Bahamas sends back 61 Cuban refugees

By CYNTHIA CORZO and GLENN GARVIN
Herald Staff Writers

MANAGUA -- Ignoring an offer of asylum from Nicaragua, the Bahamian government put 61 Cuban refugees on a chartered jet and sent them back to their Communist-ruled homeland Thursday.

A Bahamian official said later that economic refugees entering the Bahamas illegally will no longer be permitted to go to third countries that issue them visas. That apparently includes another 135 Cubans confined in a Nassau detention camp.

Another repatriation flight is scheduled this weekend.

Bahamas' return of the 61 Cubans on Thursday shocked Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Aleman, who had offered them asylum Wednesday, and enraged officials of the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami, which was willing to underwrite the costs of getting them to Nicaragua.

``This act by the Bahamas, returning the refugees to a place from which they had just fled, truly surprises us,'' a somber Aleman said.

CANF Vice President Jorge Mas Santos said: ``This is a criminal act. . . . What they have done is totally immoral.''

Late Thursday, Foreign Secretary Luther Smith said the Bahamas won't allow the Cubans still at the camp to go to Nicaragua, despite Aleman's appeal. Nor will the Bahamas allow economic refugees in the future to go to third countries that offer them visas, as it has in the past, he said.

Accepting Nicaragua's offer to take the refugees ``would be opening the floodgates for more [Cubans] to come,'' he said.

Earlier, lower-ranking Bahamian officials had offered various reasons for not accepting the Nicaraguan request.

The Nicaraguan invitation ``is not an offer we can seriously consider,'' a Foreign Ministry spokesman said, ``because Nicaragua has the ability to make its offers straight to Cuba.''

The Bahamian government routinely shipped Cuban rafters back to their country last year under an immigration accord with Havana. But the repatriation flights stopped in December after President Fidel Castro's government was angered that Cuban baseball star Orlando ``El Duque'' Hernandez and six companions left the Bahamas for political asylum in Costa Rica.

After a meeting in Havana two weeks ago between Bahamian and Cuban officials, the two countries put the immigration deal back in place. And Monday, Bahamian officials resumed deportations, sending 65 refugees back to Cuba -- including three baseball players courted by U.S. sports agents.

Aleman, who received considerable support from Miami's Cuban exile community during his successful 1996 presidential race, offered asylum for the remaining refugees on Wednesday during a memorial Mass for CANF founder Jorge Mas Canosa.

``Whoever desires freedom will be welcomed to Nicaragua,'' the President said, ``because we, too, suffered dictatorships and persecution.''

Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Emilio Alvarez Montalvan faxed the formal offer of asylum for the refugees to his Bahamian counterpart, Janet Bostwick, on Wednesday evening. Bahamian officials at first claimed they didn't receive it, then said it arrived after office hours, too late to prevent Thursday's flight.

Nicaraguan officials, however, said the fax was sent before 5 p.m. and that Nicaragua's ambassador in Washington, Francisco Aguirre, alerted Bahamian officials to it in a telephone call.

This report was supplemented with Herald wire services.