
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, November 30, 1993                   TAG: 9311300004
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO                                LENGTH: Medium

CUBAN ATHLETES DEFECT TO U.S. BY THE DOZEN

In pairs, Cuban athletes sneaked out of the pool, off the playing field or from their beds to defect during regional athletics championships. Dozens of them evaded their security guards and informers.

Four pairs of best friends plotted and made their escape from their Communist homeland together. They spoke as they waited outside U.S. immigration offices to make formal appeals for political asylum.

They didn't tell their families. One championship weightlifter, 23-year-old Emilio Lara, said he didn't even tip off his big brother, Pablo, a world record-holding weightlifter who also had been among the 900 Cubans in Puerto Rico for the competition.

"You can't trust anybody," Emilio Lara said, munching on potato chips from a vending machine. "We took the chance at night and left."

The Cubans have been melting away from the Central American and Caribbean Games in record numbers. Thirty-nine athletes and officials had departed as of Monday, including top basketball player Andres Gibert. Twenty-seven had formally sought political asylum by the end of the day, the Immigration and Naturalization Service reported.

Exiles and immigration officials expect the total to climb before the competition ends today.

Cuban guards, meanwhile, are doing 11 p.m. roll calls, and team members have to ask permission 24 hours in advance to meet with someone outside the athletes' village.

Cuban exiles call the defections an embarrassment to President Fidel Castro, and say the escapes are spurred by political repression and Cuba's worsening economy. The defectors agree, but add that their decision took in a combination of circumstances, including their presence in a Spanish-speaking U.S. territory and a generous American immigration law.

A 1966 act of Congress grants residency to nearly every Cuban who makes it to Puerto Rico, a status not given to any other nationality. Despite protests from Haitians and others fleeing political persecution, there has been no attempt to change the law.

by CNB