One name stands out on the guest list of thousands of youth at a conference in Ecuador this week: Elian Gonzalez. Fourteen years after he made headlines as the subject of a bitter international custody battle, Gonzalez spoke to CNN on Tuesday. It's his first trip abroad since the U.S. government removed him at gunpoint from his relatives' home in Miami and, after a legal battle, sent him back to Cuba to live with his father. Gonzalez, who turned 20 last week, was just 6 years old when he was found clinging to an inner tube after the tiny boat he was traveling in from Cuba sank on the way to the United States. Gonzalez's mother and nine other people in the boat drowned.
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Elian Gonzalez tells CNN he's happy in Cuba
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He blames the U.S. embargo for his mother's death
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"Their unjust embargo provokes a critical economic situation," he says
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Gonzalez, now 20, is in Ecuador for a youth conference
Miami
After his rescue in 1999, Gonzalez was placed with relatives in @placeholder, who wanted to keep him in the United States.
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His relatives in @placeholder refused to go along, and armed U.S. federal agents then raided the home of Gonzalez's uncle and seized the boy.
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Cuba
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Now he studies engineering at a military school in Cuba and appears to be emerging as a new spokesman for the @placeholder government.
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Cuba
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In Cuba, he said, everywhere he goes he feels the love and support of his fellow @placeholder.