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Cuban government releases photos of teenaged Elian Gonzalez - Yahoo! News
Ten years ago this month, the saga of a Cuban boy named Elian Gonzalez captivated the nation and much of the world. Elian, 6, was found floating on an inner tube off the coast of Florida, after his mother drowned trying to reach America.
The Cuban immigrant community in Florida embraced the boy as a symbol of the struggle of ordinary Cubans to flee the oppression of Fidel Castro's communist regime, and rallied behind the boy's extended family in Miami, which sought custody of young Elian.
But U.S. immigration officials insisted that the boy be returned to his father in Havana. Agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service conducted an armed raid on Elian's adoptive Miami home - yielding a powerful image of paramilitary forces in America menacing a frightened 6-year-old. Florida's Cuban immigrant community brandished that infamous photo as a reminder of what they considered American power effectively doing the bidding of a heartless Castro government.
A decade later, however, there are new photos of a nearly grown-up Elian Gonzalez - and they present a very different kind of propaganda image.
(AP)
The new pictures show a serious-looking 16-year-old sporting a closely cropped haircut, wearing an olive-green military school uniform with red shoulder patches, as he attends a Young Communist Union meeting. The Cuban government press released the images under the none-too-subtle headline "Young Elian Gonzalez defends his revolution in the youth congress."
Ten years ago this month, the saga of a Cuban boy named Elian Gonzalez captivated the nation and much of the world. Elian, 6, was found floating on an inner tube off the coast of Florida, after his mother drowned trying to reach America.
The Cuban immigrant community in Florida embraced the boy as a symbol of the struggle of ordinary Cubans to flee the oppression of Fidel Castro's communist regime, and rallied behind the boy's extended family in Miami, which sought custody of young Elian.
But U.S. immigration officials insisted that the boy be returned to his father in Havana. Agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service conducted an armed raid on Elian's adoptive Miami home - yielding a powerful image of paramilitary forces in America menacing a frightened 6-year-old. Florida's Cuban immigrant community brandished that infamous photo as a reminder of what they considered American power effectively doing the bidding of a heartless Castro government.
A decade later, however, there are new photos of a nearly grown-up Elian Gonzalez - and they present a very different kind of propaganda image.
(AP)
The new pictures show a serious-looking 16-year-old sporting a closely cropped haircut, wearing an olive-green military school uniform with red shoulder patches, as he attends a Young Communist Union meeting. The Cuban government press released the images under the none-too-subtle headline "Young Elian Gonzalez defends his revolution in the youth congress."
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