BY MARIKA LYNCH AND FRANCES ROBLES

 The latest pictures of Elian Gonzalez showed the boy studying at the Wye
 Plantation and playing an instrument typical in Caribbean bands. But what
 angered Cuban Americans on Tuesday was the neckerchief the boy wore -- the
 uniform for the Pioneers, the youth communist league.

 Modeled after groups in the former Soviet Union, the Pioneers instill communist
 ideals through songs, schedule weekend trips to help with harvests in the
 countryside, and instruct children to repeat the group allegiance ``Pioneers for
 communism, we will be like Che [Guevara].''

 Membership is expected for Cuban children, who join in the first grade and wear
 the Pioneers uniform to school. Parents of students who refuse to enroll are
 ostracized, labeled counterrevolutionaries and denied promotions at work, said
 Jaime Suchlicki, director of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and
 Cuban-American Studies. Pioneer members also are instructed to tell on their
 parents if they make statements against the revolution.

 The pictures, released in the Cuban daily Granma, confirmed the worst fears of
 many Cuban exiles, who believed the boy will be brainwashed by the Cuban
 government as long as he is with his father.

 ``Is Elian in Cuba?'' a confused Gladys Chong asked, when her husband, Ramon,
 burst through the door of their Southwest Miami-Dade home with the news of the
 images.

 ``No,'' Ramon Chong, a security guard who came to the United States four years
 ago, told her. ``It seems communism has penetrated the United States.''

 Gladys Chong, who wore the neckerchief in her youth, was shocked.

 ``They didn't even wait until he got to Cuba to start conditioning him!'' said Gladys,
 a 44-year-old dental lab assistant.

 The images also troubled Dr. Marta Molina, a psychologist who in her 20-year
 career in Cuba said she treated 500 children with problems she said stemmed
 from communist indoctrination.

 ``The oppression has already started,'' Molina said.

 The Pioneer uniform is part of a strategy to ensure the boy's return, she said, by
 convincing Elian that he wants to return to Cuba so he will tell the courts as
 much.

 The boy's Miami relatives were so concerned that they will write a letter to the
 Immigration and Naturalization Service to complain, said Kendall Coffey, one of
 the family's attorneys. He said the INS has shrugged off its responsibility for the
 boy since he was handed to his father.

 ``We're very troubled,'' Coffey said. ``He's being paraded as a trophy in the garb of
 the Communist Party. It's happening even more rapidly than our worst
 expectations.''

 The pictures, five in all, did not have captions explaining when they were taken.
 One showed an indoor classroom scene, with Elian sitting in the front row,
 wearing the blue Pioneer scarf and a white T-shirt with a picture of Cuban patriot
 Jose Marti. Wearing the same outfit, he was seen reading at a desk and being
 supervised by a woman, who presumably was his teacher, Agueda Fleitas. In
 another close-up, Elian was apparently in a music class playing claves, hardwood
 sticks that provide a beat for Caribbean music.

 The government agencies involved in Elian's case did not raise an eyebrow over
 his new clothes. What Elian dons each day is up to his dad, not the government,
 they said.

 ``It's not INS's business what Elian wears on a daily basis,'' INS spokeswoman
 Maria Cardona said. ``Those are issues up to his father.''

 Carole Florman, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Justice, said the
 same.

 ``I think it's his school uniform,'' Florman said. ``The other kids are dressed that
 way, too. That's not something we're involved in. I don't think it's an area under our
 control.''

 Cuban diplomats said the gripe was just one of many coming from Miami exiles.

 ``It's part of our system of children going to school,'' said Luis Fernandez,
 spokesman for the Cuban Interests Section in Washington. ``It's normal. Children
 go to school in a uniform -- just the way they do at private schools in the United
 States. I don't see what the problem is.''

 While Elian was in South Florida, Havana had complained that the boy's Miami
 relatives had brainwashed him by sending him to Disney World and keeping him
 in the company of exile activists.

 In other developments, attorneys for Elian's Miami relatives said Tuesday that the
 boy's father would be powerless to stop the communist regime from sending the
 6-year-old to work camps.

 ``Irrespective of [his father's] wishes, Elian will be doing agricultural work such as
 cutting sugar cane in the fields, to further indoctrinate him and separate him . . .
 for extended periods to break down the bond between parent and child and
 cement the bond between child and state,'' the attorneys wrote in court papers
 filed Tuesday.

 In their 24-page filing, the attorneys asked the three federal appeals judges
 presiding over Elian's case to reject an attempt by his Cuban father to replace his
 Miami great-uncle as the adult who speaks for Elian.

 The filing was in response to a motion by Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who is seeking
 to replace Lazaro Gonzalez as his son's representative.

 In a separate 21-page filing, the U.S. Department of Justice urged the appeals
 court judges in Atlanta to substitute Elian's father for his great-uncle Lazaro
 Gonzalez, who filed the lawsuit aiming to force the government to give the child a
 political asylum hearing.

 If the court grants the motion, the father will be free to drop the suit and return
 with Elian to Cuba.

 And in Washington, 16 members of Congress led by Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart,
 R-Miami, asked U.S. Inspector General Robert Ashbaugh to investigate the April
 22 raid during which the boy was taken from the home of his Miami relatives.
 Herald translator Renato Perez and staff writer Jay Weaver contributed to this
 report.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald