DPA/Miami
Elian Gonzalez, who at six was the sole survivor of a migrant boat sinking and then made international headlines as the subject of a custody battle between his native Cuba and the US, said he is willing to visit his family in Miami 15 years after his ordeal.
“To the American people, first, I say thank you for the love they give me,” Gonzalez, now 21, told the US television network ABC in an interview in English, parts of which began running yesterday morning.
Gonzalez was found adrift in the Atlantic by fishermen in 1999 after the sinking of a boat killed his mother and 10 other people trying to leave Cuba.
“I remember when the boat capsized, when we fell on the sea,” Gonzalez said of the accident. “I remember when I was put on the raft and my mom was covering me and I was raising my head, looking around. ... At some point, I raised my head and I didn’t see her again.”
“There was no one else,” he said. “I was alone in the middle of the sea, ... and that’s the last thing I remember.”
The boy’s rescue unleashed an international battle for custody between his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, in Cuba and relatives in Miami. In April 2000, armed federal agents stormed the Miami home where the child was staying with his US relatives and sent him back to Cuba.
The former “balsero” - as Cubans are called who leave the island by boat in search for a new life in the US - is now a university student in the western Cuban province of Matanzas, adjacent to Havana.
In the interview, he said he was not angry with relatives in the US for wanting to keep him there and said he would be willing to visit them in Miami.
“Perhaps one day we could pay a visit to the US,” Gonzales said. “I could personally thank those people who helped us, who were there by our side, because we’re so grateful for what they did.”
Cuban authorities consider him a hero.
“We are proud of him as the youngest of our heroes,” Cuban President Raul Castro said in December in the National Assembly. Cuba and the US are currently holding talks towards restoring diplomatic ties, which were broken off in 1961.
