By Patricia Zengerle
MIAMI, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The leader of a Cuban exile group known for protest flotillas off Cuba's coast said on Wednesday an alleged spy at least once tipped off Havana about his group's secret activities.
It happened in late 1995 when the Miami-based Democracy Movement planned to send a plane over Havana to drop leaflets denouncing the Communist government of President Fidel Castro, Ramon Saul Sanchez, leader of the Democracy Movement, told Reuters.
Sanchez's group was one of the Miami-based anti-Castro organisations allegedly infiltrated by members of a Cuban spy cell arrested in southern Florida over the weekend.
In announcing the breakup of the ring on Monday, U.S.
officials said Rene Gonzalez, a pilot and member of the Democracy Movement who also belonged to the exile group Brothers to the Rescue, was an agent in the espionage ring.
Federal officials said members of the spy cell also targeted U.S. military installations in Florida, including the U.S.
Southern Command headquarters in Miami and the U.S. Naval Air Station Key West at Boca Chica.
Sanchez said his organisation received Cuba's permission to fly in its airspace in 1995 by applying without revealing its identity, so group members were surprised when Cuban air traffic controllers stopped them at the edge of Cuban territory.
``At that point, when our pilot was going to cross into Cuba, they found out, and they stopped the plane and they told the plane to turn back,'' he said.
The incident was three or four months before Cuban MiGs shot down two planes flown by Brothers to the Rescue in February 1996.
Sanchez said he initially believed Havana learned about his group's mission from Juan Pablo Roque, a Brothers to the Rescue pilot and friend of Gonzalez. Roque appeared in Cuba a few days after the shootdown and said he had been spying in Miami for Castro.
Sanchez said his opinion changed after Monday's FBI announcement that the spy cell had been broken up. ``If indeed, Rene Gonzalez is an agent of the Cuban government, it was Rene Gonzalez who told Cuba,'' he said. ``And perhaps Cuba did not shoot down that plane because Rene Gonzalez was on board.''
Sanchez said the Democracy Movement would stage a protest event off Cuba's coast within the next few weeks to register its anger that Havana sent spies to infiltrate Cuban exile groups.
The Democracy Movement has staged a variety of protests to show its opposition to Cuba's Communist government. The group has sent several ``flotillas'' of boats and planes from Florida to the edge of Cuban territory, Sanchez made an unsuccessful bid to enter Cuban territory during Pope John Paul's visit, and last summer the group sent a remote-controlled rubber boat to Cuban shores.
Sanchez said the Democracy Movement cancelled two upcoming actions because of fear that Gonzalez had tipped off Havana.
But he said members of his group had not suspected Gonzalez of spying for Cuba. He said Gonzalez had seemed kind, friendly and devoted to the cause. ``He never presented any kind of signs that would have triggered suspicion on our side,'' he said.
Jose Basulto, founder and president of Brothers to the Rescue, told a news conference on Tuesday Gonzalez was a member of the organisation from May 25, 1991 to Aug. 21, 1994, when he was grounded ``for security reasons.''
Brothers to the Rescue flies missions over the Florida Straits looking for Cubans attempting to reach Florida on small boats and rafts, as have tens of thousands of people in the 40 years since Castro assumed power.
Basulto said Gonzalez flew 54 missions, five as his own co-pilot. ``I considered him my friend,'' Basulto said.
13:44 09-16-98
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.