By Karen DeYoung
                  Washington Post Staff Writer

                  HAVANA, July 1—The Cuban government unveiled its plans today for
                  the "post-Elian" battle against the United States, claiming the support of
                  world opinion and a majority of Americans in its opposition to U.S.
                  immigration and trade policies toward the island.

                  Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque announced that the mass Elian rallies
                  that have been held in a different city around the country each Saturday
                  since December would continue indefinitely, along with round-table
                  discussions among senior government members and Communist Party
                  faithful broadcast live every weekday afternoon. But instead of Elian, the
                  focus will be on trade and immigration.

                  "What's going to happen now that the boy is back home?" Perez Roque
                  asked a crowd of more than 250,000 at this morning's rally in the southern
                  city of Manzanillo. "We're going to continue the struggle with more force
                  than ever against the causes that led to the cruel kidnapping of Elian
                  Gonzalez."

                  Today's rally marked the culmination of intense government discussions
                  over the past several weeks on how to channel public emotion over the
                  6-year-old's plight into the more familiar propaganda against the
                  decades-old U.S. trade embargo and the Cuban Adjustment Act.

                  Havana maintains that the 1996 law, which grants special immigration
                  privileges to Cubans, encourages them to flee the country.

                  It is always difficult to gauge reaction to government pronouncements here
                  beyond the enthusiastic crowds bused in for official events such as this
                  morning's in Manzanillo. Havana residents seemed to go about their usual
                  Saturday business, and satisfaction expressed over Elian's return last week
                  appeared matched by relief that the daily round-table discussions would be
                  reduced from three hours to 1 hour 45 minutes and would preempt regular
                  programming on only one of Cuba's two television stations.

                  President Fidel Castro did not attend the rally, spending the morning
                  instead at a graduation ceremony for military students. The ceremony was
                  held in an amphitheater that was specially constructed for Elian rallies
                  facing the U.S. Interests Section, along the Havana waterfront.

                  But in a message read at the Manzanillo rally, Castro said: "It has only
                  been a few hours since the emotional homecoming of Elian and [his father]
                  Juan Miguel . . . and the renewal of our ceaseless struggle into a new,
                  extended phase. We are not people who rest on our laurels or flaunt our
                  victories."

                  "We don't care who becomes the next U.S. president," he said. "None of
                  the aspirants inspires confidence in us. It's useless for them to try to win a
                  few voters by investing unnecessary time in declarations and promises
                  against Cuba. . . . Four decades of underestimation and humiliating failure
                  should be enough" for Washington to realize that "Cuba was, is and will
                  continue to be free forever."

                  Cuba carefully monitored U.S. public opinion throughout Elian's seven
                  months in the United States. Repeated statements noted with approval
                  U.S. polls indicating that the majority of Americans favored the boy's
                  return to Cuba, including as many as 90 percent of African Americans, and
                  that the tide of opinion had begun to turn against U.S. sanctions.

                  Government media have given extensive coverage to the U.S. controversy
                  over the death penalty and described condemned or recently executed
                  African Americans as revolutionary martyrs. A surprise guest at today's
                  rally was Mazia Jamal, the son of Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose death
                  sentence in connection with the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia policeman
                  has become a cause celebre among anti-capital punishment activists in the
                  United States.

                  "I feel sad to live in a nation that claims to have been created in the name of
                  freedom," Jamal told the cheering crowd.