Herald Staff Report

 CARDENAS, Cuba -- The father at one end of the international custody battle for
 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez made his first public appearance Friday evening, when
 he thanked the people of his hometown -- and of all of Cuba -- telling them they
 had given him strength in the past weeks.

 ``This has been very difficult for my family,'' Juan Miguel Gonzalez said. ``Since
 Dec. 5, I have said publicly and with very clear language that I wanted my son. I
 don't know that I would have been able to endure this, if at any time I did not have
 the energy of the Cuban people beside me.''

 Gonzalez attended a rally at the north shore -- and so did just about everyone
 else in Cardenas, a town of 75,000 that was once the country's richest sugar
 cane-growing region. The protesters' numbers were large and their message clear:
 Never mind what the United States says -- Elian Gonzalez is not home yet.

 DAD AND ALARCON

 The boy's father appeared at the rally accompanied by Ricardo Alarcon, president
 of Cuba's National Assembly.

 Gonzalez denounced the ``psychological torture'' he said his son has endured in
 Miami and added that he was touched to see thousands of his countrymen chant
 his son's name and hold up the boy's photograph. He lamented the 48 days he
 has gone without his little boy.

 ``We do this under this flag, the only flag he will ever know,'' Gonzalez said.
 ``Seeing all this support, my tears have turned into patriotic pride. Each
 demonstration gives me the force to continue this battle.''

 Friday's rally was the last in a monthlong series of government-organized protests
 in Havana, Matanzas and Cardenas demanding the return of Elian, who was
 rescued from Florida waters on Thanksgiving Day after his mother's botched
 attempt to flee Cuba. Protesters flocked to the rally by bus and on foot with the
 giddy excitement of people attending a street fair.

 `MANIPULATIONS'

 They vowed to support Elian, who is front-page news in two countries: the one his
 mother left and the one she drowned trying to reach. Elian's father says he
 deserves to get his son back.

 Assembly President Alarcon said the boy has been subjected to ``vulgar and
 cruel manipulations.''

 He denounced U.S. politicians for getting involved.

 ``What more proof is needed that he had a father than when he was found and the
 doctor needed medical information it was the very child who offered his father's
 name, where he lives and what his telephone number is,'' Alarcon said.

 Meanwhile, townspeople were preparing for Elian's return. His teacher, Yamilin
 Morales Delgado, said she is ready to work overtime and through her vacation to
 tutor Elian on the weeks of classes he has missed.

 ``I speak for all first-grade teachers who suffer the absence of this boy,'' she said.
 ``We are ready to have him back, to see him laughing and playing, to see him
 content and a revolutionary.''

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald