By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Herald Staff Writer

Facing a spate of alarming rumors, the Cuban government has taken the unusual
step of publicly denying that it plans to allow another Mariel-like emigration
exodus this summer.

``There is not even a remote possibility that Cuba's coastal borders will be opened
toward the United States, said an Interior Ministry statement published
Wednesday by the Communist Party newspaper Granma.

The statement came on the day that U.S. and Cuban officials in New York carried
out the latest review of a 1995 accord in which Havana promised to halt illegal
emigration and Washington pledged 20,000 visas for Cubans per year.

Both sides reaffirmed their commitment to the orderly emigration provided by the
accord and condemned immigrant smuggling as ``dangerous and totally
unnecessary.''

In Havana, the Interior Ministry blamed the rumblings about another exodus like
the 1980 Mariel boatlift on South Florida radio stations, including the U.S.
government's Radio Marti, and called them ``provocative.

The rumors appeared to be fueled more by the island's decaying economy and
hardening politics, all brought to a simmer by the seasonal heat and a drought
that is causing widespread water shortages.

The rumblings about another Mariel exodus began in January -- when several
hundred people rushed to the port west of Havana and clashed briefly with police
-- but picked up steam in the past month, Havana residents said.

Other rumors had several military officers arrested after one of Castro's
bodyguards defected in mid-April, bands of hungry Cubans assaulting food
delivery trucks around the provinces and residents of the eastern city of Santiago
de Cuba staging a public protest against food shortages.

Such reports are hard to confirm in a country with a controlled press and a state
security system as harsh as Cuba's. But their existence indicates a degree of
stress among the population.

Havana residents say their daily lives, plagued by critical shortages since Soviet
subsidies collapsed in 1991, have grown more difficult in recent months as food
prices rose and several fresh foods disappeared from stores at the end of the
harvest season.

Water supplies are faltering throughout the island and a gasoline shortage is
hitting public transportation at a time when most families try to head for the
beaches on weekends to escape the heat, they said.

Herald wires services contributed to this report.