By Angus MacSwan
MIAMI, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Angry and upset Cuban Americans rallied outside the temporary Miami home of Elian Gonzalez on Wednesday after U.S. officials ruled that the Cuban youngster, rescued at sea after a boat smuggling illegal migrants from Cuba to Florida capsized, should go home to his father
in the communist-ruled island.
The decision capped a passionate and politically charged six-week custody battle between his father in Cuba and relatives in Miami who want him to grow up in the United States.
The case raised tensions between old foes Havana and Washington as politicians and Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits seized upon the case to score points in one of the last remaining confrontations of the Cold War.
And Elian's fate remained uncertain at nightfall, with Miami relatives threatening court action and Cuban exile leaders calling for mass protests to block any attempt by officials to take the 6-year-old away.
``This little boy, who has been through so much, belongs with his father,'' Immigration and Naturalisation Service commissioner Doris Meissner announced in Washington on Wednesday - a long-awaited decision that drew immediate condemnation from the Miami relatives, exiles and conservative U.S.
politicians.
``They are not letting him keep his liberty,'' his cousin Marisleysis Gonzalez said at an emotional news conference.
Elian was plucked from the Atlantic on Nov 25, where he had clung to an inner tube for two days after a smugglers' boat bringing illegal migrants to Florida capsized. His mother was one of 11 people who died in the disaster.
FATHER'S APPEAL FOR SON'S RETURN
His father Juan Miguel Gonzalez, a hotel worker living in Cardenas who was divorced from the mother, had appealed for Elian to be sent home to him. But the Miami relatives, backed by Cuban exiles bitterly opposed to revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, said he should not grow up under communist
rule.
Meissner said INS officials, who had interviewed Juan Miguel Gonzalez in Cuba, had decided he was a good father with a close relationship with the boy. Elian's future was therefore the father's decision, whatever Cuba's political system.
As news spread round this Cuban-dominated town, where many people have found new lives after fleeing Castro's rule, a crowd of about 200-300 people gathered outside the relatives' house in the Little Havana district where Elian has been staying. Many waved Cuban flags and held signs denouncing
Castro.
``I hope and pray a judge stops the administration from committing not only this injustice but what I consider this monstrosity,'' said Republican Congresmman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a nephew and staunch enemy of Castro, outside the house.
In Washington, President Clinton said politics played no role in a government decision.''The INS followed the law, and the procedures and made the decision that they made after an exhaustive review of the facts,'' he said.
Attorneys for Elian's Miami relatives said they had written to Attorney General Janet Reno seeking to reverse the INS decision and grant the boy a political asylum hearing. If Reno did not agree they would file court writs, attorney Spencer Eig said.
BACKING COMES FROM HELMS
Backing came from Republican Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He denounced Cuba as a tyrannical nation and said that when Congress reconvened, he would try to secure Elian U.S. citizenship so that when he came of age, he could make a decision himself.
A strident Castro foe, Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, said the issue should have been decided by a court.
For Cuban exiles, the decision added to their deep sense of betrayal during years of fruitless opposition to Castro since his 1959 revolution. ``That is an outrageous decision,'' said Jose Basulto, leader of Brothers to the Rescue, a group that searches for Cuban refugees in the Florida Straits.
Jorge Mas, chairman of the powerful Cuban American National Foundation, said it was immoral to send the child to Cuba.
``He will become a trophy for Fidel Castro, he will lose his childhood, he will lose his life,'' Mas said.
In Cuba, the government gave a guarded first response, predicting ``the Cuban-American mafia and the extreme right in the U.S. Congress'' would put up a fight to keep Elian in Florida.
But ordinary people reacted with joy and relief. ``It's the correct thing to give custody to the father. They should have done it long ago,'' said Havana shop assistant Julio Martinez.
Plans called for Elian to be returned to Cuba by Jan. 14 but details were still to be worked out. Meissner said the father could come to Miami to collect him or the Miami relatives could escort the boy back to Cuba.
A U.S. church group, the National Council of Churches, which has mediated in the case said it was standing by as a possible go-between to help in the boy's return.
Elian went to school on Wednesday morning but has since been kept from the public eye. He has been reported as saying variously that he wanted to go back to Cuba and to stay in Miami.
21:11 01-05-00
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