A small bomb hit Havana's famed La Bodeguita del Medio restaurant, once a Hemingway favorite, as a spree of bombings began scaring foreign tourists and sparking condemnations of Cuban exiles.

The explosion Thursday night in the restaurant, one block from the Havana Cathedral, caused only minor cuts to three patrons and shattered wooden chairs in a second-story dining room, witnesses said.

Police apparently detained one Colombian tourist after the blast, according to one wire service report, but authorities remained tight-lipped as usual and would not even confirm the explosion.

Ernest Hemingway once downed rum-and-spearmint drinks called mojitos at the 55-year-old restaurant, which features typical Cuban food, framed photographs of famous visitors and walls covered in clients' graffiti.

Jolts to tourism industry

Restaurant workers told telephone callers that everything was ``normal, under control,'' and that they would open Friday. ``We're only not attending to journalists,'' said one.

But the blast and three others Thursday that killed an Italian-Canadian businessman sparked an international wave of publicity that has already jolted Cuba's profitable tourism industry.

Most of the nine devices that have exploded in hotels since April 13 -- another was disarmed -- appear to have been small, causing light damage and making little impact in the news media outside South Florida.

But the death of Fabio Di Celmo, 32, a Genoa native living in Canada, put the bombings on front pages and television broadcasts Friday in Italy and Montreal, and generated the first evidence of concern among tourists.

Italian tour operators said they received several inquiries Friday on whether Cuba was safe, and a Spanish travel agent said he had received two cancellations of Cuba packages from people who mentioned the bombs.

Italians are the single largest group of tourists in Cuba and Canadians are a close second, fueling a boom in an industry expected to bring 1.2 million visitors and $1.75 billion in gross income to Cuba this year.

Toronto's Alba Tours, which handles packages to several Cuban beach resorts, said it had not seen any change in bookings since the bombings began.

Reassurances for tourists

Hotel operators in Cuba tried to reassure potential tourists.

``We can guarantee the total security of our hotels'' said a public relations official with Sol Melia, a Spanish chain that administers some 200 hotels, several of them in Cuba.

Asked how she could make that statement when two Melia hotels in Cuba have been hit by four bombs, she said: ``Well, they were small bombs, no one was injured, and we don't want to give too much attention to this.''

But just as the publicity surrounding Di Celmo's death began hitting tourism, it also sparked criticism of the bombers as terrorists.

``The bombs have sparked many questions, much excitement that something is happening here, but everyone also rejects the use of terrorism,'' said dissident Havana sociologist Miriam Gras.

The Antonio Maceo Brigade, a pro-Castro group based in Miami, issued a statement blaming the bombings on ``the counterrevolution in Miami'' and demanded that federal authorities investigate those responsible.

FBI agents in Miami are ``closely following the happenings'' in Cuba but ``as of right now have found no link or connection to anyone in the United States,'' said FBI spokeswoman Anne Figueiras.

Di Celmo's brother Livio told Montreal newspapers that Fabio was killed ``by the CIA dogs.''

Dissidents condemn blasts

Cuban dissidents also condemned the blasts, with the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, headed by Elizardo Sanchez, calling them ``blind, cruel and irresponsible'' violence.

Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina on Friday called the bombers terrorists and repeated earlier claims that his government has proof the attacks ``are organized, are supplied and are directed from U.S. territory.''

Apparently hinting at harsher security measures, Robaina added: ``We are not going to allow anything to disturb the security and tranquillity that we have in this country,''

State Department spokesman James Foley reiterated U.S. statements that it knows nothing about the bombers, and again challenged Cuba to give it information that it can investigate.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan denounced ``these cowardly acts of violence, and Spain's right-of-center government issued a harsh condemnation of the bombings.

``Wherever they come from, acts of terrorism never reach their objectives,'' the Madrid statement said.

Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald