HAVANA -- (AP) -- Tens of thousands of Cubans -- joined by visiting U.S.
 college baseball players -- marched by torchlight through the streets of Havana
 early today to commemorate an independence hero and demand the return of
 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez.

 A dramatic sea of flickering lights flooded down the broad steps of the University
 of Havana at midnight as a predominantly student crowd marched several blocks
 to a monument for Jose Marti. The crowd occasionally broke into chants of
 ``Fidel! Fidel!'' for Cuban President Fidel Castro.

 ``We continue in open, frontal combat for our (Elian), kidnapped in the claws of
 the mafia of Miami,'' said speaker Julio Martinez, a senior official of the Union of
 Communist Youth, to a tightly packed crowd waving Cuban flags.

 ``Return Elian to the fatherland! Socialism or death! Fatherland or death! We will
 triumph!'' he shouted.

 The march was held to mark the 147th anniversary of the birth of Marti, a poet and
 leader of Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain.

 The government has staged events almost nightly for two months to demand the
 return of Elian, who was rescued Nov. 25 while clinging to an innertube off the
 coast of Florida after a shipwreck that killed his mother and 10 other people.

 Elian's great-uncle in the United States, backed by the anti-Castro Cuban
 American National Foundation, is fighting in the courts to keep the child from
 being returned to his father in Cuba.

 Marching near the front ranks of the midnight parade were baseball players from
 the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., who on Wednesday played a
 game against the University of Havana and are visiting educational and cultural
 sites.

 ``We decided as a team we would participate in this, just as a sign of friendship,''
 said Jake Mauer, 21, of St. Paul.

 The visit to an island off-limits to most Americans seemed to have impressed the
 players, who said they had been received warmly by Cubans.

 ``I thought they were a lot of repressed people and didn't care for Fidel, but it's
 totally the opposite,'' said Joseph Larson, 21, of Minneapolis.

 The university's president, Rev. Dennis Dease, said he hoped that the game and
 other educational exchanges with the University of Havana ``will make a small
 contribution to normalizing relations between our two countries.''

 As for Elian, ``I hope that that little boy comes home here. This is where he
 belongs,'' Dease said.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald