The Trump management on Would possibly 20, 2026, indicted former Cuban President Raúl Castro for homicide, in keeping with the downing of 2 planes close to the Cuban sea coast in 1996 that killed 4 other folks.
As a historian of Latin The united states and U.S. overseas coverage, I imagine the indictment could also be the prelude to direct U.S. army motion towards Cuba.
Prior to Castro, the remaining U.S. indictment of a Latin American chief happened in January 2026, when a U.S. lawyer appointed by way of President Donald Trump charged Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro with narco-terrorism. The ones fees had been promptly adopted by way of U.S. army moves on Venezuela and the kidnapping of Maduro.
Since January, the U.S. has ended the float of Venezuelan oil to Cuba and has used financial and armed forces force to stop different countries from buying and selling with the island. And Trump not too long ago threatened a “friendly takeover” of Cuba.
I imagine that what’s lacking from most up-to-date research of this case is the historical past of U.S. aggression towards Cuba. This is very important context for figuring out the Trump management’s contemporary escalations.
‘Striking at Cuba constantly’
In 1823, U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams known Cuba as “an object of transcendent importance to the political and commercial interests of our Union.” The 1959 Cuban Revolution that overthrew U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista and changed him with Fidel Castro, brother of Raúl, immediately challenged the ones pursuits by way of announcing political autonomy and expropriating non-public assets.
State Division officers seen that “the majority of Cubans support Castro” as a result of the federal government’s redistributive measures and its “real honesty, courtesy, and idealism.” One respectable warned “that if the Cuban revolution is successful other countries in Latin America and perhaps elsewhere will use it as a model and we should decide whether or not we wish to have the Cuban revolution succeed.”
They made up our minds temporarily. Through December 1959, President Dwight Eisenhower’s CIA director had licensed plans to overthrow the Castro govt. U.S. coverage thereafter integrated direct sponsorship and protected haven for Cuban paramilitary teams.
An American aircraft is shot down on Playa Girón throughout the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961.
Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone by way of Getty Pictures
The CIA-led Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961 is best essentially the most well-known episode. The U.S. educated 1,400 Cuban exiles to invade Cuba, hoping to ignite a national revolt. As a substitute, Cubans rallied at the back of the federal government.
Even though U.S. analysts steadily criticize the invasion as it failed, it used to be additionally a significant crime below global legislation. A number of hundred Cubans had been killed.
Concern of a repeat invasion additionally led Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev to ship nuclear missiles to Cuba, precipitating the Cuban missile disaster of October 1962 that almost resulted in nuclear battle.
Longtime CIA respectable Richard Helms later testified that within the early Sixties, “We had task forces that were striking at Cuba constantly. We were attempting to blow up power plants, we were attempting to ruin sugar mills, we were attempting to do all kinds of things during this period. This was a matter of American Government policy.”
In 1976, Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, two Cuban exiles, deliberate the bombing of a Cuban civilian airliner close to Barbados that killed all 73 other folks aboard.
“The C.I.A. taught us everything,” Posada Carriles mentioned later. “They taught us explosives, how to kill, bomb, trained us in acts of sabotage.”
Each males got safe haven in the USA for the remainder of their lives.
The Bay of Pigs invasion and the airline bombing violate the core rules of global legislation, together with prohibitions at the unprovoked “threat or use of force” and collective punishment. The U.S. govt itself defines “international terrorism” as “violent acts” meant “to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion” or to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population.”
Through that definition, its Cuba coverage qualifies.
Through ‘every possible means’
Every other U.S. manner of putting at Cuba used to be thru financial sanctions, first imposed at the nation in 1960. That 12 months, a State Division respectable wrote that “every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba” in order “to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” The common sense of collective punishment used to be transparent: make Cubans undergo sufficient that they riot towards Castro.
Pictures of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Raúl Castro and Fidel Castro enhance the state construction in Havana, Cuba, on Would possibly 20, 2026.
AP Photograph/Ramon Espinosa
This coverage is now extra competitive than ever. The tightening of U.S. sanctions since Trump’s first time period has diminished Cuba’s source of revenue from tourism, remittances and in a foreign country scientific missions. Now, by way of choking off the availability of gas, the U.S. has severely weakened the healthcare and sanitation methods that rely on electrical energy.
Scientific pros and United International locations observers have described scenes of ventilators and incubators left with out energy, pharmacies empty and healthcare staff compelled into “horrible decisions” about who lives and dies. A contemporary scientific learn about reported a 148% build up in toddler mortality between 2018 and 2025, which means that about 1,800 babies died who in a different way would have lived.
‘I was trained as a terrorist by the United States’
The point of interest of the new U.S. indictment towards Raúl Castro used to be the incident on Feb. 24, 1996, when the Cuban army, which used to be headed by way of Castro, shot down the ones two planes.
The planes had been operated by way of Brothers to the Rescue, an anti-Castro workforce of Cuban exiles who mentioned they had been assisting Cuban emigres attempting to succeed in Florida. The gang’s head, and probably the most surviving pilots that day, used to be José Basulto, a veteran CIA asset and player within the Bay of Pigs invasion.
In 1962, Basulto fired a cannon and system gun “16 times” at a Cuban resort, he later recounted. “I was trained as a terrorist by the United States,” Basulto as soon as instructed an interviewer.
Basulto’s aircraft had entered Cuban airspace on Feb. 24, as a U.S. customs carrier specialist later testified. Correspondence from the day displays that Basulto did so knowingly. The former July, he had instructed a TV target market, “We want confrontation.”
Whilst the Cuban army can have deescalated the location extra sparsely that day, Cuba were attempting for months to prevent the violations of its airspace.
I imagine indicting Cuban officers over the incident is disingenuous, given the provocations by way of Brothers to the Rescue and U.S. movements towards Cuba, which might be in direct violation of global and U.S. rules that restrict threats, nondefensive violence and collective punishment.
