Elian's back, but the rallies and marches will go on

MANZANILLO, Cuba - Fidel Castro defiantly warned the next U.S. president Saturday not to try to defeat his socialist revolution, as the Cuban government launched a new series of mass demonstrations after Elian Gonzalez's return.

''Whoever may be the new president of the United States should know that Cuba is and will be here with its ideas, its example, and the unbendable rebellion of its people,'' Castro wrote in a letter read before hundreds of thousands of people gathered to protest U.S. policies. ''All aggression and attempts to asphyxiate us and reduce us to our knees will be conquered.''

Led by Gen. Raul Castro, head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and Fidel Castro's younger brother, a sea of people vigorously waved small red, white and blue Cuban flags.

''Those who think we are ending should know that we are beginning!'' Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told the Cubans who massed in this southeastern coastal city for the first large rally organized since Elian's low-key homecoming Wednesday.

Perez Roque congratulated Cuban citizens on their success in the return of Elian and his father to the communist country, eliciting a huge cheer from the crowd, which the government estimated at more than 300,000. ''It is a victory of the people!'' he declared.

The government has promised repeatedly in recent months that once the boy returned, the marches, rallies and televised round-table discussions would go on.

This time, though, the events will focus not on the 6-year-old, but on U.S. immigration policies and trade sanctions that the Cuban government says harm its people.

Castro also wrote that Cubans don't care who wins the coming presidential elections in the United States and said that candidates are wasting their time trying to win the Cuban-American vote.

''It is useless to invest unnecessary time in the declarations and promises made against Cuba to obtain the vote of just a few people who have no country of their own, who even dare to step on and burn the American flag,'' Castro said. He was referring to the angry actions of some Cuban exiles in Miami after the federal raid that reunited Elian with his father in April.

In rare comments to reporters afterward, Raul Castro said that media coverage of the battle over Elian had helped Americans better understand Cuba and its people. Because of that increased understanding, ''the second chapter will also be a triumph,'' he said.

''More and more there are thousands of American tourists coming to Cuba,'' said Raul Castro, first in the line of succession after his brother. He also noted increased American interest in doing business with Cuba.

Cuba organized more than 100 such rallies in the seven months that Elian was in the United States, calling out hundreds of thousands of Cubans from around the country to show popular support for bringing the boy home.

The gatherings have been used occasionally as a showcase for Americans sympathetic to Cuba. On Saturday, the son of death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, Mazi Jamal, thanked Cubans for supporting his father's attempts to obtain a new trial.

Abu-Jamal was convicted of murder in the 1981 shooting death of a Philadelphia police officer, but maintains his innocence and the case is under appeal. ''With that support I know my father will one day be free as your child Elian is free,'' Jamal said.

Elian and his family remained out of public view Saturday. They are staying at a specially prepared boarding school in Havana, where they will live for two or three weeks along with Elian's classmates and teachers. Later, they will return to their hometown, a small port city east of Havana.

Cuba blames a U.S. law called the Cuban Adjustment Act for the international custody battle over Elian. After he was hospitalized following his rescue from the Atlantic Ocean in late November, Elian was allowed to stay in the United States under the 1966 law, which allows Cubans who reach American soil to seek permanent residency.

Cuba maintains the policy encourages Cubans to make risky voyages across the Florida Straits, such as the one that Elian embarked on with his mother and 12 others.

Elian was one of three survivors from the boatwreck that killed his mother and thrust him into a custody dispute between his father in Cuba and his relatives in Miami, who wanted him to remain in the United States.