WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration has identified as hijackers two of the six Cubans whose smashed boat was rescued off Islamorada last week and is preparing to return them to Cuba for prosecution, U.S. officials said Monday.

The decision was immediately decried by some Cuban exiles, who accused the administration of handing desperate people back to their tormentors in order to maintain stable immigration between the United States and Cuba.

But the stance appeared to be consistent with recent U.S. efforts to discourage Cubans from leaving the island by force. The administration is currently fighting the political asylum claims of a retired Cuban intelligence officer and a group of three men, all of whom were acquitted of terrorism in U.S. courts despite strong evidence that they hijacked planes.

In interviews with U.S. immigration officials over the weekend, the other four Cubans aboard the damaged boat identified themselves as hostages. They were returned to the island Monday after they refused offers for a U.S. asylum hearing, the officials said.

The hijackers, who reportedly admitted their action, were identified only as a port security guard and his brother-in-law. One U.S. official confirmed their identities to be Ridel Ruiz Cabrera and Rafael Jorrin, respectively. Jorrin had been expected in Miami, said a relative, Ramon Gonzalez, who voiced doubts about the U.S. version of events.

The State Department said Monday evening that ``they were found not to be entitled to protection and will be returned to Cuba,''

The pair undertook a brash escape early Thursday when they seized a border patrol boat at Marina Acua, apparently while the four others were on board. All six furnished virtually identical accounts of the incident, U.S. officials said.

When another Cuban patrol boat sought to stop their departure from the Varadero port area, the pair snatched AK-47 assault guns that were on board the boat and sprayed the pursuing vessel with bullets, injuring a patrolman in the leg.

The pursuing boat withheld its fire, apparently in response to pleas from some of the four hostages, three border guards and a 15-year-old girl. The chasing boat, nevertheless, rammed the hijacked vessel, knocking loose its superstructure and collapsing its cabin.

The hijackers carried a knife and forced one of the hostages, a machinist, to operate the boat. U.S. officials said they beat the skipper with the butt of the knife.

Outside U.S. territory

The limping boat was rescued off the Florida Keys Thursday evening, after another vessel spotted its emergency flares. Because they were intercepted outside U.S. territory, the six faced automatic repatriation to Cuba, pending a review of any asylum claim, as authorized under a landmark U.S.-Cuba migration agreement.

Jose Cardenas, Washington representative of the Cuban American National Foundation, said the administration appears more concerned with protecting that hard-won immigration accord with Cuba than with saving Cubans from persecution.

``It's not sustainable,'' he said. ``You can't conspire with a dictator to stop the flow of people from a totalitarian society. Desperate people do desperate things.''

On Friday, Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, both Cuban-American Republicans from Miami, had called on Attorney General Janet Reno immediately to grant ``humanitarian paroles'' to the Cubans in Guantanamo.

Under the landmark immigration accord with Cuba, which in 1995 brought an end to an exodus of tens of thousands of rafters from the island, the administration and Cuba agreed to discourage flight by illegal means. Migrants are encouraged to apply for refugee status at the U.S. mission in Havana, which has reserved at least 20,000 slots a year for Cubans.

Agreement invoked

One White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. responsibility to repatriate the hijackers is clear.

``We're trying to behave consistent with international law and our migration agreement with Cuba,'' the official said.

But in a sign of discomfort among senior U.S. policymakers, the administration struggled throughout the day Monday over a simple statement outlining its decision. Although the Immigration and Naturalization Service is nominally responsible for the move, top White House, State and Justice Department officials met to weigh the political sensitivities of the exile community.

Given such pressures, the United States has not always been so eager to return Cubans who use violence to flee Cuba or even to punish exiles who attack Cuba from U.S. soil.

But, with the end of the Cold War, some said, Washington has concluded that the biggest threat posed by Cuba is the kind of unchecked migration that can be precipitated by a few explosive actions.

``It's perfectly clear that the U.S. does not want a flood of refugees,'' said Wayne Smith, a former head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. ``They value the accords, and they don't want to give Cuba an opportunity to say they've been violated and here come the balseros [rafters].''

Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald