Castro Kin Free to Join Mother, Father Agrees

Cuban President Fidel Castro’s 16-year-old granddaughter is free to join her mother in the United States, the girl’s father said Tuesday.

“I have no problem giving her permission to leave the country,” said Fernando Salgado, who retired in September as first dancer in the Cuban National Ballet.

Castro told the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who returned to the United States on Tuesday after a five-day visit to Cuba, that the girl could join her mother, Alina Fernandez Revuelta, if her father gave his approval. Fernandez fled Cuba last week and was granted asylum in the United States.

Cuban law requires that both parents approve the departure of a person under 20 years of age.

Salgado told reporters who visited him in Havana that Interior Ministry officials visited him on Sunday, the same day Jackson met Castro, to ask if the girl was free to join Fernandez.

He said the daughter, also named Alina, wanted to leave.

“Our love has been forged and separation cannot distance us,” he said.

Salgado and Fernandez divorced 14 years ago.

Also on Tuesday, Cuba’s Parliament ratified major economic reform measures that include allowing private enterprise, taking what Castro said was a necessary step backward.

The National Assembly’s action formalized government decrees issued last fall to legalize almost 140 private occupations and transform thousands of state farms into cooperatives.

The reforms are part of a campaign to pull Cuba out of the economic morass into which it has sunk since the collapse of the European Communist governments that were the island’s patrons. Cuba’s economy also has been hamstrung by the longtime U.S. economic embargo.

The government has already invited foreign investors, legalized possession of foreign currency, promoted tourism and invited vacation returns by exiles in efforts to confront the crisis.