fails to make a splash. Castro's followers jokingly refer to him as the "next president," but voices aligned with the communist government are demanding he be silenced. Loyalist historian and author Ernesto Limia complained on Facebook that Castro "does not respect the memory" of his famous grandfather, who led the revolution that toppled a dictatorship and installed a communist government. "El Necio," an online influencer, has argued that Sandro Castro "goes against the security of this country" and "against the ideals" of the revolution. Despite his famous name, some believe Castro may be pushing his luck. Activists and critics in Cuba are often rounded up for sharing anti-government views, and several are serving sentences for crimes such as "contempt" or disseminating "enemy propaganda." - 'Little toys' - Manuel Cuesta Morua, a dissident historian who has been detained multiple times for his democratic activism, said the Sandro phenomenon embodied "the distance of the grandchildren's generation from the original revolutionary project." It also put Castro in stark contrast to the rest of his family, who unlike him enjoy their privileged status "discreetly," he said. While Fidel Castro was alive, Cubans knew very little about his second wife Dalia Soto del Valle and their five sons -- one of whom is Sandro's father, Alexis Castro Soto del Valle, 63. The family lived out of the public eye in Punto Cero, an extensive wooded area west of Havana with access controlled by the military. In 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Sandro came into the spotlight in a leaked video that showed him driving a luxurious Mercedes-Benz. "We are simple people, but every now and then we have to take out these little toys we have at home," he said in the clip that went viral and sparked public outrage, forcing him to apologize. Three years later, he caused another stir by celebrating his birthday at a bar he owns in the capital, burning massive neon lights and dancing on tables as the country reeled from the after-effects of a massive blackout. lp/mlr/mlm
Los Angeles Times
15 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
With only one nuclear arms pact left between the U.S. and Russia, a new arms race is possible
For decades, the threat of nuclear conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet Union hung over humanity — and occasionally the superpowers edged toward the brink, as with the Cuban missile crisis. But beginning in the 1970s, American and Soviet leaders started taking steps toward de-escalation, leading to a handful of critical treaties, including the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty that eliminated an entire class of nuclear-capable missiles. The pact was terminated in 2019 after the U.S. withdrew. On Tuesday, Russia announced it was ending self-imposed restrictions on the deployment of the missiles covered in the agreement. That leaves just one nuclear arms pact between Moscow and Washington still standing: New START, which experts say is on the ropes and set to expire in February in any case. While the end of nuclear weapons agreements between the U.S. and Russia does not necessarily make nuclear war more likely, 'it certainly doesn't make it less likely,' said Alexander Bollfrass, an expert on nuclear arms control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Moscow and Washington are still signatories to multilateral international treaties that aim to prevent the spread and use of nuclear weapons, but the increasingly erratic relationship between the countries, combined with the dwindling treaties, has many worried. Survivors of the atomic bomb dropped 80 years ago Wednesday by the U.S. on the Japanese city of Hiroshima expressed frustration about the growing support of global leaders for nuclear weapons as a deterrence. In 1986, the Soviet Union had more than 40,000 nuclear warheads, while the U.S. had more than 20,000, according to the Federation of American Scientists. A series of arms control agreements sharply reduced those stockpiles. The federation estimated in March that Russia has 5,459 deployed and non-deployed nuclear warheads, while the U.S. has 5,177. Together, that's about 87% of the world's nuclear weapons. In May 1972 — a decade after the Cuban missile crisis — the U.S. and Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks I, or SALT I, which was the first treaty that placed limits on the number of missiles, bombers and submarines carrying nuclear weapons. At the same time, they also signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, or ABM, putting restrictions on missile defense systems that protect against a nuclear strike. Then, in 1987, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan inked the INF treaty, banning missiles with a range of 310 to 3,410 miles. President Trump withdrew from the pact during his first term, citing Russian violations that Moscow denied. The White House also said it placed the U.S. at a strategic disadvantage to China and Iran, neither of which was party to the agreement and each of which it said had more than 1,000 INF-range missiles. The Kremlin initially said it would abide by its provisions, but on Tuesday, it ended that pledge. Even before that, Moscow test-fired its new intermediate-range Oreshnik hypersonic missile at Ukraine in November. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said those missiles will be deployed to Russia's neighbor and ally Belarus later this year. Meanwhile, the START I nuclear arms reduction treaty signed in 1991 reduced the strategic arsenals of U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads, as well as missiles, bombers and submarines carrying them. It has since expired. Another treaty, START II, was signed but never entered into force. In 2002, then-President George W. Bush withdrew from the ABM agreement after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks because of concerns that the agreement limited U.S. capabilities to counter attacks, including from countries such as Iran or North Korea. Russia strongly opposed the move, fearing that it would allow the U.S. to develop a capability that would erode its nuclear deterrent. The last remaining bilateral treaty — New START, signed in April 2010 — aimed to set limits on deployed nuclear weapons and launchers and enforce on-site inspections. It, too, is 'functionally dead,' said Sidharth Kaushal, a senior fellow in military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute in London. It expires on Feb. 5, and Russia already suspended its participation after its invasion of Ukraine, resulting in a halt of on-the-ground inspections of Russian nuclear sites. Moscow said, however, it would continue to abide by the pact's limits on its nuclear forces. The INF and New START treaties, in particular, led to 'serious on-the-ground inspections' that lowered tensions in Europe, Bollfrass said. Their end could rachet up tensions between the two Cold War adversaries, experts said. But they also reflect a broader interest in conventionally armed intermediate-range missiles, the experts said, pointing to the planned U.S. deployment of such missiles to Europe and the Pacific, as well as Israel's and Iran's use of missiles during their recent war. New bilateral agreements on nuclear weapons between the U.S. and Russia in the immediate future are 'highly unlikely' because the level of trust necessary to negotiate and follow through with an arms control agreement does not exist, Kaushal at RUSI said. And the U.S. is increasingly looking at other threats. Both the Bush and Trump administrations withdrew from treaties with Russia partly by citing concerns that the agreements didn't place limits on other countries' build-up of nuclear weapons. As China increasingly becomes a nuclear peer of the U.S. and Russia, it could drive a 'competitive spiral' in which Washington could develop more nuclear, as well as conventional, weapons to counter what it perceives as a threat from Beijing, Kaushal said. Any increase in U.S. intermediate- or long-range weapons could, in turn, drive Russia to increase its own nuclear arsenal, he said. But even as Cold War treaties end, Cold War thinking may endure. The possibility of mutually assured destruction may still demand restraint, the experts said. Burrows writes for the Associated Press.
