Raul Castro Stands in at Gonzalez Party

Elian Gonzalez,left,and his father Juan Miguel Gonzalez are seen waiting before an official event marking Elian Gonzalez's 13th birthday and the ideological campaign launched after an international custody battle over the Cuban boy in Cardenas, Cuba, Wednesday ,Dec. 6, 2006. Raul Castro has been increasingly taking on his brother's public duties amid persistent questions about when - or if - Fidel Castro will ever return to power. (AP Photo/Javier Galeano) (Javier Galeano - AP)

HAVANA -- Acting President Raul Castro sat in for his ailing brother Fidel Wednesday at the 13th birthday celebration for Elian Gonzalez, the boy at the center of an international custody dispute nearly seven years ago.

Dressed in an olive-green uniform, Raul Castro sat in the front row of the auditorium in Elian's hometown of Cardenas, a coastal city about 85 miles east of Havana, for the event featuring a children's choir and dance troupe. He did not address the gathering.

In past years, it has been Fidel Castro who has traditionally attended the annual birthday celebration for the boy, who was just 5 years old when a pair of fishermen found him floating on an inner tube in the ocean off Florida's southern coast.

But Raul Castro, 75, has been increasingly taking on his brother's public duties amid persistent questions about when _ or if _ Fidel will ever return to power. Fidel Castro has not been seen in public in the more than four months since he temporarily ceded power to his brother after undergoing intestinal surgery. His medical condition remains a state secret.

Elian's parents were divorced when his mother decided to take him by boat to the United States in November 1999. She died after the boat, filled with a dozen would-be migrants, capsized in a storm. Elian was among three survivors.

A high-profile custody battle ensued between Elian's relatives in Miami and his father in Cuba. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans took to the streets in a government-led campaign to demand Elian's return to the island. The battle ended with the boy's dramatic seizure by armed U.S. federal agents from the home of his Miami relatives and he returned to Cuba with his father in the summer of 2000.

Now a teenager, Elian remains a living symbol of Castro's victory against his enemies in exile. He is a household name on the island, where his face was emblazoned on T-shirts and posters during the battle for his return to Cuba. Although he is said to live as normal a life as possible in his hometown, the boy is still seen with his family at major political events several times a year.

Elian reportedly refers to the Cuban leader as "Grandfather Fidel" and sent a get-well card that was published in state media after the man who ruled Cuba for 47 years suddenly fell ill in July.