Over the death of the Brothers to the Rescue pilots in 1996

Raul Castro. File photo

The US Department of Justice accuses the former president and five other military officers of murder, conspiracy to kill US citizens, and destruction of aircraft.

By 14ymedio

HAVANA TIIMES – Murder, conspiracy to kill US citizens, and destruction of aircraft are the charges brought against former Cuban president Raul Castro over the deaths of four pilots from the Brothers to the Rescue organization in 1996. The indictment was formally filed by the Department of Justice this Wednesday, (Cuban Independence Day) in the federal court for the Southern District of Florida.

The indictment, available online, emerged just moments before an appearance by acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche. Expectations were extremely high, as evidenced by the hundreds of journalists — domestic and foreign — gathered in a hall at Miami’s Freedom Tower, and even more so by the thousands of Cubans on the island watching through pirated foreign television signals.

Half an hour after the press conference, scheduled for 1:00 p.m., it still had not begun. Alongside Blanche and other officials, those appearing included Jason A. Reding Quiñones, US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and FBI Deputy Director Christopher Raia.

The case dates back to February 1996, when aircraft belonging to Brothers to the Rescue were shot down by Cuban forces in an incident that killed four people and triggered a major diplomatic crisis between the two countries.

Over the shootdown of those planes, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier opened a state-level criminal investigation last March against Raul Castro, who turns 95 in June, and at the time Cuba’s Minister of the Armed Forces, identified as responsible for ordering the attack.

That day, two twin-engine Cessnas flying over the Florida Straits were shot down by Cuban Air Force MiG-29 fighter jets. Three US citizens and one Florida resident — all of Cuban origin — were killed: Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales. The tragedy sparked a diplomatic crisis between Washington and Havana and, weeks later, led to the tightening of the embargo through passage of the Helms-Burton Act.

Brothers to the Rescue was a nonprofit organization founded in Miami by Jose Basulto in the early 1990s. Its members patrolled international waters searching for Cuban rafters attempting to flee the island. Havana accused them of violating Cuban airspace and engaging in political provocations. Washington always maintained that the downed flights were in international airspace, a conclusion confirmed by reports from the International Civil Aviation Organization and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an autonomous body of the Organization of American States.

Subsequent investigations revealed that at least two Cuban agents infiltrated into Brothers to the Rescue provided detailed information about flight routes and schedules to the Cuban government, facilitating the military operation. In 2003, a US federal court indicted a Cuban general and two fighter pilots over the shootdown. However, no formal charges were brought at that time against the Castro brothers.

Miguel Diaz-Canel (L) when he was designated by Cuban President Raul Castro (R) as his successor back in 2018. Photo: April 19, 2018 / Reuters

The day had already begun “heated” by remarks from Marco Rubio, who in a video obtained by Axios addressed Cubans on the island in Spanish.

The 1996 shootdown marked a turning point in bilateral relations and reinforced the perception that the Cuban government was willing to use lethal force against civilians in the context of the migration conflict.

The reopening of the case, however, faces legal and practical obstacles. Raúl Castro does not reside in US territory, and although an old bilateral extradition treaty exists, it has not been applied since 1959.

The day had already begun “heated” by remarks from Rubio, who in a video obtained by Axios addressed Cubans on the island in Spanish. “President Trump is offering a new relationship between the United States and Cuba. But it must be directly with you, the Cuban people, not with [the military conglomerate] Gaesa,” Rubio said in the message, later published by the State Department, in which he directed all his criticism at the Business Administration Group, the all-powerful military conglomerate, repeatedly accusing it of theft.

Rubio was not saying anything he had not said before, but what was new was that he addressed the Cuban population directly and did so on Independence Day. The choice of this date to announce the indictment against Raúl Castro was also no coincidence. Considered a national holiday by the opposition, it is something of a demonized day for the regime, which dismisses it as the celebration of a “bourgeois republic.”

The regime immediately responded to Rubio. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez called him, through social media, a “spokesman for corrupt and vindictive interests,” and reproached the Secretary of State for “repeating his deceitful script and attempting to blame the Cuban government for the ruthless harm caused by the US government to the Cuban people.”

The event is historic for many Cuban exiles, although everything indicates that the United States is using this move to continue pressuring the regime to make concessions, and that it will not enter Cuba to arrest the 94-year-old Castro. Precisely regarding his advanced age, the Union of Young Communists today released a statement — clearly intended as a show of support on this day — calling for a march celebrating the former leader’s 95th birthday on June 3.

“Raul has shown every day that fidelity which does not bend before exhaustion or difficulties. That is why we cherish him as the steadfast patriot who teaches us to defend the Revolution, with tenderness and with a rifle, with study and with intelligence, with heads held high and hands extended,” the statement reads. In the call, referencing the concept of “never surrendering,” it asks that “this 95th birthday be a huge embrace for a beloved friend and a leader proven under all circumstances.”

The statement was distributed by the official Cubadebate website, which, coincidentally, also published today a declassified US document showing that officials from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned of the possible shootdown of Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996. “Someday the Cubans will shoot down one of these planes,” they wrote.

“The declassification comes amid a new political and media escalation surrounding that case,” Cubadebate’s article says, without making any mention of Castro or the indictment that was finally formalized today.

First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.

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