The photo of Gonzalez screaming went around the world in 2000 and won a Pulitzer Prize
Photo: POOL/ REUTERS
Elián González fled Cuba by ship to Florida in 1999.
He lost his mother during the crossing and was only lucky to survive.
For six months, Havana and Washington fought over the fate of the little boy, then in the summer of 2000 he was allowed to return to his homeland.
His story went around the world.
Now González is an adult, himself a politician - and already known for his sharp criticism of the United States.
More than two decades after being forcibly deported from Florida to his native Cuba, González is now set to become one of Cuba's top lawmakers.
The party newspaper Granma announced on Tuesday that González had been nominated.
The newspaper praises him as one of the "most worthy of Cuban youth".
In the future, he and the other members of parliament will decide on laws for the communist country.
Cuba is still an autocratically governed one-party system today.
Victim of dictatorship or kidnapped child?
In 1999, González left for the United States on a boat with his mother and a group of other Cubans.
The boat capsized, only three people survived.
Fishermen pulled the then five-year-old González out of the water about three miles off the coast of Fort Lauderdale.
His mother died, his biological father lived separately from her and had stayed in Havana.
The case strained US-Cuba relations for months.
Relatives wanted to keep the boy in Florida, his father wanted to bring him back.
For the Cuban exiles, Elián González was a victim of the dictatorship who must be rescued.
To attract media attention, they had him photographed as a happy child playing in his uncle's house.
For his father, however, it was a case of kidnapping.
Fidel Castro announced that they would "set heaven and earth in motion" to mobilize all world public opinion.
The Cuban exiles went to the US courts, but even President Bill Clinton finally sided with the father.
In April 2000, police officers forcibly took the boy from his relatives' home and handed him over to his father, who had since traveled to the United States.
Another two months passed before the two were able to return to Cuba.
In the picture, González hangs terrified in the arms of a man while standing across from them is a federal police officer in heavy riot gear with a submachine gun at the ready.
The picture was taken when the police took the boy from his relatives' house.
After the access, there were riots in Miami.
González swore allegiance to the Castros
His return to Cuba was an immense success for Castro.
In the years that followed, things calmed down around the boy whose fate had moved world public opinion.
But in the end he kept showing up at official events and had to serve as a model Cuban.
In 2008 he joined the youth organization of the Cuban Communist Party and swore eternal loyalty to the Castro brothers, as the party newspaper »Granma« reported.
The tenth anniversary of his homecoming was celebrated with a grand ceremony in 2010.
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