BY SARA OLKON

 As Elian Gonzalez spent a quiet day away from the cameras, adults from Havana
 to Washington to Miami intensified their wrangle Sunday over the child's fate.

 In Havana, a top Cuban official derided U.S. lawmakers' attempts to grant
 citizenship to the 6-year-old boy, while American politicians urged the boy's
 relatives in Cuba to travel to Miami and make their case in a U.S. court why Elian
 should return home.

 ``Congress is supposed to be a serious institution and not an instrument to permit
 what amounts to a kidnapping of a small boy,'' said Ricardo Alarcon, president of
 the Cuban National Assembly, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press. Alarcon
 called the notion of making Elian an instant American ``absolutely nonsense.''

 In Miami, the American Civil Liberties Union announced plans to investigate
 complaints by some demonstrators who claim police beat them and took their
 money while dispersing a crowd two weeks ago demanding that Elian stay here.

 On Day 53 of the continuing Elian saga, the international custody battle was no
 closer to being resolved than when the boy was plucked from the sea
 Thanksgiving Day by two men in a fishing boat. Whether to reunite Elian with his
 father in Cuba has ignited the most passionate confrontation between the United
 States and the Fidel Castro government in years, and has divided millions of
 people around the world.

 The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has decreed that the boy be
 returned to his father in Cuba. But last week, Attorney General Janet Reno lifted
 an informal Jan. 14 deadline to return the child and gave Elian's relatives in Miami
 a chance to fight in federal court to keep the boy here.

 As it has for weeks, the Elian issue continued Sunday to elicit emotional
 comments from politicians -- from senior officials in Havana to presidential
 hopefuls in Washington.

 ``Let the father come to the United States, bring his family here, both
 grandmothers, make his case in court and then have it decided right there,''
 Reform Party presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan said on ABC's This Week.

 In Havana, officials took the opposite view.

 SEEKS GLOBAL SUPPORT

 ``It is inconceivable and unacceptable that this small child remains kidnapped,''
 Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told Cuba's Prensa Latina news service as
 he prepared for a trip to Italy, San Marino, France, Denmark, Russia and the
 Vatican to seek international support for Cuba's crusade to see the boy back with
 his father.

 ``Our mobilizations will continue,'' Perez Roque said. ``No one should make the
 mistake to think that we are going to get tired.''

 Meanwhile, several dozen workers wearing T-shirts emblazoned with Elian's
 portrait mixed and poured cement for a new plaza outside the U.S. Interests
 Section, where many of the rallies to demand Elian's repatriation have been held.

 In Little Havana, a dozen or so supporters of efforts to keep Elian here walked by
 the modest one-story residence where he has been staying, hoping to sneak a
 peek at Miami's most famous kid.

 ``If he goes back, he will starve to death,'' said Pedro Gonzalez, a 44-year-old
 bridal shop clerk -- not related to the Gonzalez family -- who stood outside their
 Little Havana home and sold $4 sun visors to visitors, many of whom drove slowly
 by, then left, when it became clear that the young Cuban boy was not around.

 ``It would be a crime to send him back,'' Gonzalez said.

 POLICE CRITICIZED

 Gonzalez's views reflect the feelings of many local Cuba Americans who on Jan.
 6 poured by the thousands onto the streets to demand that Elian stay here. At
 one point, demonstrations became somewhat violent, and on Friday the ACLU of
 Florida released a letter criticizing the Miami and Miami-Dade police for allegedly
 using excessive force to control the crowds.

 ``While it appears that many law enforcement officers exercised restraint under
 extremely difficult and emotional conditions, the complaints we have received from
 the protesters are not fanciful,'' wrote John de Leon and Howard L. Simon,
 president and executive director, respectively, of the Greater Miami Chapter of the
 ACLU.

 Complaints included charges that cash wasn't returned to some of the detained
 demonstrators and that some officers used excessive force, including the use of
 tear gas without warning or allegedly beating detainees who already were ``in
 custody and handcuffed.''

 Herald staff writer Dominique Collins Berta and The Associated Press contributed
 to this report.
 

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald