The arrests of 10 accused Cuban spies may signal a Washington decision to get tough on Havana agents who can easily infiltrate Miami exile groups and provoke incidents, exiles and intelligence experts say.

Exactly why the FBI arrested the 10 over the weekend remained unclear Monday. One official in Washington said the agents moved in because some of the ring members planned to leave the country. FBI officials in Miami declined to comment.

But the roundup was the first in memory against alleged Cuban spies in Miami, despite the fact that FBI officials and Cuban exile leaders have long maintained that 200 to 300 Cuban agents operate in South Florida.

``I find it strange because the FBI usually doesn't jail those kinds of people. It just watches them, said Francisco Avila, who in 1992 confessed to being a double agent for the FBI and Cuban intelligence for 12 years.

FBI officials have argued in the past that it's better to simply monitor the known Cuban agents than to arrest them -- and have Cuba replace them later with new agents who would be harder to track down.

Little Havana was rife with speculation Monday that the crackdown was Washington's way of balancing the scales of justice against the seven Cuban exiles charged in Puerto Rico last month with trying to murder Fidel Castro.

``Absolutely not! said Lula Rodriguez, deputy assistant secretary of state for public affairs. ``We have said time and time again the United States is committed to investigate and, if warranted by the evidence, prosecute violations of the law -- be it violations of laws on espionage or terrorism.

Cuba's concerted effort

But Cuban exiles were more concerned with what the criminal complaint filed by the FBI on Monday showed: a concerted effort by Havana to penetrate exile groups, sow dissent among them and provoke clashes between the exiles and Washington and Havana.

One of the 10, Linda Hernandez, tried to join the Alpha 66 paramilitary group and had a book autographed by its leader, Andres Nazario Sargen. Nazario said he did not recognize her name and doubted that she ever got very close to the group.

Another alleged spy, Rene Gonzalez, tried to infiltrate Brothers to the Rescue and offered to provide information to the FBI on the group's leader, Jose Basulto, according to an FBI affidavit filed in support of the arrests.

A third accused spy, Alejandro Alonzo, infiltrated the Democracia Movement and was ``tasked to report on the paramilitary PUND group, the National Cuban Commission and the Cuban American Pilots Organization, the affidavit said.

While the affidavit gave few details, the descriptions of the spies' alleged activities showed a Havana government intent on provoking problems for exile groups and leaders.

Groups manipulated

Among the spies' duties, according to the affidavit: ``Duplicitous participation in and manipulation of anti-Castro organizations; and attempted manipulation of United States political institutions and government entities through disinformation and pretended cooperation.

The spy ring's alleged master, Manuel Viramontes, was personally in charge of agents assigned to inflitrate exile groups but left the infiltration of U.S. military targets up to two deputies, the affidavit added.

Viramontes' focus was on ``the activities of Cuban exile groups in Miami and tactics to disrupt those groups by, among other things, [creating] animosity between specified groups and attempting to discredit certain individual leaders.

Also: ``The manipulation of the media, political institutions and public opinion, including among other means, by suggested anonymous or misidentified telephone calls and letters to media and political figures.

`Spark an action'

In one message from Viramontes to Rene Gonzalez, the FBI said, the ring's leader said it might be ``of interest to us in an emergency to spark an action by the North American government against these people.

Cuban intelligence infiltrations of Cuban exile groups in Miami are hardly new.

Alpha 6 alone has suffered more than a dozen known infiltrations since its founding in the early 1960s -- the last and most embarrassing in 1992, when Avila, then Alpha's military chief, revealed he had been working since 1980 for both the FBI and Havana.

He was expelled from Alpha after his confession and lives in Miami.

On Monday, Avila recalled that his Cuban supervisors at the Cuban mission to the United Nations had once given him $12,000 to buy a boat later offered to Alpha 66 for armed raids on Cuba.

``Cuba is very good at self-aggression, said Avila. ``If they want you to attack they will clear out their Navy so you can go in.