Havana Cuba. — In the book of his memoirs that he wrote several years ago, the only female of the eight children of the deceased Máximo Líder narrates his life, but also refers to the critical situation in Cuba with the material deficiencies and the lack of freedom.
I have first-hand testimonies about Alina Fernández from people who were her friends in her youth, and above all, from her mother, Naty Revueltawho was a friend of mine.
I met Naty Revuelta in the early 90s, when she worked in the bookstore The Athenaeum, of Line between 12 and 14, in El Vedado. His interest in books led us to establish a friendly relationship.
In a conversation, on one of my visits to his house, sitting on the terrace, he told me: “From that house that you see there, my daughter left for abroad, disguised, because her father did not allow her to leave Cuba.” .
She told me that when Alina left in 1993, since she couldn’t take her daughter with her, the girl passed into her care. A few years later, when she was finally allowed to go meet her mother, she left her little dog to her grandmother.
Naty also showed me a large number of books in boxes and some on the floor, inside her office, and explained to me: “This is part of my daughter’s library, which I now have to rearrange with mine.”
One day he showed me a foreign magazine where an interview he had given to a Spanish journalist appeared, where he confirmed that Alina was the daughter of Fidel Castro. He told me then: “Although until today it is something very publicized, by agreement between the two, neither of them reaffirmed this truth, but before I die I want to make this matter very clear.”
Naty recounted that on the day of Alina’s wedding, for which Fidel and Naty had to give their consent because she was a minor, Fidel appeared at the party with a box of 24 Son brand Cuban soft drinks. Since each bottle cost five centavos, the Maximum Leader’s wedding gift to his daughter cost one peso and 20 centavos.
A fellow student recounts that while Alina was studying at the “Leoncio Prado” Pre-University Institute in the Campo, she maintained good relations with the other students and did not like being singled out as “Fidel’s daughter”.
The independent journalist Juan González Febles, who was a classmate of Alina’s studies at the Vedado Pre-University, says that her friends used to meet at her house to listen to The Beatles and other English and North American rock groups, at the time when this music, which Fidel Castro did not like at all, was prohibited in Cuba and described as “ideological diversionism.”
Everyone who knew Alina in her youth agrees that she had a rebellious character and that she wanted to lead a life very different from the one planned by her father. To Fidel’s chagrin, she Alina was a model at La Maison and worked as a public relations director at a modeling company.
Alina found out at the age of 10 that her father was Fidel, and not Dr. Fernández, the husband of Natalia Revuelta, who recognized her as his daughter and until she left Cuba he gave her the same attention as her sister, who Yes, she was his daughter.
The Spanish correspondent Santiago Aroca, in his book: Fidel Castro, the end of the road, She reports that Alina confessed to her that as a child, when Fidel took her for a walk, she expected to go to an amusement park or to the beach, but instead, he took her to see projects undertaken by the government and told her: “Look, daughter These are the works of your father.”
Alina divorced her military husband because, as she has confessed in interviews, Fidel Castro, obsessed with having a martyr in the family, wanted to send him to the combat front in Angola. This situation led to both deciding to separate because they were not willing to make such a sacrifice.
A few years ago, the confrontation with her aunt Juanita Castro over Alina’s opinions in her memoirs about the Castro family was a notorious event. Although Naty never confirmed or denied the revelations of her daughter, everything points to the misunderstanding between the two families.
Shortly before her mother died, at the age of 88, on February 27, 2015, Alina was allowed to travel to Cuba to treat her and provide her with the necessary care after the stroke that Naty suffered.
Currently, Alina, who lived for a while in Spain, has a radio program on a Miami station.
