‘Fidelito’ Castro, 68: Like Elian Gonzalez, he was kidnapped into communism by his father

by WorldTribune Staff, February 4, 2018

The eldest son of former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro committed suicide on Feb. 1, according to Cuban state-run media.

Fidel “Fidelito” Castro Diaz-Balart, 68, who “had been attended by a group of doctors for several months due to a state of profound depression, killed himself this morning,” the Cubadebate website reported.

Attorney General Janet Reno okayed the armed seizure of six-year-old Elian Gonzalez, returning him to Castro’s Cuba.

“Suicide is still a taboo subject in Cuba,” correspondent Will Grant wrote for the BBC. “Once even considered ‘anti-revolutionary,’ it is much more common than generally reported on the island.”

Diaz-Balart was the only child of the communist dictator and his first wife, aristocrat Mirta Diaz-Balart.

Fidelito’s parents divorced before Fidel Castro took power in Cuba.

Castro arranged for a visit by his son in Mexico, where he was in exile and plotting the overthrow of the Batista regime in Havana. The boy was not allowed to return to him mother.

Fidelito’s story reminded some of Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old who, on then-Attorney General Janet Reno’s orders, was seized and returned to Castro’s Cuba “even though his mother had died at sea seeking a free life for her son in the United States,” Charles Ambrose noted in an Oct. 21 op-ed for WorldTribune.com.

Related: Time to remove the Justice Department from the president’s cabinet, October 31, 2016

Fidelito was educated in the former Soviet Union and was married to a Russian woman, according to his official biography. He headed Cuba’s nuclear power program but was fired after a disagreement with his father.

Fidelito made public appearances again when his uncle Raul Castro became Cuba’s leader in 2008 and named him as his scientific adviser.

Fidel Castro died Nov. 26, 2016 at the age of 90.


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