A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Former Cuban president Raul Castro is facing murder and other charges in the U.S. Federal prosecutors allege Wednesday he ordered two civilian planes to be shot down in 1996. NPR's Eyder Peralta reports from Miami on the case and the already tense relations between the U.S. and Cuba.
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: Thirty years ago, three civilian aircraft took off from Miami and Cuban MiGs shot two of them down. Sylvia Iriondo was riding in the one plane that escaped the Cuban missiles. Iriondo stands in the middle of Miami's Freedom Tower, awaiting an announcement from acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. Today, she says, is a day of hope.
SYLVIA IRIONDO: A day that marks the beginning of a road for justice, a justice that has eluded the families and our community for 30 years.
PERALTA: Iriondo was traveling with Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami-based group that used to fly over the Strait of Florida to help Cuban migrants who had fled Cuba on rafts. On several occasions, the planes also flew into Cuban airspace and dropped anti-government leaflets that fell on the Cuban mainland. At the time, the U.S. State Department asked the FAA to ground the Brothers to the Rescue planes because they feared one day the Cuban government could shoot down the planes. For decades, Iriondo called on the U.S. government to bring charges against Raul Castro, who, at the time, was his brother Fidel's minister of defense. But for decades, the case languished - until yesterday, when acting Attorney General Todd Blanche took the podium.
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TODD BLANCHE: Today, we are announcing an indictment charging Raul Castro and several others with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals.
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PERALTA: The indictment alleges that Cubans spied on the group in Miami, that they prepared for the strikes by running training flights, and in the end, the U.S. alleges, they killed four humanitarians - three of them Americans - flying unarmed civilian planes. Blanche was asked, what's next? Will the U.S. actually try to capture Castro, who is almost 95?
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BLANCHE: The reason why we indict somebody is 'cause we want them here to face justice in front of a jury of their peers. So...
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PERALTA: Michael Bustamante, who studies Cuba at the University of Miami, says this seems like one more move by the Trump administration to force capitulation from the Cuban government. The U.S. is already running a de facto oil blockade on Cuba, and it recently announced sanctions on nearly the entire leadership of the island. This indictment, Bustamante says...
MICHAEL BUSTAMANTE: Also sets the table ostensibly for the thing that the administration lacked if they ever did want to escalate to military action, which was their pretext to do so.
PERALTA: The Cuban government seemed unmoved. President Miguel Diaz-Canel said the U.S. is fabricating lies to justify a senseless military intervention. In Miami, though, the moment was cathartic.
ROSA MARIA PAYA: This indictment is not only an act of justice, it's an act of solidarity.
PERALTA: I meet Rosa Maria Paya at the same church where her dad, perhaps the most famous pro-democracy activist in Cuba, once met with the exile community. According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Oswaldo Paya was assassinated by the Cuban government after he gathered thousands of signatures asking the Cuban government to institute a multiparty democracy. Rosa Maria Paya says today that dream finally feels attainable.
PAYA: It feels very real.
PERALTA: Cubans are out on the streets, she says. The Cuban opposition has a transition plan, and now they have a White House willing to take extraordinary measures to pressure the Cuban government. Paya's father opposed the U.S. embargo on Cuba. I asked her if she has any qualms about the humanitarian consequences of the U.S. actions.
PAYA: The situation is devastating, but the suffering is being imposed by the Cuban regime.
PERALTA: The only way to end the suffering, she says, is for the Cuban leadership to go.
Eyder Peralta, NPR News, Miami. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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