Castro Will Allow Girl to Go to U.S. if Relatives Agree
Cuban President Fidel Castro has agreed to let his granddaughter join her mother in exile in the United States if the girl’s relatives in Cuba agree, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said Monday.
Jackson made the announcement during a news conference in Havana in which he accused the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba of causing malnutrition and increasing political restrictions on the Communist island.
Castro’s daughter, Alina Fernandez Revuelta, turned up in Atlanta last week after winning asylum in the United States. She asked that her 16-year-old daughter be granted permission to join her.
Castro said “that if her father and grandmother give the OK, she can leave immediately,” Jackson said.
There was no immediate word on how the father, Francisco Salgado, a retired dancer with the Cuban National Ballet, would respond.
Jackson said he made “strong and fervent appeals for political reform, for greater popular participation and for the freedom to dissent. But the U.S. embargo is driving (Cuba’s) domestic politics and dictating economic options.”
The civil rights leader and former presidential candidate said he also appealed for the release of a list of political prisoners.
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