By John M. Goshko
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 24, 1998; Page A10

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 23—The United States today ordered three diplomats from Cuba's U.N. mission to leave the country because of involvement with an alleged Cuban spy ring in the Miami area that was broken up last September.

In ordering the expulsions, the White House and State Department said only that the three had been involved in "activities incompatible with their status as members of the U.N. mission." Sources familiar with the situation said the three had ties -- apparently in relaying orders and acting as paymasters and couriers -- to the 10 people arrested in southern Florida on Sept. 13 on charges of spying on U.S. military installations and seeking to infiltrate Cuban exile groups opposed to President Fidel Castro's communist government.

"This action was taken as the result of evidence developed during an exhaustive investigation by the FBI," State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said.

The crackdown in Florida, involving eight men and two women, including two married couples, was the largest roundup of alleged Cuban agents since Castro came to power in 1959.

The diplomats being expelled are Eduardo Martinez Borbonet, a first secretary; Roberto Azanza Paez, a third secretary, and Gonzalo Fernandez Garay, an attache. U.N. officials said the U.S. government gave them until Monday to be out of the country. U.S. officials said two other, unidentified members of the Cuban U.N. delegation would have been expelled, but left the United States weeks ago.

The chain of events began Monday evening when the United States informed the Cuban mission and Secretary General Kofi Annan that it intended to expel the three but would give Cuba 24 hours to respond to the charges and argue why that should not be done. The sources said the 24-hour deadline passed without a response from the Cubans, and the decision to go ahead with the expulsion was made by the White House and State Department late Tuesday.

Neither the Cuban mission here nor the Foreign Ministry in Havana commented on the expulsions. They bring to 12 the number of Cuban diplomats at the United Nations ordered to leave since 1982.

Although the stated reason always has been for activities "incompatible" with their U.N. duties, that is the common diplomatic euphemism for espionage. The last expulsion here was in 1995, when three members of the Cuban mission were ordered to leave after getting into a fight with police and exile protesters at an anti-Castro rally.

Cuba expelled a U.S. diplomat from Havana in 1996 after charging her with improper activities. The United States retaliated by expelling a member of the Cuban interests section in Washington.

Since the United States and Cuba do not have formal diplomatic relations, each country's diplomats in the other's capital work out of interest sections that technically are a part of a third-country embassy. Cuba is allowed to maintain a diplomatic mission at the United Nations under the world body's headquarters agreement with the United States, although its diplomats here are subject to restriction on their movements and activities.