Associated Press
                  Sunday, January 30, 2000; Page A09

                  MIAMI, Jan. 29—About 200 chanting, flag-waving protesters marched in
                  front of the local headquarters of the Immigration and Naturalization
                  Service today, demanding that Elian Gonzalez be sent home to his father in
                  Cuba.

                  But Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), whose effort to keep Elian in the United
                  States by subpoenaing him to appear before the House Government
                  Reform Committee has infuriated the boy's father, said the 6-year-old told
                  him he doesn't want to go back.

                  "He's a very intelligent young man, and I was able to ask him without any
                  coaching a couple of questions," Burton said after meeting for 30 minutes
                  with Elian at the home where the boy is staying with relatives.

                  "The first question I asked him is how did he like living here, and he said he
                  liked it very much as he was blowing bubbles. And then I said, 'Would you
                  like to go back to Cuba?' And he was very firm in saying 'No'--and this
                  without any coaching."

                  Elian has been the subject of heated debate since he was found clinging to
                  an inner tube Thanksgiving Day off the Florida coast. His mother and 10
                  others traveling with him drowned during an effort to leave Cuba.

                  Elian's grandmothers, who have been in the United States campaigning for
                  the boy's return, planned to return to Cuba this weekend, and the Cuban
                  government announced that a rally would be held Sunday to welcome them
                  home. At a rally of more than 100,000 Cubans today, a child speaker
                  idolized the boy as "a kidnapped angel."

                  In Ottawa, about 30 protesters marched in front of the new U.S. Embassy
                  carrying signs that read: "End the Kidnapping" and "Cuban Children are
                  Not for Sale." In Los Angeles, about three dozen demonstrators rallied in
                  support of sending Elian back.

                  "If that was an American boy over in Cuba, we would have the whole
                  Marine Corps over there trying to get him back," said Rudy Pisani, 68, of
                  Los Angeles.

                  In Miami, protesters at the INS office yelled "Send Elian home" as a small
                  plane towing a banner with the same slogan passed overhead.

                  Cuban Americans in the group said they hoped to show that not all Cuban
                  Americans want Elian to remain here. They said the 6-year-old has been
                  kidnapped and should be returned to his father.

                  "Every child needs a father and a mother," said Juan Morales, a Cuban
                  who has lived in the United States for eight years. "If the mother dies, the
                  person directly responsible is the father, and not the uncle and not the
                  United States."

                  Andres Gomez, national coordinator of the Antonio Maceo Brigade, a
                  group that organized the protest and advocates normalizing relations with
                  Cuba, said the demonstrators have a noble purpose.

                  "We are coming together in this case in defense of the most fundamental
                  rights of a human being, which are the rights of a child," he said.

                  Later today, the anti-Castro Democracy Movement, which wants Elian to
                  stay put, launched a flotilla of about 20 boats carrying 200 people to pay
                  tribute to Elian's mother and the others who drowned.
 

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