A Florida federal prosecutor has indicted the Cuban Revolution leader Raúl Castro with charges of conspiracy to kill US citizens and murder. This is a very dangerous escalation of the Trump-Rubio campaign to smash the Cuban Revolution and must be strongly repudiated by the working class movement internationally. The Revolutionary Communist International rejects this stepping up of US aggression against Cuba. We stand unconditionally for the defence of the Cuban Revolution.
Aggression and blackmail
The indictment against Raúl Castro, for an incident which happened 30 years ago, is designed to send a very clear message: either you comply and submit to Washington’s diktats or else you will follow the same fate as Venezuelan President Maduro.
Raúl’s indictment, which was filed on 23 April but has only now been unsealed, is the latest in a series of aggressive and intimidatory acts of imperialist blackmail by the United States since the beginning of the year. First came the naval oil blockade decreed by President Trump at the end of January, which has ground the Cuban economy and daily life to a standstill, threatening a humanitarian catastrophe. That was followed by a series of provocative statements to the effect that the US was going to “take over” the island.
On 1 May, Marco Rubio announced further economic sanctions on Cuba – tightening up the criminal 60-year-old blockade – which has already led Canadian mining multinational Sherritt International to cut off ties with Cuba. To justify potential military action, Cuba is painted as “harbouring and sponsoring terrorism”, as a “threat to US national security”, and as “planning drone attacks on US soil”. A week ago, CIA director Ratcliffe visited Havana to press for compliance with US demands. Now the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group has been transferred to the Caribbean.
These are not idle threats, but very serious steps with the sole purpose of smashing the Cuban Revolution and bringing the island back under US control. The script is straight from the Vito Corleone manual of international diplomacy: you can either do what we tell you, or we will use military force.
Having been humiliated in Iran, US imperialism is now looking for a quick and ‘easy’ victory in Cuba. Destroying the Cuban Revolution has been a bipartisan policy of US imperialism since 1959, and particularly since the revolutionary government expropriated capitalism.
Scandalous pretext
The incident for which Raúl Castro and five others have been indicted is the downing by the Cuban air force of two small aircraft which had violated Cuban airspace. This was not an isolated incident, but the culmination of a sustained campaign of provocations by the counter-revolutionary Cuban American organisation Brothers to the Rescue. The organisation was led by CIA-trained terrorist José Basulto, who had participated in the botched, CIA-funded Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
Cuba had repeatedly warned the US authorities about the violation of Cuban airspace. The US was fully aware that the Cubans were not going to tolerate it anymore, but made no effort to stop the incursions by terrorists coming from US soil.
The US is not really concerned about a loss of life which happened 30 years ago. It is cynically using this case as a pretext for blackmail. Just imagine if a foreign power were to repeatedly violate US airspace with the purpose of carrying out terrorist attacks, or call on the population to rise up against the government. They would be immediately shot down without any prior warning.
CIA-trained US-based terrorists carried out the criminal bombing of a Cubana de Aviación flight in 1978, leading to the death of 73 people. The US harboured and protected the perpetrators from prosecution.
In the last few months, the US has carried out attacks in international waters in the Caribbean and the Pacific in which between 100 and 200 people have been killed in extra-judicial executions, as part of a campaign to terrorise Colombia and Venezuela.
Cuban Revolution in danger!
The Cuban Revolution is in danger, and the world working class movement must come to its aid. The broadest mass mobilisation is required across Latin America, in the US, as well as in Europe and across the world. A defeat of the Cuban Revolution would be a defeat for the cause of the oppressed everywhere.
The fate of the Cuban Revolution will be decided ultimately in the arena of the international class struggle and can only be guaranteed by revolutionary methods, in Cuba and internationally.
US hands off Cuba!
Lift the criminal blockade!
Defend the Cuban Revolution!
Down with US imperialism!
