Friday, December 11, 1998; 1:23 a.m. EST

MIAMI (AP) -- Seven Cuban exiles who left the Florida Keys to join a demonstration in Cuba were stopped and had their vessel confiscated by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Two Coast Guard officers asked to come aboard the vessel Human Rights just before it left Marathon on Thursday. The exiles agreed and headed to sea.

By early afternoon, the 35-foot fishing boat was 60 miles northeast of Havana when it was seized before it could enter Cuban waters.

The members of the Democracy Movement were testing the resolve of the U.S. government to stop them as they marked the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. No one was arrested.

The movement's plan is to ``try to achieve a peaceful transition to democracy after 40 years of tyranny,'' said Norman del Valle, the movement's executive subdirector.

The group was to disembark in Cuba and join a planned demonstration of dissidents in Havana on the anniversary of the U.N. declaration.