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Elian joins Cuba’s Young Communist Union

— Photo: AP

Receiving membership: Julio Martinez (left), first secretary of the Young Communist Union of Cuba, gives the union’s identity card to Elian Gonzalez in Havana on Saturday.

HAVANA: The Cuban boy at the centre of an international custody battle eight years ago has joined Cuba’s Young Communist Union.

Communist youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde quotes Elian Gonzalez as saying he will never let down the former President, Fidel Castro, and his brother Raul Castro, who succeeded Mr. Fidel Castro earlier this year.

Now 14, Elian was 6 when his Miami relatives lost their fight to keep him in the U.S. and he was returned to Cuba in mid-2000 with his father.

Elian had survived a boating accident off the Florida coast that killed his mother, who was attempting to get to the U.S.

Juventud Rebelde says in its Sunday edition that the boy was among 18,000 people who joined the group on Saturday. — AP

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