By Anita Snow
Associated Press Writer
Friday, July 16, 1999; 5:28 p.m. EDT

HAVANA (AP) -- Cuba accused the Miami-based exile community on Friday of trying to derail migration accords between the island nation and the United States through protests and rumors.

In a lengthy front-page editorial, the Communist Party daily Granma said that ``Cuban origin elements of the extreme right'' had been trying to ``sabotage the Migration Agreement and provoke conflict between the United States and Cuba.''

The editorial signaled just how worried the Cuban government is about rapidly growing frustrations over immigration in both Cuba and the United States.

Granma made numerous references to recent protests in Miami over the U.S. Coast Guard's handling of Cubans trying to reach U.S. shores. Following television reports showing the Coast Guard blasting the men with a water hose as they stood in their rowboat just off shore, protesters alleged brutality and insensitivity.

Granma described the news coverage as ``publicity shows'' aimed at denigrating American authorities trying to carry out the accords.

The U.S. Coast Guard has been the target of ``virulent and demoralizing attacks by a counterrevolutionary mafia that feels like it is practically the owner of the United States,'' the editorial said.

The editorial also criticized radio transmissions from Miami that the newspaper said encouraged, or at the least tolerated, illegal immigration from Cuba to the United States. It denied rumors circulating in Miami for months that Fidel Castro's government plans to open the country's coastal borders and allow anyone who wants to leave to do so.

``There is not the most remote possibility'' of another mass exodus, the editorial said. On the contrary, Cuba is committed to ``block and combat the trafficking of human beings.''

When Castro briefly lowered the coastal borders in the summer of 1994, more than 30,000 Cubans left the island, causing a severe immigration crisis in south Florida.

After that, the two countries agreed that the U.S. government would repatriate all Cubans picked up at sea and Cuba would stop would-be immigrants from leaving the island. Under the accords, Cubans who reach land have the right to apply for political asylum.

Rumors here that U.S. authorities plan to remove the so-called ``home free'' rule sometime in August have prompted an apparent increase in the number of Cubans setting sail for U.S. shores.

The rule was established decades ago by the Cuban Adjustment Act, a law passed by Congress, and would require another vote of Congress to be changed.