From staff and wire reports

                  HAVANA -- Cuban leader Fidel Castro grabbed a Cuban flag and led hundreds of
                  thousands of his countrymen through the streets of Havana as the traditional
                  May Day celebration turned into a rally for the return of Elian Gonzalez.

                  The 73-year-old leader, sporting sneakers with his traditional olive green fatigues,
                  walked with a chanting, cheering crowd from the Plaza of the Revolution to
                  stage a protest outside the U.S. Interests Section almost 2 miles (3 kilometers)
                  away.

                  Castro, who had not given a speech on May Day for several years, addressed the
                  crowd before the march began.

                  He praised the resilience of the Cuban people during the five-month campaign of
                  public protests to have the 6-year-old Cuban boy returned from the United
                  States.

                  "It was obvious that they underestimated our people who have not rested a single
                  day in fighting for something absolutely just," Castro said.

                  'The hell he has been through'

                  Addressing an enthusiastic crowd, Castro, who has ruled Cuba for 41 years,
                  condemned the "barbarous and cruel crime" of Elian's "kidnapping" in the United
                  States.

                  "Not even Dante could have described the hell he (Elian) has been through,"
                  Castro said.

                  "I wonder what the U.S. government would have done if a similar situation had
                  been created with a barely 6-year-old American child kidnapped in Cuba and
                  subjected to the appalling treatment the child has received in that country," he
                  said.

                  He accused the U.S. government of holding Elian and his father "hostage" in the
                  mansion outside Washington where they are staying.

                  "They are all working in union in pursuit of the same goal: to ensure the boy
                  never returns to Cuba, and thus deal a moral blow to the proud and heroic people
                  that produced Juan Miguel and Elian," he said.

                  Castro, citing a report that first lady Hillary Clinton had said she hoped the boy's
                  father would consider defecting, said, "Where are the ethics of that country's
                  political leaders?

                  "How can they be so utterly ignorant of the realities of Cuba? Why such
                  contempt? How long will they go on believing their own lies?"

                  Phone call to Juan Miguel

                  Following his speech, Castro took up a cellular telephone and said he was
                  speaking to Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez.

                  "On behalf of the children, of all the companions there, he sends a special greeting
                  to all our people," Castro told the crowd.

                  While no official crowd figures are available, observers said the crowds at the May Day
                  celebrations, an international workers' holiday, were larger than in recent years.

                  The Cuban government had declared the annual celebrations to be an "open tribune,"
                  the term used to describe the mass protests that have been held to call for Elian's return.

                  Elian Gonzalez became the center of an international custody battle after he was
                  rescued from the sea of the coast of Florida on Thanksgiving Day 1999.

                  His mother and 10 others died when the boat carrying them from Cuba to the United
                  States capsized.

                  His anti-Castro Miami relatives are fighting to keep him in the United States, but
                  his father traveled to Washington in a bid to take him back to Cuba.

                  Elian was reunited with his father in Washington last week after federal
                  immigration agents seized him in a raid on his Miami relatives' home.

                      Havana Bureau Chief Lucia Newman, The Associated Press and Reuters
                                      contributed to this report.