As part of its stepped-up threats against the Cuban people and government, Washington is dusting off the long-discredited charge against Raúl Castro, a central leader of the Cuban Revolution, of ordering the shooting down of two planes by Cuba’s air force in 1996.
Four members of Congress wrote to the Justice Department Feb. 13 demanding Castro be indicted.
The two planes belonged to Brothers to the Rescue, a counterrevolutionary Cuban American group based in Miami. It had organized provocative flights from the U.S. over Cuban territory in the mid-1990s, despite Havana’s repeated requests to Washington to stop them, warning that they would be shot down.
In February 1996, three planes intruded into Cuba’s airspace, defying warnings by Cuban air traffic controllers. Two of them were shot down in a defensive act by Cuba’s air force, ending the hostile flights over Cuba.
Far from being a “humanitarian” group as they claimed, Brothers to the Rescue leader José Basulto proudly acknowledged his decadeslong record as a CIA-trained operative behind numerous attempts to carry out terror attacks against Cuba. His admission came during the trial of five Cuban revolutionaries who came to the U.S. to monitor the activities of counterrevolutionary groups in Florida and warn the Cuban government about imminent attacks.
In 2001 the Bill Clinton White House framed up the revolutionaries, who became known as the Cuban Five. They served up to 16 years in prison. By 2014 all of them had won their freedom after an international defense campaign.
Using the shooting down of the planes as a pretext, Clinton in March 1996 signed the Helms-Burton Act with bipartisan congressional support. The measure is being used today to intensify the U.S. rulers’ economic and political war against Cuba.
The Trump administration issued an executive order Jan. 29 to block all oil supplies to Cuba. It’s the latest step in Washington’s bipartisan drive to punish working people in Cuba for having made a socialist revolution.