CUBANS STAGE PROTEST

Five Cubans handcuffed themselves to a railing on the 400-foot level of the Washington Monument for about an hour yesterday to protest alleged human rights violations by the Castro regime, a U.S. Park Police spokeswoman said.

Police closed the monument to visitors after they started receiving calls from passersby about 12:40 p.m. telling them that some people had chained themselves inside the 555-foot-tall building. Fliers passed out at the obelisk site urged that the United States not "establish relations with communist Cuba" and that it "condemn the violation of human rights by Castro and his regime."

The protesters voluntarily left the monument site with U.S. Park Police, a police spokeswoman said, after a Spanish-speaking officer warned them that they were risking arrest.

The five people were questioned and released without being charged less than an hour later, said Park Police Capt. Hugh Irwin.

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