The indictment against former Cuban President Raúl Castro for ordering the shootdown of two Brothers to the Rescue planes in 1996 is a long-awaited gift from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump to Cuban American hard-liners in south Florida. The stage-managed release of the indictment at Miami’s Freedom Tower, which once served as the Cuban Refugee Center, processing thousands of immigrants, leaves no doubt about its domestic political purpose. But it is also an ominous warning to Cuba’s leaders that the Trump administration is ready and willing to abandon diplomacy in favor of military operations in its quest for regime change.
The indictment is one more step up the escalatory ladder in Trump’s pressure campaign against Havana, a campaign that began with the Delta Force abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife on Jan. 3. In quick succession, Trump ordered a cutoff of Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba, issued an executive order threatening other countries with tariffs if they shipped oil to the country, and imposed secondary sanctions threatening sanctions against foreign enterprises doing in business with Cuba. The unambiguous aim is to strangle the life out of the Cuban economy and force the country’s leadership to submit to Washington’s demands.
