By John Rice, .c The Associated Press
HAVANA, 29 (AP) - More than 100,000 Cubans gathered to demand the return of 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez on Saturday, and President Fidel Castro vowed to carry on such protests for 10 years if need be.
At the government-sponsored rally in the central Cuban city of Cienfuegos, one child speaker called the boy ``a kidnapped angel.'' The nationally televised event, the latest in a series of daily rallies, mixed Cuban communist patriotism with increasingly bitter denunciations of Castro's foes.
``Down with Yankee imperialism!'' shouted one boy from the podium at the rally. Speakers claimed the boy was held by a group of ``worms,'' reviving a once-common epithet for anti-Castro exiles that the government had abandoned in recent years while trying to appeal to moderate Cuban-Americans.
The government announced another large rally on Sunday in Havana to welcome Elian's grandmothers home from the United States, where they have been campaigning for the boy's return. The grandmothers were expected to arrive Sunday afternoon.
About 200 people staged demonstrations in Miami on Saturday to urge the boy's return to Cuba, and a slightly larger group also staged a protest aboard boats there to demand that the boy stay in the United States.
Elian's mother, her boyfriend and nine other people died off the Florida coast when their boat sank during an attempt to reach the United States.
Elian, rescued while clinging to an inner tube on Nov. 25, has been staying in Miami with a paternal great-uncle who, backed by anti-Castro exile groups, is trying to keep the boy in the United States.
While speaking to a conference of economists Friday, Castro blamed the disaster on the mother's boyfriend, Larazo Rafael Munero, who organized the fatal boat trip.
``The mother was practically kidnapped along with the boy'' to make the trip, Castro said.
``What kind of ruffian is this guy?'' Castro asked. ``We have 100 pages of reports on him,'' apparently referring to police documents.
Cuba's government and Communist Party have mounted daily demonstrations to support Elian's father's demand that he be returned to Cuba. Hundreds of thousands of people have marched through the streets chanting the name of the boy official news media call ``the elfin prince.''
``We have never in the past put on such a display of people and public unity and I don't believe we will tire of it,'' Castro said. ``We have the resources to go on for 10 years.''
Referring to Munero, Castro said, ``The first thing we had to do is verify what kind of man this 'hero' is because we knew it would be the theory that it was the mother who dreamed of a 'land of freedom.' We know all the cliches.
``It was a mother who was practically kidnapped.''
The Cuban leader called Brotons ``an excellent girl'' who had suffered seven miscarriages before delivering Elian.
``One who is born among eight pregnancies: How desired must be that child whom they have taken by force from his father and grandmothers,'' Castro said.
In the United States, U.S. Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., said Saturday that Elian told him during a meeting that he didn't want to go back to Cuba. Burton supports a measure to make Elian a U.S. citizen in order to impede administration efforts to return him to Cuba.
Meanwhile, about 200 chanting, flag-waving protesters marched in front of the headquarters of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in Miami on Saturday, demanding that Elian be sent back to Cuba.
AP-NY-01-29-00 2020EST
Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. |