Fidel Castro's daughter said Thursday she used a faked Spanish passport and a wig to sneak out of Cuba and appealed to her father's government to let her 16-year-old daughter join her.
Alina Fernandez Revuelta, who has long been estranged from her father and refers to him as a "tyrant," fled Cuba on Monday, leaving her daughter behind. She was flown to Spain and was granted political asylum by the United States."You have to realize the desperation it takes to turn a person's core to iron to withstand the hardship of escape and the possibilities that there may be no hope of seeing your child again," she said Thursday.
Her daughter knew of her escape, she said, but "acted unaware of my plans as she was celebrating her 16th birthday the day before."
With a U.S. immigration official acting as an interpreter, she spoke at a news conference in this Georgia town where she was staying with a wealthy Cuban-American,
Elena Amos, who has assisted other Cuban defectors.
When Fernandez left Cuba, it was the first time she had been off the island since she and her mother were in Paris in 1964.
"I dream of going back there, of going anywhere," she told an interviewer last year. "But I'll never be able to leave, like a lot of other people here."
The Clinton administration, exile groups and members of Congress all agreed her departure reflected the difficult conditions in Cuba.
The State Department called Fernandez's defection "one more illustration of the lack of freedom and lack of hope which pervade Cuba today."
Rep. Lincoln Diaz Balart, R-Fla., a Cuba native, said Fernandez's departure is "very symbolic of the national consensus in Cuba" against Castro.