HAVANA (Reuters) -- President Fidel Castro called on the Cuban
                  people Monday to take to the streets for a second wave of mass protests
                  aimed at pressuring the United States  to return a 6-year-old boy at the
                  center of a custody dispute.

                  In a concerted effort to rekindle a patriotic campaign for the return of
                  shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez to Cuba, the National Assembly later
                  dedicated its biannual session to denunciations of the alleged U.S. "kidnap"
                  of the boy.

                  Castro, in an open message to the people, announced "Free Elian!"
                  mobilizations would resume at 5 p.m. Monday outside the U.S. diplomatic
                  mission in Havana, where hundreds of thousands of Cubans rallied for a
                  week earlier this month.

                  "Our people will not permit the repugnant and monstrous crime that is being
                  so coldly and cynically committed with that boy, before the astonished eyes
                  of the world," Castro said in a 13-page statement distributed to media in the
                  early hours.

                  "What we are starting today is the second stage of the battle of the masses
                  that we began on Sunday Dec. 5."

                  In the first stage, several million Cubans participated in meticulously
                  orchestrated rallies to demand the repatriation of Elian, a Cuban boy living in
                  Miami since he miraculously survived an illegal immigration bid.

                  Elian was picked up by U.S. fishermen on Nov. 27 after spending two days
                  clinging to an inner tube when a craft full of Cuban boat people sank. His
                  mother was among 11 of the 14 Cubans on the boat who drowned.

                  His father, Juan-Miguel Gonzalez, who lives in Cuba and was divorced from
                  the boy's mother, has demanded his son's return.

                  A meeting between the father and U.S. immigration representatives last
                  Monday in his provincial hometown of Cardenas raised hopes of a solution
                  to the dispute.

                  But Castro's statement indicated that a week after the meeting Havana was
                  losing patience. "Seven days have passed, and the father has not received
                  the slightest sign his rights will be recognized," Castro added in the message.

                  Havana has seized on the case as a cause celebre to stir patriotism, dust off
                  old anti-American diatribes and press for changes in U.S. immigration
                  policy.

                  Castro's archenemies in the Cuban-American exile community in Florida
                  have also turned Elian into a poster boy. They are helping U.S. relatives
                  apply for political asylum on the grounds that in Castro's Cuba the boy
                  would be denied the freedom and prosperity he could have in the United
                  States.

                  Relatives of Elian were to meet U.S. immigration officials Monday to press
                  their case for him to stay in the United States.

                  In the presence of Elian's father and his two sets of grandparents, Cuba's
                  National Assembly or parliament spent the entire morning of its biannual full
                  session railing against the United States over the case.

                  "How much longer do we have to wait? What more is necessary to end the
                  martyrdom this boy, his father and grandparents have been suffering for
                  nearly a month?" the assembly asked in a formal declaration demanding his
                  immediate return.

                  One by one, deputies in the entirely pro-government body, stood up to back
                  the official stance on Elian in interventions heard and applauded by Castro,
                  his brother and designated successor, Raul Castro, and the rest of the
                  Cuban hierarchy.

                  The session was punctuated by cries of "Long Live the Revolution!" and
                  "Socialism or Death!" as deputies described Elian in terms such as "an exotic
                  animal in a Miami cage," and one female legislator even burst into tears.

                  A Protestant legislator, Raul Suarez, said he prayed that Christmas Day
                  would be a double celebration -- "the celebration of Baby Jesus, son of
                  Mary and Joseph, and the celebration of the return of little Elian, son of
                  Juan-Miguel."

                  Castro said the second wave of protests across the Caribbean nation of 11
                  million people would be bigger, better organized and "could go on for longer
                  ... We face a powerful, tenacious and arrogant enemy."