After an outcry about a defaced monument to Cuban balseros, civic leaders are stepping foward to help mend it.

BY DANIEL de VISE

They are now the most talked-about hands in Miami.

City leaders are mobilizing to repair a mangled downtown sculpture that once depicted two upraised hands, a poignant memorial to Cuban rafters lost at sea. Vandals broke off several fingers from the cement-and-fiberglass statue; it now appears to make an obscene gesture to passing motorists at the south edge of Bayfront Park.

An account of the defiled monument in Wednesday's Herald triggered a burst of civic activity, with several agencies and individuals offering to help with repairs.

''It was made with a lot of love and lot of effort from a lot of people,'' said Humberto Sanchez, the Cuban exile who first proposed the Liberty Column monument. ``And we are going to do it again with the same amount of love.''

Among those seeking to repair the statue are Miami Mayor Manny Diaz and Commissioner Joe Sanchez, who also serves as chairman of the group that oversees Bayfront Park. Sanchez will present a resolution to the commission next week proposing that the Bayfront Park Management Trust take over the project, according to city spokeswoman Kelly Penton.

''They really want to try to do something to fix this statue,'' Penton said.

Outrage over the vandalism has buzzed across the airwaves. Radio station WHYI-FM (Y-100) has launched a ''Save the Hands Fund.'' Station owner Clear Channel Communications may donate a billboard to promote the cause, according to Tim Schmand, executive director of the Bayfront trust.

''The public interest is phenomenal,'' Schmand said.

The Liberty Column sits on Chopin Plaza between the park and the InterContinental Hotel. It comprises the hands, reaching up as if from beneath the waves; a marble column; and a small fountain.

Enzo Gallo, the acclaimed sculptor who created the hands, died in 1999. Humberto Sanchez said he will meet Monday with another sculptor, Marc Andries Smit, a fellow exile whose bronze bust of Jose Martí sits in Coral Gables.

Sanchez said Smit would like to recreate the entire statue ''from pure bronze. It will not be a breakable type of thing.'' He would like to make other upgrades in the $30,000 monument, which turns 10 years old in December.

Miami police investigators collected evidence from the damaged statue Wednesday, including one of the broken fingers. Lt. Bill Schwartz said the debris would be screened for possible fingerprints and DNA evidence.

Whoever marred the statue could face a felony count of criminal mischief, punishable by up to five years in prison upon conviction, Schwartz said. But finding a culprit may prove difficult.

''It will be a long shot if we're able to solve the crime through forensics,'' Schwartz said. ``Because the symbolism of the hands is so key to the feelings of so many South Floridians, we definitely are taking this seriously.''