The indictment of former Cuban President Raul Castro by the US Justice Department marks the latest escalation in Washington’s pressure campaign against Havana. Is President Donald Trump trying to repeat the Maduro playbook?
What was Raul Castro charged with?
Unsealed on Wednesday, the indictment accuses Castro of ordering the shooting down of two American planes off the coast of Cuba in 1996. Castro and five of his officials are charged with conspiracy to kill US nationals, destruction of aircraft, and four counts of murder, one for each of the Cuban-Americans killed in the shootdown.
Castro, who was Cuba’s defense minister at the time of the incident, “participated in a conspiracy that ended with Cuban military aircraft firing missiles at those civilian planes and killing four Americans,” acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a press conference in Miami on Wednesday.
What happened in 1996?
On February 24, 1996, Cuban fighter jets shot down two light aircraft which Havana said were violating its airspace. The planes – two Cessna 337 Skymasters – were operated by ‘Brothers to the Rescue’, a group of anti-communist Cubans and Americans led by CIA operative Jose Basulto. The group’s official purpose was to help dissidents to leave Cuba, and to “support the efforts of the Cuban people to free themselves from dictatorship through the use of active non-violence.”
However, one of the organization’s former pilots, Juan Pablo Roque, defected to Cuba two days before the planes were shot down and claimed that Brothers to the Rescue was involved in smuggling weapons on to the island to be used by anti-government guerillas.
In a statement on Tuesday, Cuba’s embassy in the US claimed that the organization’s aircraft committed “more than 25 serious, deliberate and systematic violations” of Cuban airspace between 1994 and 1996. With the US refusing to heed Havana’s written warnings, Cuba had “no choice but the direct defense of its borders,” the embassy added.
Ever since the incident, Basulto has pressed the US government to file criminal charges against Castro.
Will Castro ever see a US courtroom?
There is no indication that Castro, who is now 96 years old, will ever appear in an American court. Cuba has limited diplomatic relations with the US, let alone an extradition treaty, and the Cuban government is highly unlikely to hand over Castro, a former president and revolutionary hero to the US, where he would face the death penalty if found guilty.
Asked about the likelihood of Castro facing trial in the US, Blanche told reporters that “we expect that he will show up here by his will, or by another way.”
How has Cuba responded?
The indictment “only reveals the arrogance and frustration that the representatives of the empire feel toward the unyielding resolve of the Cuban Revolution,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in a statement on X. “This is a political maneuver, devoid of any legal foundation, aimed solely at padding the fabricated dossier they use to justify the folly of a military aggression against Cuba.”
Is the US planning regime change in Cuba?
Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have made no secret of their desire to overthrow Cuba’s communist government. After indicting and abducting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January, Trump warned that Cuba was “ready to fall” next. In an interview with NBC News the day after the Maduro operation, Rubio stated “If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned.”
The US then imposed an energy blockade on Cuba, while Trump made repeated threats that Cuba would be “next.” In a statement earlier on Wednesday, the US president said that “America will not tolerate a rogue state harboring hostile foreign military, intelligence and terror operations just ninety miles from the American homeland.”
Three days earlier, US spies told Axios that they believe Cuba has acquired more than 300 military drones in preparation for an attack on the US military base at Guantanamo Bay and targets as far afield as Key West in Florida. Havana ridiculed the claims, accusing the US of fabricating a “fraudulent case” for military intervention.
While it is unclear whether Trump intends to order such intervention, the Pentagon announced on Wednesday that the USS Nimitz carrier strike group had entered the Caribbean. With more than 60 combat aircraft on board, the Nimitz is ideally placed to and equipped to launch military strikes, should they be ordered. Asked by reporters whether he planned to follow the indictment with military action, Trump replied “I don’t want to say that.”
“The potential for an invasion is much higher than it was 24 hours ago,” Daniel Shaw, a professor of Latin American Studies at City University of New York, told RT. “They’re searching for some kind of legal and media justification to go in there, to take out some of these top leaders, and hoping then that the Cuban people will come into the streets so they can justify further penetration.”
Doesn’t this sound familiar?
The Trump administration followed a similar pattern before kidnapping Maduro in a special forces raid on his Caracas residence in January. After threatening to depose Maduro “the easy way or the hard way,” Trump blockaded Venezuelan waters, deployed the USS Gerald R. Ford to the region, and unsealed an indictment against the Venezuelan president moments before the raid.
While the Justice Department had charged Maduro with drug trafficking in 2020, the superseding indictment unsealed on the day of the raid added his wife and son, and ‘Tren de Aragua’ cartel boss Nino Guerrero to the list of those charged.
The complete standdown by the Venezuelan military during Maduro’s kidnapping has led many to believe that the US colluded with insiders in Caracas to arrange a bloodless raid and smooth transfer of power to Vice President Delcy Rodriguez. Despite a trip by CIA Director John Ratcliffe to Havana last week, in which Ratcliffe reportedly promised “to seriously engage on economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes,” there is no indication that the Cuban government is willing to hand over Castro.
In a social media post on Monday, Diaz-Canel warned that any military action against his country would result in “a bloodbath with incalculable consequences” for the US.
What does the US want from Cuba?
The US has demanded that Cuba cut ties with Russia, China, Iran, and pro-Palestinian armed groups. Last month, a US delegation visiting Havana reportedly urged Cuba to transition from socialism to a market-based economy and open the country to foreign investment. In short, Washington is seeking a complete dismantling of Cuba’s communist system and of its foreign partnerships.
In a Spanish-language video address on Wednesday, Rubio offered Cuba $100 million in aid, and, despite the US blockading the island, blamed Cuba’s government for shortages of electricity, food and fuel. Rubio said that Washington will not allow the Cuban government to distribute the aid, and promised to help Cubans “build a better future,” presumably after the overthrow of the government.
Cuba’s embassy in Washington accused Rubio of lying “repeatedly and unscrupulously,” while subjecting the country to “cruel and ruthless aggression” via the ongoing blockade.
Shaw, who just returned from a month in Cuba, told RT that he witnessed “hunger, despair, and malnutrition” on the island as a result of the blockade, which he compared to “the tightening of the colonial noose around the neck of the Cuban people.”