NASSAU -- It was a closely guarded secret, a sensitive operation arranged in a meeting in Havana two weeks ago.

Ending a nearly five-month impasse that erupted with the defection of a star Cuban baseball player, the Bahamas resumed deportations of Cuban refugees Monday. Those sent home included three baseball prospects who had been courted by U.S. sports agents.

The process began when security guards at a Bahamas detention center read off a list of 65 Cuban refugees. Resigned to their fate, the 45 men, 12 women and eight children boarded a bus that drove to Nassau's airport, where a chartered Cuban jetliner whisked them home to an uncertain future.

Silence fell over the camp, where 196 other Cuban boat people knew that they, too, could soon be returned to their Communist-ruled homeland. There were no protests, no shouts of defiance.

More than 100 other Cuban detainees who were also denied political asylum will be sent home in the coming weeks, said Vernon Burrows, the Bahamas' deputy immigration director.

`El Duque' defection

The deportations came after a Bahamas delegation visited Havana two weeks ago, Burrows said. Cuba stopped honoring a repatriation accord in December after a star baseball pitcher, Orlando ``El Duque'' Hernandez, defected to the Bahamas and was granted asylum by Costa Rica.

Hernandez later signed a $6.6 million contract to pitch for the New York Yankees.

Cuba's government-run news agency, Prensa Latina, reported that the 65 people deported Monday were given medical exams in Havana and were to be sent to their homes in Villa Clara, Matanzas and Las Tunas provinces.

The group included baseball players Angel Lopez, 25; Jorge Diaz, 23; Michael Jova, 17; and pitching coach Orlando Chinea, 41. They and first baseman Jorge Luis Toca, 23, fled Cuba by boat in March and were rescued by a Bahamian fishing crew. Toca is married to a Japanese citizen and was granted a Japanese visa in April.

All were banned from Cuban baseball last year because Cuban officials suspected they were planning to defect. Once in the Bahamas, the players were recruited by Florida-based sports agent Joe Cubas and a rival agency, KDN Sports Inc.

Asylum refused

On Monday night, Jova's stepmother, Haydee Aguilera, confirmed by telephone from the family home outside the central city of Santa Clara that her stepson had arrived in Cuba, but said the family had not yet talked to him.

``We just saw him on television. I imagine we will see him tomorrow [Tuesday],'' she said, before abruptly hanging up.

The Bahamas refused to grant asylum to the Cubans after interviewers from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees concluded they had not been politically persecuted in Cuba.

The deportations enraged Cuban exile groups in the United States, which had lobbied other countries to accept the refugees.

``It's desperation that drives them out, not the fact that there is a United States here or a Bahamas there,'' said Jose Basulto, head of Brothers to the Rescue, which flies rescue missions over the Florida Straits looking for boat people.

`A sad situation'

Basulto had planned a trip to Nassau on Tuesday to try to stop more deportations but canceled because he was unable to arrange a meeting with Bahamian officials.

``It's a sad situation for us,'' he said.

Burrows defended the deportations, saying the cost of caring for hundreds of Cuban and Haitian immigrants was ``astronomical'' for the Bahamas, a small Caribbean nation.

Hundreds of people flee Cuba by raft or boat every year -- either because they oppose or fear the government or want an alternative to their daily struggle for food. In recent years, several nations -- including the United States, Bahamas and the Dominican Republic -- have signed repatriation agreements with Cuba.

U.S. officials say they have found no evidence that the more than 900 refugees they have returned to Cuba have suffered more than minor harassment, though some returnees have complained to reporters of problems.