Regime Change Through Indictment: Raúl Castro and the BTTR Flights |
CounterPunch Exclusives
CounterPunch Exclusives
Regime Change Through Indictment: Raúl Castro and the BTTR Flights
Raúl Castro, left, with has his arm around second-in-command, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, in their Sierra de Cristal Mountain stronghold south of Havana, in 1958.
Revealing a steely yet erratic contempt of the law, the US Department of Justice is showing, again, how it became the spear carrier for kooky ideas and vengeful projects. No leader is seemingly safe from an indictment if the personal interest of President Donald Trump is invested. It need not matter if the legal foundations are shoddy to the point of sheer absurdity – the more absurd, the more likely the paperwork will be filed.
The May 20 unsealing of a superseding indictment by the DOJ against Raúl Castro bulks that pile. As brother to the late Fidel Castro and Cuban president from 2008 to 2019, participant in the legendary assault on the Moncada Barracks in July 1953 and founding member of the M-26-7 guerilla outfit, he has been a persistent reminder of failures by the United States to subjugate the island and its government since the revolutionary overthrow of the blood basted regime of Fulgencio Batista. In April 1961, for instance, the Castro brothers ensured the survival of the revolution by defeating the CIA-backed attack at the Bay of Pigs, consisting of 1,400 Cuban exiles. The ill-conceived, error-plagued operation took much lustre off the Camelot that was the Kennedy administration.
The indictment, which also nets five Cuban air force pilots, alleges that aircraft of the ostensibly humanitarian organisation BTTR (Brothers to the Rescue) were fired upon by Cuban MiG aircraft on February 24, 1996. Three had taken off from South Florida heading to Cuba that day. Two unarmed civilian Cessna aircraft were destroyed, allegedly flying outside Cuban territory. Three American citizens and one resident of the US were killed.
The charges include one count of conspiracy to kill US nationals, two counts of destruction of an aircraft and four counts of murder. At the time, Castro was the Minister of Defence overseeing the Cuban Revolutionary Air and Air Defence Force (DAAFAR). He is said to have ordered the five pilots to follow and eliminate the three BTTR aircraft.
The indictment does a superb job in making glaring omissions. There is no mention of the nervous mood of US........