The ninety-year-old Raul Castro This Friday he had his first demonstration of support in front of the embassy of USAtwo days after being accused in that country of ordering the destruction of two aircraft coming from Florida and trying to launch leaflets against the Cuban Government, in February 1996. The shootdown caused the death of four Cuban-Americans who belonged to the organization Brothers to the Rescue. Fidel Castro’s brother and heir to the political process that began on January 1, 1959, He will turn 95 on June 3an opportunity in which the Union of Young Communists (UJC) promises to take to the streets again. Twelve days can be an eternity for the moment of conflict in relations between Cuba and the United States. The accusation against the former head of the Armed Forces is just one of its chapters. The Government wanted to make a show of force in the so-called Anti-imperialist Tribune. According to the official newspaper Granmasome 250,000 Havana residents paraded. Dissidence and men and women fed up with blackouts and shortages, which usually manifest Through social networks, they did not delay in challenging the character and dimension of the march. For them, only the military, police and public employees attended.
Beyond that controversy, attendees heard some Castro’s telegraphic words of gratituderead by Geraldo Hernández, a former spy who was tried in the United States and then exchanged for a North American prisoner on the island. Hernández was elevated to the status of “Hero of the Republic”, and as such he referred to the more than 25 violations of Cuban airspace by Brothers to the Rescue between 1994 and 1996. He also maintained that Washington ignored the warnings from Havana at the time. “His silence was complicity. “His inaction was encouragement for the terrorists.”. According to Hernández, the activation of the judicial case is due to the “resentment, frustration and helplessness of those who cannot bear to see Cuba standing, free and sovereign.”
A jurist, Rolando López Meriño, described “fraudulent” the narrative about Brothers to the Rescue that circulates in Miami. “With total cynicism they intend to distort and manipulate proven historical facts, widely documented and that were opportunely and formally reported by our authorities to the Government of the United States, which is responsible for the loss of human life and economic damage due to the terrorist acts and the blockade against the people of Cuba.” Havana has alleged that the two small planes were in its airspace. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) However, it considered that the incident took place in international waters.
Support from the Government and the military
The executive and military authorities did not hesitate to support Castro. In his message published in X, President Díaz-Canel reaffirmed the authorities’ commitment “with the defense of his heroes and national history” in the midst of “a new aggression by the nation’s historical enemies.” According to Díaz-Canel, “the new aggression has united us more and has elevated the honor, dignity and anti-imperialist sentiment of a people already recognized throughout the world for its brave resistance to any type of subordination to the empire.”
The day has not been able to escape the situation of anxiety. In the midst of the energy shortage and the continuous, although ephemeral and limited, protests on corners of dark neighborhoods, Cubans remain attentive to what do Donald Trump and Marco Rubio say about the next steps the United States could take. “Other presidents have been analyzing the possibility of doing something about it for 50 or 60 years, and it seems that I will be the one to do it. So I will do it with pleasure,” said the Republican magnate in the last hours, and once again defined Cuba as a “failed country.” The seriousness of the present is of such depth that while the official press speaks of unanimity, in telephone conversations there are those who already refer to the North American Secretary of State as “Marquitos”a diminutive that seems to hint at the penetration of its messages into the interior of an overwhelmed island.
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