The Trump Administration has given great attention to the island nation in this second term. I think it does so with great justification.
This past week the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida charged Cuban dictator, Raul Castro, and five Cuban MiG fighter pilots, with the 1996 downing of two small planes in international waters. The seven count indictment asserts that the Cuban government conspired to shoot down four Americans who were members of the humanitarian organization, Brothers to the Rescue (Brothers). Brothers is a citizen air patrol formed in Miami in the early 1990s to assist Cuban refugees as they, fleeing Cuba, navigated the Florida Straits. Castro and the others face four counts of murder, one count of conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, and two counts of destruction of aircraft.
Long and short, the indictment alleges that on Feb 24, 1996, six members of Brothers were on one of their typical charitable missions, flying over international waters. Suddenly, Cuban MiG fighters shot down two of the planes and chased a third that managed to escape.
The Clinton Administration later released a transcript containing irrefutable proof of the order from Castro to destroy the planes. Further, a 1999 report by the Organization of American States condemned “the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of lethal force applied to the civilian aircraft.” The official determination was that Cuban military fighter jets—allegedly acting under a chain of command overseen by Castro—shot down two unarmed Cessna aircraft in international airspace. Prosecutors claim that Castro, who was defense minister at the time, had explicitly authorized the deadly force.
That is more than enough evidence for a legally solid and durable criminal indictment. And even though the murders of these Americans took place many years ago, it is no less important to bring justice and provide some sense of closure for their families.
I have always been amazed that the U.S. has allowed the existential threat of this communist dictatorship to exist so closely to our own shoreline, a mere 90 miles. We recall the near U.S.-Soviet nuclear catastrophe of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis during the JFK Administration. Its proximity to the U.S. has made Cuba a perpetual threat to the national security of the United States. However, perhaps until now, we have always pursued a policy of containment and isolation rather than invasion.
In fact, I thought there was a legitimate chance for Cuba to make a fundamental change in its form of government in 2016 when President Obama reopened the diplomatic relationship between our nation and Cuba. Since the 1960s, the U.S. had maintained a comprehensive economic, commercial, and financial embargo against Cuba under U.S. Department of State guidelines. At the time, Raul Castro had expressed a real interest in having the embargo lifted and engaging in a normal diplomatic relationship; Perhaps even embracing real economic and humanitarian reforms.
But alas, that was not what occurred.
We’ll see how this plays out but both former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and, much more recently, Venezuela dictator, Nicolas Maduro, can attest that things went very badly for them after they found themselves the subject of a U.S. federal indictment, as Raul Castro and those pilots now do.
It would not surprise me if the indictment were merely a prelude to military action by our country, perhaps similar to that involving the arrest and extraction of Maduro from Venezuela.
As the arc of history teaches us, the wheels of justice turn slowly but turn they do.
Shreveport attorney, Royal Alexander, worked in D.C. in the U.S. House of Representatives for nearly 8 years for two different Members of Congress from Louisiana.