By Angus MacSwan
MIAMI, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Two Cuban-American politicians said on Wednesday they hoped the expulsion of three Cuban diplomats from the United States over an alleged spy ring was only the start of a U.S. counterattack against Havana.
Republican U.S. Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen also took a swipe at the Clinton administration, which they accuse of not being tough enough in its policy toward Cuban leader Fidel Castro's communist government.
``We are optimistic we have not seen the last of these arrests or expulsions,'' Ros-Lehtinen told a news conference.
``The evidence is overwhelming, and it was high time the administration finally stopped looking the other way, which is what they've been doing for years, and start really looking into this information,'' she said.
The United States on Wednesday ordered three Cuban diplomats at the United Nations to leave the country for allegedly running a spy ring in Florida. The three have until Monday to leave.
Ten people were arrested in Miami on Sept. 13 and accused of spying on U.S. military bases and infiltrating Cuban exile groups for Havana.
It was the largest known roundup of agents from Havana since Castro's 1959 revolution soured relations between Cuba and the United States, and it caused a sensation in Miami, bastion of the exile cause.
Most of the accused have pleaded guilty, but three, said to be Cuban intelligence officers sent to the United States to run the network, still await trial.
Ros-Lehtinen said she had word a second spy ring existed in Miami, as well as an extensive operation in Washington.
``We're definitely very hopeful that this investigation is still ongoing, that it does not end with the arrest of the 10 individuals in Miami a few months ago nor is it going to end with the expulsion of these Cuban diplomats,'' she said.
Diaz-Balart, whose aunt was once married to Castro, added, ``We see an attitude from the FBI that we do not see from the Clinton administration.''
The congressman said he hoped investigations would turn up more information on the shooting down by Cuban fighter jets of two planes of the Brothers to the Rescue exile organisation over the Florida Straits in February 1996. Four people were killed in the incident.
One of the accused spies had been involved with Brothers to the Rescue, which sends out planes looking for Cubans fleeing by sea.
``It is to be hoped that the FBI will continue its very serious work and that the United States will not only continue to expel Castro's spies but will bring to justice the Cuban dictator, who is the one who ordered the murder of the Brothers to the Rescue, as U.S. law demands,'' Diaz-Balart said.
The two members of Congress, along with Brothers to the Rescue leader Jose Basulto, had called the news conference to protest against the continued detention in Florida of three Cuban refugees.
The three fled Cuba in a plane two years ago, were acquitted of hijacking by a court and last week were granted political asylum by an immigration judge. But they have still not been set free, and the Justice Department has given no reason for their continued detention.
One of the men, Adel Regalado Ulloa, says he has information proving the Brothers to the Rescue downing was planned beforehand by the Cuban government.
Basulto repeated previous accusations that the U.S. government had advance warning that action was planned but failed to warn his group.
``We believe the shoot-down of those planes could have been prevented and, wilfully, it was not done,'' Basulto said.
15:57 12-23-98
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