By CARL HIAASEN
Herald Staff Writer

Former Cuban President Carlos Prío Socarrás was laid to rest miles from his Cuban homeland Wednesday, mourned by more than 2,000 exiles whose cause he had battled until the last day of his life.

Grieving businessmen, teenagers, grandmothers and fellow exile leaders packed into St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church at 2987 W. Flagler St. in Miami to pay homage to Prío, the last freely elected president of Cuba.

"I'm still shaken," said 60-year-old José Orta, a Miami professor who carried the banner of Prío's Cuban Revolutionary Party at the head of the funeral cortege. "Everybody's thinking about what we have lost."

Other Latins filed into the church and knelt quietly during the two-hour ceremony. "We're here because we're sympathetic with these people," said Willie Ramirez, a Puerto Rican who now lives in Miami.
"A good man has died," Ramirez said.

Richard Garzón attended Prió's funeral on behalf of the Colombian-American Chamber of Commerce. "Not only Cuba but the whole American continent lost a valiant man. He fought for all the Americas," Garzón said.

The white-haired, 73-year-old Prío, long active in Cuban politics and later in the anti-Castro movement in South Florida, committed suicide Tuesday morning at. his Miami Beach home.

Friends told police that he was despondent about financial set backs, but many of those at Wednesday's services believed Prío was more distraught by the possibility that the United States and Cuba were moving towards normalized relations.

"HE TOLD friends he was depressed because of the relations between Cuba and the United States going back (to normal)," said Emilio Caballero of the Alpha 66 anti-Castro group.

Bells tolled as Prío's casket, draped by a Cuban flag, was carried from the white hearse to the front of the church. For two hours mourners walked by, some leaning to kiss the casket or gently touch Prió's face.

Father Ramón O'Farrill eulogized the Cuban leader as the island country's "presidente cordial" or friendly president.

"Most Cubans loved him. He was one of the best presidents we ever had," said Chris Bolano, a Miami advertising salesman who was only eight years old in 1952 when Fulgencio Batista ousted Prío from power.

OUTSIDE the church, cigar smoke hung heavily in the air as groups of men and women talked quietly under overcast skies. The deafening whine of jetliners approaching Miami International Airport interrupted conversation. A concession truck sold pastry, Cuban sandwiches and soft drinks in the parking lot.

Standing in the back of the church, Jorge Más Canosa, 33-year-old president of the Cuban Representation of Exiles, somberly reflected on the impact of Prió's death.

"The death of Carlos Prío leaves a giant vacuum in the Cuban exile leadership that will be impossible to fill," Canosa said. "It is a major setback in the struggle for a free Cuba."

Shortly before 4 p.m., the funeral procession surged into Flagler Street as mourners, many walking arm-in-arm, followed the limousines carrying Prió's widow, María Tarrero, and daughters María Elena Durán and María Antonieta Prío 12 blocks to Woodlawn Cemetery.

MORE THAN 2,000 admirers from several political factions paid homage to the man who for so many years had worked for unity in Miami's exile community.

Along the peaceful residential streets, some families left their homes and joined the march. Others stood quietly on their front lawns, singing softly "Himno Bayamés," the Cuban national anthem.

At, graveside, the man who served as first minister during Prío's four-year administration spoke passionately of his friend's death. Shaking as he spoke under the green canopy, Antonio Varona proclaimed: "Prío killed himself because he could no longer suffer the pains of exile. Prió's violent death can have no other motive than great disenchantment seeing each day further and further away the liberty of our homeland." Varona spoke while fighting back tears.

Said Caballero, "Dr. Prío is the last symbol of freedom in Cuba, of democracy, our last elected president."

Shortly before the vault cover with the gold cross was laid over Carlos Prío Socarrás' Miami grave, Más Canosa vowed, "We will liberate Cuba, liberate our land to take him (Prío) back. That's the only place he will rest."