By CAROL ROSENBERG
Herald Staff Writer

Sitting in a wheelchair, water-only hunger striker Ramon Saul Sanchez moved his
17-day-old fast 100 feet across the street Friday after the government relented on
the venue of his protest -- but not on releasing his boat, The Human Rights.

``Morally, I feel very, very strong. I'm surprised by how strong I feel,'' said a
weak-looking Sanchez, 44, who has lost 27 pounds in more than two weeks.

The founder of the Democracy Movement was buoyed by the arrival just moments
earlier of a hand-written card from Florida's Republican governor.

``Dear Ramon: My prayers are with you,'' it said. ``Stay strong. Sincerely, Jeb
Bush.''

Tiny print on the card added, ``not printed at taxpayer expense.''

Amid shouts of ``¡Adelante!''  and ``¡Libertad!,''  Sanchez stopped lunchtime traffic
at West Flagler Street and First Avenue by moving from a city park diagonally
across the street to the Claude Pepper Federal Building.

He was surrounded by dozens of supporters, federal and local police officers, and
escorted on either side in his wheelchair by Miami-Dade County Mayor Alex
Penelas, a Democrat, and U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Republican, amid the
whir of TV and still cameras.

Federal authorities at first denied his petition for a permit to stage the hunger
strike at the federal building. Democracy Movement lawyers and the ACLU on
Monday asked a federal judge to intervene on Sanchez's right to protest on U.S.
property.

On Thursday, just moments before an emergency hearing, the government
relented. By agreement of federal authorities, he can sit outside the building from
9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. seven days a week.

Miami's ACLU chapter president, John de Leon, called the decision ``an important
victory. . . . It demonstrates that there is no federal exemption to the First
Amendment.''

Democracy Movement members said Sanchez's 12-foot-by-12-foot tent will
remain across the street. Sanchez has used a portable latrine there, slept there,
lain in a cot or sprawled in a recliner there since starting the fast May 5.

Supporters attend to him around the clock and also solicit signatures on
preprinted letters to President Clinton, protesting the boat's seizure. A pointed
banner addressed to Clinton's national security advisor also decorated the spot
Friday.

``Sandy Berger: You are the threat  to national security!,'' it said.

The Coast Guard seized the 35-foot fiberglass fishing boat Dec. 10 at sea after
Sanchez refused to pledge not to sail into Cuban waters. Sanchez vows not to
eat until its release.

Howard Simon, Miami's ACLU director, said intensive talks were continuing with
at least five different federal agencies on getting the boat freed from a Key West
dry dock. They include the National Security Council, the State Department, the
Coast Guard, Customs and the Treasury Department.

Otherwise, he said, the ACLU and Democracy Movement intend to challenge -- in
court -- the extraordinary World War I-era presidential maritime powers that let the
government seize the boat.

The Clinton administration discovered the powers as a way of defusing tensions
between the exile community and the Cuban government after Cuba in February
1996 shot down two Brothers to the Rescue airplanes.

``It's in everybody's interest for the government to return the boat and keep Saul
Sanchez alive as a leader of the exile community,'' Simon said.

Diaz-Balart again Friday characterized the extraordinary Clinton administration
measures as serving to safeguard the Cuban regime from both peaceful and
violent protest at the expense of U.S. civil liberties.

Penelas, a lawyer, said he has studied the matter and had found no justification
for the government's using the law to seize Sanchez's vessel.