Humor is often the Cuban people’s best tool for capturing their reality. That’s why, on an island that now spends more hours in darkness than with electricity, people no longer talk about apagones (blackouts) but about alumbrones — fleeting moments when the lights actually come on.
United States federal prosecutors announced today that they had indicted Raúl Castro, the former President of Cuba and brother of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, over the downing of two civilian planes in 1996.
The U.S. Justice Department has accused Castro, who was defense minister at the time of the incident, of ordering the Cuban Air Force to shoot down the planes.
The move ramps up pressure on the island, which Washington has subjected to a near-total oil blockade since January, and raises concerns that the U.S. is preparing an operation similar to the one that removed Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela earlier this year.
Today’s charges relate to the killing of four members of the Miami-based Cuban dissident group Hermanos Al Rescate (Brothers to the Rescue), who were operating the planes when they were shot down on February 24, 1996. Three were American citizens and one was a U.S. resident.
According to acting U.S. Attorney-General Todd Blance, Castro has been formally charged with conspiring to kill U.S. nationals.
The issue of whether or not the planes were shot down in Cuban or international airspace is still a matter of debate.
Florida’s Attorney-General had announced in March that a state investigation into Raúl Castro’s involvement would be reopened, a move which was endorsed by many Republican politicians, including Florida Senator Rick Scott.
Tensions between the U.S. and Cuba have been rising precipitously, as the North American superpower has enforced a near-total oil blockade on the island, ratcheted up punitive sanctions targeting Cuban officials and demanded in ongoing negotiations between the two countries that the current Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel step down.
Some have likened the charges brought against Castro to those directed at former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro before his capture earlier this year. Maduro was charged with drug trafficking in the U.S. in 2020, an accusation which served as justification for his forced removal from power by the U.S. military.
It remains to be seen whether the charges against Castro will result in a similar U.S. operation in Cuba.
Featured Image: Raúl Castro in 2016.
Image Credit: Presidencia de El Salvador via Wikimedia Commons
License: Creative Commons Licenses
The post US authorities indict Raul Castro, longtime Cuban leader appeared first on Latin America Reports.
United States federal prosecutors announced today that they had indicted Raúl Castro, the former President of Cuba and brother of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, over the downing of two civilian planes in 1996.
The U.S. Justice Department has accused Castro, who was defense minister at the time of the incident, of ordering the Cuban Air Force to shoot down the planes.
The move ramps up pressure on the island, which Washington has subjected to a near-total oil blockade since January, and raises concerns that the U.S. is preparing an operation similar to the one that removed Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela earlier this year.
Today’s charges relate to the killing of four members of the Miami-based Cuban dissident group Hermanos Al Rescate (Brothers to the Rescue), who were operating the planes when they were shot down on February 24, 1996. Three were American citizens and one was a U.S. resident.
According to acting U.S. Attorney-General Todd Blance, Castro has been formally charged with conspiring to kill U.S. nationals.
The issue of whether or not the planes were shot down in Cuban or international airspace is still a matter of debate.
Florida’s Attorney-General had announced in March that a state investigation into Raúl Castro’s involvement would be reopened, a move which was endorsed by many Republican politicians, including Florida Senator Rick Scott.
Tensions between the U.S. and Cuba have been rising precipitously, as the North American superpower has enforced a near-total oil blockade on the island, ratcheted up punitive sanctions targeting Cuban officials and demanded in ongoing negotiations between the two countries that the current Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel step down.
Some have likened the charges brought against Castro to those directed at former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro before his capture earlier this year. Maduro was charged with drug trafficking in the U.S. in 2020, an accusation which served as justification for his forced removal from power by the U.S. military.
It remains to be seen whether the charges against Castro will result in a similar U.S. operation in Cuba.
Featured Image: Raúl Castro in 2016.
Image Credit: Presidencia de El Salvador via Wikimedia Commons
License: Creative Commons Licenses
The post US authorities indict Raul Castro, longtime Cuban leader appeared first on Latin America Reports.
The Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá used to say that he lived in the crossfire. In May 2002, he achieved the milestone of delivering more than 11,000 signatures to Cuba’s Parliament. The petition demanded a referendum to democratize the island.
© Norlys Perez (REUTERS)
The grill‑strategy is starting to work. With every degree the heat rises, the situation in Cuba — both on the streets and in the regime’s top offices — becomes more and more unbearable. The fall earlier this year of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, Havana’s key ally, and the subsequent energy embargo on the island marked the beginning of a decline that now seems unstoppable.
© EPV
When a Cuban person on the island wants to refer to “those in charge,” they lightly tap their shoulder with two fingers. The subtle gesture, shaped by nearly seven decades of censorship, is a reference to the epaulet of a military uniform. In Cuba, people do not speak of the government or the party (the Communist Party of Cuba, the only legal one), but rather of the “country’s leadership.” It is a euphemism that points to the real political and economic power: the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR).
Almost at the same time on Wednesday morning, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke from Washington while Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, spoke from Havana. Both were addressing the people of Cuba. The former highlighted the date, May 20, as the day “the Cuban flag flew for the first time over an independent country” in 1902, an image preserved in a period photograph that forever enshrined the birth of the republic. The latter, however, said that date should be credited for only one thing: “Having planted in Cubans of that era an anti-imperialist sentiment.” Rubio invoked 1902 as an epic moment, but Díaz-Canel asked the people not to forget that May 20 marks the day of U.S. “intervention” and “interference” in Cuba. That has been the narrative between Washington and Havana to this day: two governments wrestling over the meaning of history.
© Yamil Lage (AP)
New winds of reform are sweeping through Havana. The Cuban regime on Friday announced a package of structural changes under the so-called Economic and Social Program for 2026 to confront one of the most severe crises in its recent history.
© Norlys Perez (REUTERS)
A new twist in the tensions between the United States and Cuba. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in favor of a U.S. company whose docks were confiscated by the Castro regime in 1960 after Fidel Castro came to power. The court’s decision — in a case openly supported by U.S. President Donald Trump — opens the door to future claims by other U.S. firms and citizens affected during the wave of expropriations carried out in the early years of the Cuban Revolution.
About 50 people, some holding signs and Cuban flags, gathered Wednesday outside the iconic Versailles restaurant on Calle Ocho in Miami, a regular meeting point for the Cuban exile community. The atmosphere was celebratory. And besides commemorating the island’s independence, the occasion was the indictment of Raúl Castro.
© CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH (EFE)
When did Europe go wrong? For decades, we thought the European project would disappear due to external threats… but we never imagined that this would happen because of the irresponsibility of its leaders, nor because of the inaction of its citizens. Nobody thought that Europe would cease to be the horizon that the rest of the world aspires to reach.
It’s midday and the bread still hasn’t arrived in one of the neighborhoods of central Havana. The open oven reveals empty shelves. Employees give an explanation that all the local residents have already heard: without electricity, there’s nothing to bake.
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