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Havana

No hard feelings: Ten years after his return to Cuba, Elian Gonzalez says he harbors no ill will toward the Miami relatives who tried to keep him in the U.S. “I have no bitterness toward them,” Gonzalez, 16, said at a celebration marking the 10th anniversary of his return. Gonzalez was just 5 when he was rescued off the coast of Florida, in 1999. His mother had drowned trying to flee Cuba, but his father, who had remained behind, wanted him returned. Relatives in Miami sought custody, and the case quickly turned into a high-profile legal and diplomatic showdown between Cuba and the U.S. After four months, federal agents removed him from his relatives’ home and he was returned to Cuba—to the horror of much of the anti-Castro Cuban-American community. “Today I’m with my father,” Gonzalez said, “and that is everything.”

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