Dec 7, 2007 7:12 pm US/Eastern
Castro Calls Elian To Wish Him 'Happy Birthday'
HAVANA (CBS4) ―
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Elian Gonzalez (file photo)
CBS
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Elian Gonzalez held by Donato Dalrymple as Border Patrol agents enter Miami home of Lazaro Gonzalez on April 22, 2000.
AP
Elian Gonzalez, who as a boy was the focus of an international custody battle, said ailing President Fidel Castro called him Thursday to wish him a Happy Birthday and told him he was doing well.
"It was a very exciting moment," said Gonzalez, who turned 14 this month.
"He is feeling very well. He wished me Happy Birthday," Gonzalez said.
The youth spoke with Cuba's state television his hometown of Cardenas, where National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon headed a celebration of the launch of Cuba's "Battle of Ideas," the ideological campaign that Castro began during the monthslong tug-of-war to return the boy to his father on the island.
Gonzalez returned to Cuba in 2000 after armed U.S. federal agents seized him from Miami relatives, with whom he lived after his mother died when their U.S.-bound boat capsized in the Florida Straits. The boy was among only three would-be immigrants who survived in the group, and was found in the ocean clinging to an inner tube.
Gonzalez's great-uncle in Miami led the fight to keep him in the United States, sparking a debate about parental rights.
The "Battle of Ideas" has since become a kind of social works program aimed at increasing support for the communist-run system.
Castro, now 81, has not been seen in public for more than 16 months since announcing he had undergone intestinal surgery for a still undisclosed ailment and provisionally ceding power to his younger brother Raul, the defense minister and his constitutionally appointed successor.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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