Regime Change Through Indictment
Raúl Castro and the BTTR Flights
Revealing a steely yet erratic contempt of the law, the US Department of Justice is showing, again, how it became the spear carrier for kooky ideas and vengeful projects. No leader is seemingly safe from an indictment if the personal interest of President Donald Trump is invested. It need not matter if the legal foundations are shoddy to the point of sheer absurdity—the more absurd, the more likely the paperwork will be filed.
The 20 May unsealing of a superseding indictment by the DOJ against Raúl Castro bulks that pile. As brother to the late Fidel Castro and Cuban president from 2008 to 2019, participant in the legendary assault on the Moncada Barracks in July 1953 and founding member of the M-26-7 guerilla outfit, he has been a persistent reminder of failures by the United States to subjugate the island and its government since the revolutionary overthrow of the blood basted regime of Fulgencio Batista. In April 1961, for instance, the Castro brothers ensured the survival of the revolution by defeating the CIA-backed attack at the Bay of Pigs, consisting of 1,400 Cuban exiles. The ill-conceived, error-plagued operation took much lustre off the Camelot that was the Kennedy administration.
The indictment, which also nets five Cuban air force pilots, alleges that aircraft of the ostensibly humanitarian organisation BTTR (Brothers to the Rescue) were fired upon by Cuban MiG aircraft on 24 February 1996. Three had taken off from South Florida heading to Cuba that day. Two unarmed civilian Cessna aircraft were destroyed, allegedly flying outside Cuban territory. Three American citizens and one resident of the US were killed.
The charges include one count of conspiracy to kill US nationals, two counts of destruction of an aircraft and four counts of murder. At the time, Castro was the Minister of Defence overseeing the Cuban Revolutionary Air and Air Defence Force (DAAFAR). He is said to have ordered the five pilots to follow and eliminate the three BTTR aircraft.
The indictment does a superb job in making glaring omissions. There is no mention of the nervous mood of US officials at the time, notably those at the Federal Aviation Administration, State Department and White House. No mention, either, of the compounding recklessness of the BTTR missions. The flights were intended to seek and assist Cubans sailing to the US and imperilled at sea. They were, however, unauthorised and deemed provocative to the Cuban government, not least because they also pursued a propaganda campaign in Cuban airspace. FAA records made available by the invaluable offices of the National Security Archive and used in William LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh’s Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana (2014) are not exactly glowing about the BTTR, led by its obstinate founder, José Basulto.
The book usefully, and rather damningly, reveals the backchannel efforts by the Cuban government, including Fidel Castro, to convince the Clinton administration to ground the BTTR flights. In 1995, protests had been filed by the Civil Aeronautics Institute of Cuba claiming that BTTR aircraft had violated Cuban airspace by overflying populated zones and dropping propaganda material inciting an overthrow of the government. (Hardly a humanitarian enterprise.) The FAA commenced an investigation into the matter, warning Basulto numerous times to cease these “taunting” provocations. On 11 January 1995, for instance, representatives of the Miami Flight Standards District Office (FSDO) met with Basulto, advising him of the consequences arising from the unauthorised penetration of Cuban airspace. He was also warned that any violation of the Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) or any pertinent international regulations would be investigated, prosecuted and adjudicated. Despite taking steps to suspend his flying license, the agency showed a sufficient degree of weak will in permitting him to fly, despite his persistent habit of filing false flight plans.
On 22 January 1996, FAA official Cecelia Capestany informed her superiors of yet another unauthorised flight that took place two days prior. The State Department was “increasingly concerned about Cuban reactions to these flagrant violations. They are also asking from the FAA what is this agency doing to prevent/deter these actions.” She notes a call made the previous week by Undersecretary of State Peter Tarnoff to Transportation Secretary Federico Peña “to check on our case against Basulto. Worse case scenario is that one of these days the Cubans will shoot down one of these planes and the FAA better have all its ducks in a row.”
That same month, Fidel Castro reached an agreement, or so he thought, with Democratic Rep. Bill Richardson of New Mexico for the release of certain political prisoners in exchange of a promise from President Bill Clinton that the BTTR planes would cease their operations. Richardson’s superficially rich offering, however, was not based on executive fiat but conservations with White House aides who then pressured Secretary Peña to chase up the FAA.
On the penultimate night of 23 February 1996, Richard Nuccio, the White House official overseeing Cuban matters, sent an email to National Security Advisor Sandy Berger informing him that Basulto would be flying the next day. “Previous overflights by Jose Basulto of the Brothers have been met with restraint by Cuban authorities,” he reported. The prescient warning follows. “Tensions are sufficiently high within Cuba, however, that we fear this may finally tip the Cubans toward an attempt to shoot down or force down the plane.” When Nuccio pursued the matter with FAA officials in Miami, instructing them to block the flights, they flatly refused. A tepid warning to Basulto was deemed sufficient.
Despite some concerns voiced by functionaries within the FAA and the agitated airings of the State Department, it took the death of four pilots to force the “cease and desist” order directed at BTTR and Basulto barring “the operation of any civil aircraft within the territorial airspace of the Republic of Cuba without prior authorization from the Cuban Traffic Control Authority.”
This context is excised in the indictment, exonerating the criminal recklessness of Basulto and the conduct of officials in the FAA whose forcefulness was found wanting. BTTR’s flights are described as supporting “anti-Castro, pro-democracy movements in Cuba,” a description that ennobles them. The Castro government is taken to task for infiltrating the BTTR with the La Red Avispa (the Wasp Network) to report on its activities, while much is made about Cuban dissident groups keen on a “peaceful transition.” Surprise that the Cuban military should actually retaliate for threats to the country’s airspace is palpable and puerile. In a statement pouring cold water on the indictment, the Cuban embassy in Washington noted “more than 25 serious, deliberate and systematic violations of the country’s airspace” between 1994 and 1996. “These were not miscalculations, but rather a continuous campaign that jeopardized aeronautical safety.”
The stress from the Trump administration, instead, is on murder. As Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche explained, “Over three decades later, we are committed to holding those accountable for the murders of four brave Americans: Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales.” Far from being brave, they were reckless, indifferent to warnings, waging a version of aerial politics that ended in predictable bloodshed.
The indictment is part of a series of coarse measures intended to wear down the regime and turn the island into a simpering client state. It is an extension of the Maduro-Venezuela formula drawn from gangster politics: ignore the leaders and, if necessary, kidnap them.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, taking liberties with the factual record on Cuba’s economic miseries (he blithely ignores the effects of the US blockade that has prevented oil shipments from Venezuela and other states on pain of crushing tariffs), is offering relief in the form of a US$100 million Trojan Horse: We will provide aid but only to American agents and entities we trust. Blackmail is in the offing. “We in the US are offering to help you not only alleviate the current crisis, but to also build a better future.” The insurgency virus is being readied, and Batista’s ghost rejoicing.
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