By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday , April 18, 2000 ; A01

HAVANA, April 17 –– It may lack glitter and polish, but no matter. The hottest TV program in Cuba is "The Roundtable," a
talk show dedicated to the Elian Gonzalez case that is considered so important that President Fidel Castro is often featured
front and center in the studio audience.

A reflection of the crescendo of concern and polemic here as the Elian drama enters what may be its final chapter, "The
Roundtable" is not exactly a model of impartial journalism by textbook standards. But the two- to three-hour show, aired on
Havana's two state-run channels every weekday at 5 p.m., is an extraordinary departure from Cuba's traditionally closed
information policies and a measure of the role Elian has assumed in the island's political life.

The show often runs unedited clips from "Today," "Meet the Press" and "Larry King Live," featuring interviews with Cuban
exile leaders in Miami and U.S. politicians launching attacks on Castro and his policies of the sort never before seen on
television here. Those clips are then dissected and trashed by the panelists as examples of the lies fed to the U.S. public about
Cuba.

Occasionally, the show runs a segment in which a person sits at a computer and logs on to the Internet to show viewers what is
being said about the case on the Web. For many Cubans, it is their first glimpse of online technology.

Many people feel the shows, which started several months ago, have become excessive. Parents, for instance, said their
children are upset that the program preempts the cartoons normally shown in that time slot. "Kids say, 'Oh, God, not another
roundtable.' But they're 6 years old. What do you expect?" said a first-grade teacher.

But Elian--the 6-year-old boy rescued at sea four months ago off Florida, turned over to relatives in Miami and now enmeshed
in an international custody battle--has been elevated to the status of revolutionary hero in Cuba. He has become a powerful
symbol of Castro's fight with the United States and a important tool to infuse that fight with new vigor.

Posters of the boy are plastered in storefront windows throughout Havana. His face is on billboards everywhere. "Free Elian!"
and "Return Elian to His Country!" they read. Teachers build their classroom lessons around him. Televised demonstrations are
being staged across the country.

Most people here believe that Elian should be reunited with his father and returned to Cuba. But as the struggle draws toward
an end, not everyone here is satisfied with the expected outcome.

At the "Hot Corner" of Havana's Central Park, where Cubans wax philosophical, second-guess the decisions of baseball
coaches and discuss the issues of the day, Elian is the main issue of the day. But some people gathered there recently suggested
that what they see as morally right from the family perspective--returning Elian to Cuba--will damage the fight to end Castro's
41-year dictatorship and bring democracy to this Communist-ruled island of 12 million.

"Elian is going to be sent back, and it's going to be a huge political defeat for the Cuban exile community in Miami and a great
victory for Castro, and that will hurt all of us--it's very sad," said a man who declined to give his name.

As for the boy, he said, "Elian is in a trap."

Fishermen plucked Elian Gonzalez from the ocean on Thanksgiving. He had been in the water for two days, since the
dilapidated boat that was carrying him, his mother and some other Cubans to the United States capsized in the open sea. His
mother and 10 others aboard drowned, and the boy was turned over to relatives in Miami. But when his father in Cuba asked
for Elian's return, the case rapidly evolved from an emotional custody dispute into a referendum on Cuba's past and future, and
a political battle between pro- and anti-Castro forces.

The U.S. government views the matter as a family issue and has ordered the boy returned to his father, who is now in the
Washington area and wants to take Elian home to Cuba. But the Miami relatives have refused to hand the boy over and have
challenged the government's order in several courts.

Meanwhile, here in Cuba it is all Elian, all the time.

The nightly roundtable, whose audio is broadcast simultaneously on most of the country's radio stations, includes panel
discussions with journalists, historians, lawyers, doctors and political analysts. On the set, a poster of Elian standing behind a
mesh-wired fence, with the words, "Return Our Son," hangs next to the Cuban flag. At the station breaks, a picture of Elian
flashes across the screen.

"It's the first time there has been a free flow of information, and sometimes they even have both sides of the story," one man at
the Hot Corner marveled. "But if you see the same thing over and over, you get tired of it."

The discussion program is only one part of what has become an obsession with Elian. Every week, huge Elian rallies attended
by tens of thousands of people are being staged in towns across the country. The demonstrations are televised media events,
with singing and dance numbers interspersed with nationalistic speeches. Young students scream into microphones until they are
hoarse, delivering tirades against drugs and violence in the United States and demanding Elian's return.

Students in classrooms across the country are penning poems and drawing pictures of the boy. "In the first grade, my students
are writing about Elian and drawing pictures of him; everybody is very upset," said the first-grade teacher, who lives and works
outside Havana and comes to the capital on weekends to sell produce and other food.

"The children talk a lot about the toys he has, but then they compare it to the fatherland, the flag and family, and they know it's
more important what we have here than the toys he has there," she said.

Said her friend, a sixth-grade teacher, "When I teach revolutionary history to my students, I say, 'We're talking about what the
heroes did. That was the duty of those people then. What about the duty of people today?' And I suggest their duty is to fight
for the liberation of Elian. As a mother, as a grandmother, I feel great pain for this boy."

The teacher, who like others interviewed asked not to be quoted by name, said the government does not tell her how to teach
her classes. "I do it because, as a teacher, my interest is to respond to the interest of the state--the patriotic interest of the
country," she said. "If I didn't do it, the government would not do anything to me."

The teacher said she has no misgivings about using Elian as a propaganda tool, a charge also leveled at the boy's Miami
relatives. The motives in Cuba are different, she said.

"The organizations in Miami that are supporting Elian are counter-revolutionary organizations that have caused huge damage to
Cuba," she said. "We are just trying to have the boy returned to his family; that's our objective. When he comes home, this will
all be over. The doctors will take care of him, the school will support him, there will be no more demonstrations, and he will go
back to a normal life. That's the best way to help him."

As have people in the United States, many Cubans say the true interests of the boy are getting lost in the political wrangle.

"This boy is suffering," said one of four grandmothers sitting together on a park bench under Havana's hot morning sun. "He
watched his mother die, and now he should be home with his family, his real family, his grandmothers and his father."

"Economically, can he have a better life in the United States? Are there more material things? Can he have more money?
Absolutely," said a man waiting with hundreds of other people in a park near the U.S. Interest Section to apply for a visa to
visit the United States. "But this is not an economic question, and it shouldn't be a political one, either. The boy has a father in
Cuba, and that's where he should be."

                                 © 2000 The Washington Post Company