By Fabiola Sanche. .c The Associated Press
CARACAS, Venezuela. 9 (AP) - Venezuela on Wednesday rejected a request from two Cuban doctors for political asylum but said it will allow them to remain in the country temporarily.
The doctors' request had presented a dilemma for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who is close friends with Cuban leader Fidel Castro and often praises Castro's four-decade-old communist revolution.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangel said the request was rejected because the doctors wanted to emigrate to Venezuela for economic reasons and not because of political persecution.
``There was no political reason that carried weight. They did not qualify for asylum or refuge,'' Rangel told reporters. However, he said the doctors would be allowed to stay in Venezuela for one year for unspecified ``humanitarian reasons.''
The two doctors, Heberto Navarro, 38, and Reinaldo Calebrook, 35, spoke at a press conference Monday and said they wanted to emigrate to improve their standard of living. They also praised the political freedoms Venezuelans enjoy.
The two arrived in Venezuela in December as part of a team of Cuban doctors who treated victims of landslides that left thousands of people dead along Venezuela's northern Caribbean coast and in Caracas. Most of the doctors have remained - with the Cuban government's OK - in order to provide
medical assistance.
If the Chavez administration granted the doctors political asylum, it would in effect be confirming that there is political repression on the island. But if it rejected the request and returned the doctors to Cuba, they might face harassment or prison since they publicly criticized the Cuban
government overseas.
Wednesday's decision apparently was an attempt to seek a middle ground.
The doctors' request also was likely to prove embarrassing for the Cuban government, which after decades of trying to export its brand of leftist revolution throughout the Third World has taken to sending doctors and teachers overseas to try to showcase what it says are the revolution's
achievements in health care and education.
While the two doctors will be allowed to live, work and travel in Venezuela, officials said the agreement prohibits them from engaging in activities involving Venezuelan politics.
AP-NY-02-09-00 1854EST
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