``He said he was very disgusted by what had happened, very pained,'' said Jose Ignacio Rasco, one of the Cuban exiles targeted in a police raid a day earlier.
Other Venezuelan authorities also offered apologies, saying the exiles were welcome back on Margarita Island, where the three-day Ibero-American Summit involving Castro and 20 other Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American leaders begins Friday.
Members of the group met Tuesday night to decide when to return to the site -- perhaps today.
The raid by some 20 heavily armed security agents struck a sour note on the eve of an event that Venezuela hopes will underscore its respect for democratic values.
Led by prominent Madrid-based writer Carlos Alberto Montaner, the eight activists spent Tuesday seeking guarantees that they could meet with heads of state, journalists and others attending the summit without further harassment.
Rasco said Caldera told him that ``sometimes situations got out of hand but that we could count on full guarantees.''
Information Minister Fernando Egaña described the ``brutal'' raid as a ``mistake'' and said it was not ordered by Miraflores Palace, Venezuela's presidential office.
Martinez and the other activists still sounded startled by the way security police carrying automatic rifles burst into an apartment where they were meeting in the town of Porlamar just after 3 p.m. Monday, combed through the apartment and confiscated a letter by dissidents inside Cuba.
``This is really incomprehensible, inadmissible,'' Martinez said. ``We were held for four hours in isolation. According to them, we weren't under arrest, but we were basically kidnapped.''
The activists were put aboard two commercial flights to Caracas, where they found themselves no longer under custody. The security agents did not accompany them on the trip and no one met the flight in the Venezuelan capital.
``There wasn't anybody there,'' Montaner said. ``They boarded us on the plane [at Porlamar], they told us we couldn't talk, then they disappeared.''
In addition to Montaner, Martinez and Rasco, the others who were arrested were Rafael Sanchez, Julio Hernandez, Julio Mestre, Manuel Barba and Roberto Fontanillas. All belong to exile political groups acting under the banner of the Cuban Democratic Platform, one of the more moderate exile movements.
Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald