MIAMI (WSVN) - As the Trump administration indicts former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, all eyes are on the Cuban people, as concern grows over possible U.S. intervention, and Fidel Castro’s daughter gave a stern warning amid rising tensions between the two countries.
7News spoke with Cuban Americans at Little Havana’s Café Versailles on Wednesday, which falls on Cuba’s Independence Day. They welcomed the news of the indictment, which is in connection to the Feb. 24, 1996 downing of two unarmed planes over international waters.
The shootdown claimed the lives of four men — three U.S. citizens and a legal U.S. resident — who were on a humanitarian mission from Brothers to the Rescue, an exile group of volunteer pilots that searched for people in rafts trying to flee Cuba.
“They have to do it, ’cause this guy did something that it was wrong. He didn’t have to shoot those guys down,” said John Gonzalez. “They killed them, so they have to pay for it.”
“The Castro regime, take it out of Cuba,” said another customer.
Ahead of the indictment, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke directly to those living in Cuba, offering a new relationship with the U.S.
Rubio shed light on the current state of the country and said Cuba’s leadership is to blame for the electricity and fuel prices weaking havoc on the island.
In downtown Miami, there was excitement in the air inside the Freedom Tower at around noon, one hour before the Department of Justice unsealed the indictment against Castro. He went on to say the U.S. is ready to provide $100 million in assistance, as long as it’s distributed through the proper channels.
Rubio reassured the people of Cuba that the future can be bright as long as the two countries work together.
Among those in attendance at the announcement of the indictment were family members and friends of the four victims of the Brothers to the Rescue downing.
Members of Cuba’s exile community, including former political prisoners, spoke with reporters outside the Freedom Tower.
“We’ve been pushing for many years for this indictment. We’ve gathered signatures, we’ve lobbied, we’ve done everything possible, and when he have the news that it’s very likely that an indictment will be announced today, my thoughts and my heart go out to those four men who were my brothers, my good friends,” said Orlando Gutierrez, Secretary General of the Assembly for Cuban Resistance.
“It’s special because it is justice, first of all, for the Cuban people, because the Castro regime has been criminal, has been abusive against the people in the island and even abroad,” said former political prisoner Luis Zúñiga Rey. “The assassination of the Brothers to the Rescue pilots is an evidence that they persecuted people even outside the island.
“We have been filing a lot of evidence, not only in the Brothers to the Rescue [shootdown], but dozens of terrible cases — of massacres, killings, the tugboat, [March 13]” said René Bolio with Justice Cuba International Commission. “We have been filing all this evidence to show the world, to show the international justice system that the Cuban communist system is criminal.”
Local Cuban American leaders are now wondering whether the island will be subjected to the same intervention as Venezuela.
“I don’t want what happened in Venezuela to happen to Cuba,” said Ramón Saúl Sánchez, president of the Democracy Movement. “I do want what happened to [former Venezuelan President Nicolás] Maduro happen to Raúl Castro.”
While reportedly not imminent, a U.S. invasion of Cuba is still a growing concern.
Monday morning, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel took to social media to warn that any U.S. military action could result in a “bloodbath,” and he said Cuba would resist any intervention. The post reads in part:
“The threat [of military aggression against Cuba] is already an international crime. If it were to materialize, it will cause a bloodbath of incalculable consequences, plus the destructive impact on regional peace and stability.”
Díaz-Canel stressed Cuba’s right to defend itself, though he also has repeatedly said the island poses no threat to U.S. national security and that they do not want war.
Back on U.S, soil, however, lawmakers are not convinced.
“Yeah, [Cuba] is 90 miles away from the United States. There’s a very strong Russian and Chinese presence,” said U.S. Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, R-Fla. “What the Russians and the Chinese are doing in Cuba is not to help the U.S. national security interests or to help the Cuban people.”
Díaz-Canel has put pressure on the U.S. to lift economic sanctions placed on the island.
But Díaz-Balart said certain processes need to happen first.
“The U.S. law, that’s signed by President [Bill] Clinton, passed by Congress in a bipartisan way, states that there are some conditions that have to take place before normalization, and that includes to release all the political prisoners, allow for some basic freedoms — freedom of press, freedom of independent labor unions, freedom of political parties — and then calling for elections,” said Díaz-Balart. “Then the sanctions go away in [their] entirety. That’s what the U.S. law is.”
Also welcoming Castro’s indictment were dozens of exiles at Miami’s newly renovated Bay of Pigs Museum, some of whom were part of Brigade 2506 that carried out the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
“Sixty-five years ago, they went and risked their lives for freedom in Cuba,” said Carlos Luis, the museum’s president. “As the wall behind me shows, they lost 104 of their brothers , and so, this is Cuba’s Independence Day, so they hope that today’s announcement is the start of some type of freedom in Cuba.”
Miami-Dade Commissioner Vicki Lopez was also on hand at the museum. She said the indictment hits close to home for many residents in her district, adding they’re reacting to the news with a mix of caution and hope.
“Cuba once was a very free country. It lost its freedom, and we may be on the verge of seeing it free again,” she said. “And I think you can feel it in the community, you can feel it, certainly, here at the Bay of Pigs Museum. It’s just so incredibly exciting.”
Alina Fernández, the daughter of Fidel Castro who lives in exile in Miami, said she felt a wide array of emotions this week.
“I feel like every other Cuban these times: hopeful, frustrated, sad,” she said.
She also had a warning for the Cuban people.
“I would remind everybody that the capacity for reaction of the Cuban regime shouldn’t be undermined or underestimated. That can make the difference between a bloodbath and something else,” she said.
Despite the Trump administration ramping up their rhetoric and economic sanctions on Cuba, U.S. military officials have publicly said there are no imminent plans at this time to invade Cuba. But with the looming indictment, it appears to be a fluid situation.
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