Hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched past the US diplomatic mission in Havana on Thursday, during the largest anti-US protest yet in the custody dispute over the shipwrecked six-year-old boy, Elian Gonzalez. In an extraordinary show of mobilisation by Cuba's ruling Communist Party, the mass of demonstrators stretched the length of Havana's 8-km seafront Malecon Boulevard, filing past the fortified US compound chanting: "We want Elian!"
Schoolchildren of the same age as the boy led the way in martial formation, holding banners depicting him over their heads and chanting: "Yankees, no! Cuba, yes!"
"The revolutionary people demand the imperialist government of the United States and the mafia of Miami free Elian!" one loudspeaker shouted.
The boy at the centre of the custody battle was rescued at sea and taken to the US on November 25th, having survived for two days clinging to a tube in the waters off Florida after a small craft carrying would-be immigrants sank. His mother and 10 others drowned when the boat capsized, though two adults also survived.
Elian Gonzalez is currently staying with relatives in Miami and has become a poster boy for hardline Cuban exiles, who say he should not be sent back to Cuba. His father, who lives in the provincial Cuban town of Cardenas, is demanding his return.
Since President Fidel Castro began a national campaign to back that claim over the weekend, there have been ever-bigger daily rallies across Cuba, culminating in Thursday's Havana march of more than 300,000 people, according to official figures.
Student leaders said double and triple that number would march in coming days.
In an effort to resolve the dispute, Washington's senior diplomat in Havana, Ms Vicki Huddleston, has formally told Cuban officials that US immigration authorities are ready to meet the boy's father anywhere he wants.
Once Mr Juan Miguel Gonzalez had shown he was the father and had valid parental rights over the boy, the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service would rule on whether the child should return to Cuba, US officials said.
An INS commissioner, Ms Doris Meissner, acknowledged that US law viewed a parent as having primary custody rights but said Washington would allow other family members to have their say.
Dr Castro appeared to pre-empt the US initiative on a meeting with the father late on Wednesday, saying Mr Gonzalez had stated that "he is not prepared to meet with any US government official unless it is to tell him the day, hour and way in which the boy will return to Cuba".
The father has given conflicting statements to journalists on his willingness to meet US authorities.
The Gonzalez case has prompted the biggest demonstrations in Cuba for years, focused on the US mission - described as Interests Section because Washington and Havana do not have formal diplomatic ties.
Critics accuse Dr Castro of being deliberately obstinate to prolong the custody dispute for political gain and say Havana would never allow the father, a 32-year-old Communist Party member who works as a hotel porter, to travel to Miami for fear he might opt to stay there and hand exiles a victory.