In response, half a million women mobilized in the streets of Havana, shouting "Bring back Elián" and "Down with the lies."

In late November U.S. officials turned Elián González over to the custody of his great-uncle Lázaro González in Miami after he was rescued in the Florida Straits, having survived a journey from Cuba in which his mother and 10 others drowned.

Since then, in blatant and contemptuous violation of Cuba's sovereignty, the Clinton administration has refused to simply return the boy to his country. On April 22, the government seized him in a raid of the González home in Miami by heavily armed immigration police and U.S. marshals. He is presently staying at a home in the Washington, D.C., area with his father Juan Miguel González, who came to the United States in April to reclaim his son and return home.

The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled unanimously that the INS had "considerable discretion" to determine policy in the case. The INS, wrote the judges, was not "unreasonable" in deciding that "6-year-old children lack the capacity to sign and to submit personally an application for asylum; instead...[they] must be represented by an adult in immigration matters," and "the only proper adult to represent a 6-year-old child is the child's parent" unless special circumstances apply.

The judges indicated that while they might have made a different decision, "The case is mainly about the separation of powers under our constitutional system of government" and "in no context is the executive branch entitled to more deference than in the context of foreign affairs."

In its ruling the federal court threw in a number of gratuitous assaults on revolutionary Cuba, referring to it at least three times as a "totalitarian state" and making the false assertion that "Cuba does violate human rights and fundamental freedoms and does not guarantee the rule of law to people living in Cuba."

The panel also denied a motion that Juan Miguel González replace Lázaro Gon-zález as his son's representative in the court proceedings, which would have allowed the father to drop the asylum request and return to Cuba with his son.

Meanwhile, a previous injunction by the court keeps the six-year-old in the United States during the appeals process. The judges gave the Miami relatives 14 days to appeal the ruling--shortening the period from the usual 45 days--but the injunction will not be lifted for another week.

Lázaro González has said he will appeal the ruling. Odds are against either route--the full circuit court panel or the U.S. Supreme Court--being successful.

President William Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno applauded the ruling.

Outside the house in Miami where Elián González lived with the Lázaro González family for five months, a few dozen opponents of the Cuban revolution showed up to protest the ruling.

In Cuba, some 500,000 women marched down Havana's coastal boulevard to the U.S. Interests Sections to protest the latest delay in returning Elián González to his country.

The next day, 70,000 people mobilized in Holguín province, in eastern Cuba, with the same demand. According to the Cuban daily Granma, speakers demanded "the return of Elián, the end of the Cuban Adjustment Act, and other criminal laws imposed by the U.S. government" against Cuba.

The Cuban Adjustment Act, which grants expedited citizenship to Cubans who arrive in the United States outside legal channels, is used by Washington against revolutionary Cuba, and is opposed by those who call on the U.S. government to normalize relations with Cuba.  
 
 
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