By John Ward Anderson
                  Washington Post Foreign Service

                  CARDENAS, Cuba, April 19—At the central market in this run-down
                  coastal town where Elian Gonzalez began his life, Cubans expressed
                  bewilderment and disbelief today that the will of the U.S. government is so
                  easily thwarted. That sort of thing does not happen on this island under
                  President Fidel Castro.

                  "What's with those people over there? This is a 6-year-old kid, and he
                  should have been home a long time ago," said a fuming 60-year-old
                  woman. Like many people in Elian's home town, she said she does not
                  understand the U.S. legal system and does not care to. The problem, she
                  said, is a weak and indecisive government. "What's the story in the United
                  States when the president can't make things happen?"

                  Those and even stronger feelings greeted the ruling by a court in Atlanta
                  that Elian--the first-grader whose picture is plastered all over Cuba, and
                  whose five-month custody saga is a national obsession here--is not free to
                  leave the United States while the legal wrangling over his fate continues.

                  Elian has been living with relatives in Miami since he was found by
                  fishermen clinging to an inner tube off the coast of Florida on Thanksgiving
                  day. His mother and nine other people fleeing Cuba drowned when their
                  17-foot boat capsized.

                  Elian's father, who was divorced from his mother, is in the United States
                  trying to reclaim his son so they can return to Cuba. The U.S. government
                  has ordered that the boy be given to his father, but the Miami relatives
                  have refused, saying Cuba is no place to raise a child and pursuing their
                  cause in court.

                  The Cuban government reacted angrily to the latest U.S. court decision on
                  Elian, declaring it helps perpetuate the boy's "kidnapping." Cubans in
                  general--who are accustomed to swift and forceful justice under
                  Castro--found it incredible that the U.S. government could not force
                  people to obey its laws or could not simply seize Elian and give him to his
                  father.

                  "The U.S. government manipulates everything; they can say what they
                  want, but they're a bunch of liars," said a 41-year-old mother of three who
                  doubted the U.S. government's sincerity in seeking to return the boy to his
                  dad, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. "The father is there, and he has rights, but they
                  have no principles. The authorities in the United States defecate and urinate
                  on their own laws."

                  Many said the key issue is not when the pair might return to Cuba. More
                  important, they explained, is reuniting the boy and his father, who has been
                  in the United States since April 6 and still has not seen Elian face to face.

                  "That child has to be with the father because that's the person to protect
                  and take care of him," said Aleida Hernandez, 33. "I don't care if they stay
                  there until [the legal process] is over. The issue is that they have to be
                  together. If the family is together, it's not important if they stay there forever
                  or leave. But the father should decide."

                  Other townspeople said that, since it now appears the boy will be in the
                  United States for at least several more weeks, the U.S. government should
                  approve a proposal by Castro to allow other Cubans to travel to the
                  United States and stay with the boy during the rest of the legal process.
                  The plan calls for members of Elian's family, doctors, teachers and 12 of
                  his first-grade classmates to live with him for several months--both in the
                  United States and then in Cuba--to comfort him and help heal any
                  psychological wounds.

                  "They should let the kids, the psychologist and the teacher go over there so
                  they can help with his recovery, because he has been very traumatized, and
                  they should stay there until it ends," said Juana Iglesias, 69, who lives
                  several blocks from Elian's home.

                  "Between the U.S. and Cuba, everything is political, but this is criminal,"
                  said a shoe repairman, Orelo Bombessis, 84, who lives several blocks
                  from the Gonzalez family home.

                  "I don't understand the law in the United States," he said. "Here, when they
                  say something, that's the law and that's how it goes."