News SOS for Journalists Latin America Culture

Photos Photo of the Day Videos

Take Him Away Already

HAVANA TIMES – It’s the meme circulating on Cuban social media after the formal indictment by the US Department of Justice against Raul Castro and five other military officers for murder, conspiracy to kill US citizens, and destruction of aircraft in connection with what happened on February 24, 1996, when Cuban fighter jets shot down two unarmed small planes belonging to the organization Brothers to the Rescue in international airspace, causing the deaths of three US citizens and one US resident.

The charges against the 94-year-old dictator were filed last Wednesday in Miami by Justice Department prosecutor Jason Reding Quiñones in the Southern District of Florida court, in a 20-page document related to the events of 30 years ago.

“The United States and President Trump do not forget, and will not forget, their citizens. Castro will end up appearing in the dock of a US court ‘of his own will or otherwise,’” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said during the press conference announcing the indictment.

No one else has said it will happen that way, but the similarity with the steps taken before the operation to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has raised expectations among thousands of Cubans on and off the island, hopeful that something like this could definitively change the course of the country.

Maduro was indicted in 2020 on drug trafficking charges, and that accusation was the argument Washington used to justify the military operation that captured him and transferred him to New York to stand trial in January of this year.

Last Wednesday’s news sparked a great deal of debate because, regardless of differing political views, even those who agree with........

© Havana Times