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By Nancy San Martin. nsanmartin@herald.com. Posted on Mon,
Nov. 11, 2002 in The Miami
Herald
Snippets of a home video capturing private moments of Fidel Castro and his
family will begin airing tonight on news programs on Miami's Spanish-language
Univisión -- the first of a 10-part series that aims to uncover the
much-guarded secret life of the Cuban leader.
The video obtained by WLTV-23 was taken out of the island by a friend of a
former girlfriend of one of Castro's sons who recently fled Cuba.
Dashiell Torralba, 27, who had a two-year relationship with Antonio Castro
Soto del Valle, Castro's son, tells reporter Mario Vallejo that she decided to
release the video to seek revenge against the Cuban leader's longtime wife,
Dalia Soto del Valle, with whom she had a tumultuous relationship.
''I wanted to get Dalia for all the damage she did to me,'' Torralba says in
the television interview taped within the last month at an undisclosed Latin
American country.
''What this segment does is demystifies the image of Castro as an imposing
figure,'' Vallejo said. "For the first time, the world will be able to see
the house of Fidel Castro -- the most secret place in Cuba -- the faces of his
children and grandchildren and how they live.''
Antonio is one of five sons between Castro and Soto del Valle. He is known
to have at least four others, including his first-born ''Fidelito'' and daughter
Alina Fernández, who defected several years ago and is a vocal critic of
Castro.
The segment, The Secret Life of Fidel Castro, offers a rare glimpse of the
personal life of Castro, who has managed to maintain a high level of privacy
throughout his 43-year rule. The state-run media in Cuba has never identified
his immediate family and none of his offspring hold publicly visible jobs.
He has consistently declined to answer personal questions from international
media, saying that national leaders should never mix their public and private
lives. Castro also has said that his privacy was necessary because of security
concerns given the hundreds of assassination attempts he says the CIA and exiles
from Miami have mounted against him since 1959.
WLTV said it uses the 40-minute video it purchased from Torralba as a
springboard to expose other secrets, such as Castro's private residential
compound west of Havana known as Punto Cero, or Point Zero, and alleged
''illicit undertakings'' involving Castro's sons. The station declined to reveal
how much it paid for the tape.
Tonight, viewers will see various family moments including Castro dressed
casually at a dinner table set with elaborate dinnerware; grandchildren
interacting with relatives; and Antonio zooming through the patio on a scooter.
Antonio Castro, an orthopedic surgeon, met Torralba in Havana after he
divorced his first wife. Torralba blames their breakup on Soto del Valle. The
friction apparently stems from the fact that Torralba is the niece of former
Transport Minister Diocles Torralba, who was imprisoned on corruption charges as
part of the high-profile 1989 drug-trafficking case that involved a number of
high-ranking government and military officials, some of whom were executed.
''The important thing with this video is that people will see the other face
of Castro,'' said Vallejo, a former television reporter in Cuba who left the
island in 1997. "He preaches equality but that's just for everyone else,
not him.''
The segment will air weekdays over the next two weeks on the 6 p.m. and 11
p.m. broadcasts of Noticias 23, WLTV's news hours. | 
