'My heart is broken' - Little Havana looks to life without Elian

MIAMI (AP) - Easter - one of the holiest of days in Little Havana and the rest of the Christian world - found Marta Rodriguez praying for a little boy she knows only from a distance but, like many, calls by his first name.

''Pobre Elian,'' the 71-year-old Cuban immigrant said after Mass at St. John Bosco Church, where Elian's great-uncle and cousins have attended services.

''He should never have been treated this way,'' she said in a grandmotherly tone. ''My heart is broken.''

So it was for many Miami Cubans beginning life without the 6-year-old boy reunited with his father in Washington after a swift and stunning pre-dawn Saturday raid by federal agents. For the first time in five months, Elian was gone from Miami. And it was mostly quiet in Little Havana for the first time in days.

At the home of the boy's Miami relatives, a place once so overrun with journalists and protesters that it was dubbed Camp Elian, bystanders dressed in their Sunday best stopped briefly to look.

There was a brief skirmish Sunday afternoon when two young women carried signs supporting Attorney Janet Reno's order to raid.

''Not here! Not here!'' the protesters yelled, trying to hit one of the women and pulling her hair as she was escorted away by security guards. By evening, as many as 200 people gathered to sing, pray and leave red roses, carnations and other flowers woven in a chain-link fence surrounding the Gonzalez home.

An emotional Mass was said for Elian Gonzalez at Our Lady of Charity Catholic Church Sunday evening. More than 400 people packed the small sanctuary, and many more stood outside.

The congregation waved Cuban flags, cheered and wept. At one point, the people sang the Cuban national anthem.

Members of the Gonzalez family sat in the front row, including Elian's great-aunt, Caridad Gonzalez, who was met with a standing ovation.

Outside the church, Robert Vento, 45, said he hopes the boy's father will decide to stay in the United States with his son.

''If he defects ... Castro will be unmasked,'' Vento said.

Ileana Dopico, 45, a secretary who was among the protestors outside the house when the federal authorities moved in Saturday, was in tears, but remained optimistic.

''I think God will work out a miracle so the child won't go back to Cuba,'' Dopico said.

During protests that lasted into Sunday morning, police clad in riot gear arrested more than 350 people and cleared away thousands more demonstrators from Little Havana. Protesters set more than 200 fires, burning mostly tires and trash, but there were few serious injuries.

At St. Michael the Archangel Church, another Roman Catholic church in Little Havana, parishioners held radios to their ears as Spanish-language radio buzzed with talk of a strike Tuesday. If the idea catches on - there are 800,000 Cuban Americans in the area - it could shut down much of Miami.

Postal worker Nick Perez Caurel listened to the announcements from his home a few miles away and vowed to take part.

''I haven't missed a day of work in six years. But in my own peaceful way, I will show my feelings,'' said Perez Caurel, whose parents sent him from Cuba to the United States in 1962 when he was 12 years old.

The former Boy Scout and Vietnam veteran also showed his displeasure Saturday when he came home from work, pulled an American flag from his hallway closet and hung it upside down in his front yard with a black scarf pinned to it.

''We've always hung that flag proudly - on the Fourth of July, days like that,'' said his wife, Rosi Perez Caurel.

Now, Rosi - also a Cuban immigrant - says she's not feeling particularly American.

''There is a saying in Spanish, 'Te mastican pero no te tragan' - they chew you, but they don't swallow,'' she said. ''That's how it feels.''

Neighborhood residents have photocopied and circulated an Associated Press photograph of an armed federal agent with his hand extended to grab a crying Elian. Some versions replaced the faces of federal agents with those of Attorney General Janet Reno, who gave the go-ahead for the raid, and Cuban President Fidel Castro.

A poster-sized reproduction attached to the Gonzalez family's front door included this label: ''Federal Child Abuse.''

Not everyone in Little Havana was upset.

''I'm in agreement that his father is his only family,'' said 77-year-old Virginia Escalona, pausing before adding, ''Well, his grandmothers, too.''

As she stood outside on her apartment stairwell, her husband came out to try to quiet his wife, one of a few people becoming braver about a view that had been all but squelched in the neighborhood.

''Are you crazy?'' Escalona's husband said. ''You don't have to talk to the whole world.''

She shooed him away.

''I say what I like,'' she said. ''This is America, no?''

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EDITOR'S NOTE - AP Writer Mildrade Cherfils contributed to this report.