HAVANA -- (AP) -- The most famous boy in Cuba, 7-year-old Elián González, made a rare public appearance on Tuesday at the closing ceremony of a meeting of the island's communist group for schoolchildren.

 "Socialist children,'' thousands of boys and girls in school uniforms sang at the beginning of the morning gathering of the Pioneers Congress. "Steadfast! Steadfast!''

 Elián was smiling as he walked into the amphitheater with his father Juan Miguel González and younger half-brother Hianny, now 2.

 They watched a series of children in colorful costumes sing, dance and perform skits from the front row before the stage built outside the U.S. Interests Section - the
 American mission here - during González's battle for his son's return from the United States last year.

 Farther down the row sat Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who embraced González's fight for his son and made it a national cause that eventually captured the world's
 attention.

 Neither Castro's nor Elián's attendance was announced in advance.

 The Cuban government organized hundreds of rallies, marches and other gatherings across the island over seven months last year to demand Elián's repatriation, insisting that he had been "kidnapped'' by the Miami relatives fighting to keep him in the United States.

 González returned with Elián to Cuba a year ago last month after winning a child custody battle that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

 Castro's government promised to protect the motherless boy's privacy after his return and the child has been rarely seen in public since then.

 Elián's mother and 10 others died in late November 1999 when their boat capsized during an attempt to immigrate from Cuba to the United States by sea. Elián was
 rescued by two men on a fishing trip off the coast of Florida after they found him floating on an inner tube.

 The resulting custody battle divided Cubans on both sides of the Florida straits, pitting the communist government against its ideological enemies in Miami's Cuban exile community.

 Havana backed González's argument for his right to custody as Elián's sole surviving parent.

 Elián's Miami relatives and the anti-Castro exiles who backed them argued that Elián would have a better life and more opportunities off the communist island.

                                    © 2001