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By Pascal Fletcher
HAVANA, June
17 (Reuters) - Two elderly Cuban anti- communist exiles who landed on Cuba's
northwest coast last month on a mysterious armed mission were captured after a
nine-day hunt and were being held in Havana, relatives in Cuba said on
Wednesday.
Vicente Marcelino Martinez Rodriguez, 64, and Ernestino Abreu Horta, 73,
were being held at Villa Marista, the headquarters of Cuba's Department of State
Security, the sisters of the two detained men told Reuters.
Their testimony was the only first-hand confirmation so far from inside Cuba
that the two men, known to be fierce opponents in exile of President Fidel
Castro's communist government, were captured by government forces after a
manhunt last month in western Pinar del Rio province.
``I visited him last week. He seemed well, a little thin. He told me he felt
fine,'' Esther Martinez Rodriguez, the 74-year- old sister of Martinez said.
``His hair is white. He looks older than me.''
She said it was the first time she had seen her brother since he went into
exile more than 15 years ago.
Julia Abreu Horta said she was allowed to visit her brother separately last
Thursday at Villa Marista. She said he appeared in good health, considering his
age.
Cuba's government had refused to confirm or deny persistent reports in the
Miami media and from dissident independent journalists on the island that
Martinez and Abreu landed on May 19. They were reportedly detained on May 28
after visiting relatives and friends and getting food and clothing from them.
The reports described the pair as members of a Miami-based anti-Castro
group, the Movement of Revolutionary Recovery (MRR), and said they travelled by
boat to the north coast of Pinar del Rio province with the apparent aim of
trying to stir up opposition to the government.
Esther Martinez Rodriguez said that two of her nephews who lived in the
Pinar del Rio mining town of Minas de Matahambre, Jose Corrales Martinez and
Rolando Corrales Martinez, were also arrested after they were contacted by the
two infiltrators.
They were also being held in Villa Marista.
It was unclear what the two elderly exiles hoped to achieve with their
clandestine operation.
``I knew he was against the system here, but I didn't expect him to do
this,'' Esther Martinez said.
``He said 'My sister!' and embraced me,'' she said, adding that they were
accompanied during their 10-minute interview in Villa Marista by a state
security officer and a guard. They were not allowed to talk about why he
returned to Cuba.
Esther Martinez said she had been told by state security officials that
Martinez and Abreu landed in a motor-powered vessel near Santa Lucia on Pinar
del Rio's north coast.
They brought ``some arms,'' including rifles and pistols, but ``not that
many,'' she said, citing the same Cuban state security officials.
Esther Martinez said security officials came to her house in Havana's
Marianao district when government forces were hunting for the infiltrators last
month in the hills and forests of northern Pinar del Rio. ``They already knew
everything and had everybody's addresses,'' she said.
She said officials took her and other relatives to the region, telling them
they wanted to find the two infiltrators before anyone was hurt.
Elizardo Sanchez, who heads the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and
National Reconciliation, a nongovernmental organisation that monitors human
rights in Cuba, said he considered the two to be political prisoners and would
arrange for lawyers to defend them.
Sanchez said he did not believe the two men had posed any real danger to the
government.
Martinez originally fought in Pinar del Rio as a captain in the rebel forces
led by Castro that eventually toppled right-wing dictator Fulgencio Batista in
the 1959 Cuban Revolution. He later turned against Castro and served time in a
Cuban prison before going into exile.
Abreu once headed the Junta Patriotica Cubana, an anti-Castro exile group
based in Miami.
Cuba has been the target of several incursion attempts by exiles since its
revolution, notably the U.S.-sponsored invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961,
which Castro's military quickly defeated.
18:51 06-17-98
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