July 27, 1999

By Irene Marushko

WINNIPEG, July 26 (Reuters) - Two wrestlers from Peru, who disappeared after landing in Canada to take part in the Pan American games, resurfaced on Monday to tell officials they were alive, well and seeking a new life in Canada.

The young men, who wandered off late last week and generated a flood of missing persons reports, were added to a short roster of athletes seeking to defect during the games now taking place in this western Canadian city.

"We don't have anything to do with them but the media reports seem to be reasonably accurate. One has relatives in Toronto and the other has called his family in Peru. They're in good health," a Pan Am spokesman told Reuters.

Last week a Cuban reporter followed and reported on a Cuban sharp-shooter who contacted Canadian authorities to ask for refugee status -- possibly adding tension to already strained relations between Cuba and Canada.

Officials organizing the 1999 Pan Am games, which have attracted thousands of athletes from North and South America, have sought to distance themselves from the spate of attempted defections.

Requests by would-be defectors are also treated with the strictest secrecy by federal government officials.

Further defections have not been ruled out. More than 5,000 athletes will compete in 41 sports during the games which are held every four years.

A games official said defections come as no surprise to organizers, who instruct games volunteers to send those seeking to defect to Winnipeg police.

Canada, which the United Nations earlier this month rated for the sixth year in a row as the best country in the world to live in, has long been viewed as a haven for economically and politically oppressed people from abroad.

A Cuban delegation spokesman at the weekend took issue with the media for focusing on the attempted defections, local media reported.

Traditionally warm Canadian-Cuban relations have chilled recently as Canada took issue with communist Cuba over human rights abuses on the Caribbean island.

The Pan Am Games, attended by Britain's Princess Anne, will run until August 8.

(Winnipeg Reuters Bureau, 204 947 3548, fax 204 947 5167 email: toronto.newsroom@reuters.com or chicago.commods.newsroom@reuters.com))

18:57 07-26-99

Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited

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