Illegal emigrants barred from return

 By JUAN O. TAMAYO
 Herald Staff Writer

 In an effort to discourage unlawful emigration and demonstrate its determination to
 uphold its promises to Washington, Havana has announced that any Cuban who
 left illegally after Sept. 9, 1994, will not be allowed to return to the island.

 The ban ends Havana's 1993 policy of allowing those who fled illegally to return
 home after they have spent at least five years abroad.

 An Aug. 26 notice from the Cuban Interests Section in Washington to the six
 U.S. travel agents who handle trips to Cuba said the new ban had been adopted
 for an ``indefinite period.

 The ban applies to the few thousand balseros who have arrived in Florida since
 the effective date, but it is not clear if it covers the thousands of Cubans who left
 legally on short trips, and then stayed abroad.

 U.S. Customs officials in Miami said they recorded 3,109 Cuban boat people
 making landfall in South Florida since since 1996, but had no numbers for 1995 or
 1994.

 Cuban Interests Section spokesman Luis Fernandez said the policy shift was
 designed to provide a strong disincentive to illegal migration, one of the most
 delicate issues in U.S.-Cuba relations in recent months.

 The disclosure of the new policy comes just one week after Cuba held a public
 trial of three accused people-smugglers, two of them Florida residents, on
 charges that could earn them terms of life in prison. A decision in the case is
 pending.

 The defendants are among the 40 U.S.-based people smugglers Cuba claims to
 have captured in recent years.

 Castro hinted at change

 President Fidel Castro hinted at the change in policy in an Aug. 3 speech in the
 northern city of Matanzas, but Cuban officials made no more mention of it until
 the Interests Section issued its Aug. 26 note to travel agents.

 Some 110,000 Cubans living in the United States visit the island each year,
 mostly aboard Miami-Havana flights, but many also travel through third countries
 such as Mexico and the Bahamas.

 But one Cuban exile in Miami said Havana's decision may backfire. If they are
 banned from returning to Cuba to see relatives, he said, recently arrived exiles
 may instead opt to try to smuggle their families out of the island.

 U.S. officials said the new ban shows a Cuba eager to uphold its end of a Sept. 9,
 1994, emigration pact with Washington, which sought to discourage risky, illegal
 emigration by boat and raft by expanding legal departures.

 ``This would indicate very strongly that they are meeting their end of the deal . . .
 and trying to dissuade illegal departures by peaceful means, said a U.S. State
 Department official.

 Drastic measure

 Although Cuba timed the ban on the day that it signed the migration agreement
 with Washington, U.S. officials said the 1994 pact did not require Cuba to
 undertake such a drastic measure.

 ``To indefinitely prohibit citizens from returning to their country would also be a
 violation of human rights,'' the State Department official added.

 Under the 1994 pact, Cuba promised to take no reprisals against would-be
 refugees captured and returned by the U.S. Coast Guard, and Washington
 promised to issue at least 20,000 visas per year to Cubans to promote legal
 emigration.

 The U.S. Interests Section in Havana has already handed out nearly 23,000 visas
 so far in the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, the State Department official said.

 Early on in Castro's 40-year-old regime, Cuba would not allow the return of
 anyone who left illegally -- or many who had met all legal requirements for
 emigration. But as time passed, Havana began easing its restrictions, and in the
 late 1970s began allowing return visits by large numbers of Cuban exiles who had
 been living abroad for years.

 The 125,000 refugees who left in the 1980 Mariel boatlift were first allowed to
 return to Cuba after 12 years. The 35,000 who left during the 1993 rafter crisis
 were then allowed to return after spending five years out of the country.

 People-smuggling industry

 But illegal migrations have turned into a major people-smuggling industry in recent
 months. The U.S. Coast Guard alleges that many of the smugglers are refugees
 who left in the rafter crisis and return aboard speedboats to pick up relatives and
 paying customers.

 U.S. officials have been watching Cuba's handling of illegal exits with special
 concern in recent months because of fears Castro might unleash a mass exodus
 like Mariel to relieve the growing pressure of popular discontent due to a stagnant
 economy.

 Castro has made some thinly veiled threats, but in his Matanzas speech he also
 vowed that he would continue to meet the requirements of his 1994 agreement
 with Washington.

 ``Here and now I am categorically warning that there is not the slightest
 possibility that Cuba . . . will authorize mass exits of illegal migrants, he
 declared.

 Herald staff writer Elaine DeValle contributed to this report.