Naples Daily News. Associated Press. Friday, March 3, 2000
HAVANA - Acknowledging the fight to bring Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba could take at least two more months, the Communist Party leadership announced Thursday that its annual May Day celebration will be dedicated to the battle for the 6-year-old's return.
The announcement was published Thursday on the front page of the party's daily, Granma.
The annual parade in Havana, which traditionally involves hundreds of thousands of workers, will also be a protest against the U.S. trade embargo imposed against the island in 1962, said Pedro Ross, secretary general of the Workers Central of Cuba.
Elian became the subject of an international tug-of-war shortly after he was rescued off the coast of Florida on Nov. 25.
The boy's father and Fidel Castro's government have demanded that he be returned to Cuba. The child's relatives in Miami, who have temporary custody of the boy, are fighting to keep him in the United States, saying that they can give him a better life off the communist island.
Although the U.S. government has ruled that the boy should be returned to his father, Elian's Miami relatives have blocked the boy's U.S. departure with a series of motions in state and federal courts.
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