As the US seems ready to announce criminal charges against the former president of Cuba, Raul Castro, 94, analysts say it may be a symbolic move designed to increase psychological pressure on the small island.
They do not rule out, however, that it could be an excuse for violence.
Reuters and the Associated Press reported last week that US Justice Department officials said the Trump administration plans to seek Castro’s indictment over a 1996 incident in which Cuban jets shot down two planes operated by the Miami-based Cuban-American group Brothers to the Rescue. Reuters said the impeachment could take place on Wednesday.
This comes amid an ongoing fuel embargo as the US continues to increase pressure to force a change of government.
Trump ‘needs some kind of win’
Mark Entwistle, who served as Canada’s ambassador to Cuba in 1996 and was in Havana at the time of the incident, said he was saddened that the trial was a “political management tool” rather than a planned military campaign like the January capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
But, he says, under US President Donald Trump, “you never know.”
“The president needs some kind of win in Cuba. Iran is not going well,” Entwistle said.
It is reported that the Department of Justice in the US will study the case of former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, who is the brother of Fidel Castro. The director of the CIA is currently visiting Cuba as the US blackout is causing a fuel crisis on the island.
He says that the US, in some ways, misread the Cubans in the same way it misread the Iranians before launching a war with Israel in the Middle Eastern country in February.
“The standard history of American intelligence is that Cuba is so fragile it will just fall, and it will fall, etc. And it hasn’t,” he said. “They are remarkably resilient.”
Instead of regime change, Entwistle says the impeachment may be a way to reveal some “stronger” aspects of the Cuban American community, where Brothers to the Rescue is shot “for a cause of honor.”
Brothers to the Rescue had flown planes into Havana several times before the incident, dropping leaflets against the Cuban government in the city.
The Cuban government has deemed Brothers to the Rescue a military terrorist organization and a threat to national security, and has warned the group and the US government to stop entering their airspace or risk increasing.
In 1996, Cuba shot down two planes over international waters. Raul Castro was leading the Cuban military at the time.
‘Death by a thousand cuts’
John Kirk, a former professor of Latin American studies at Dalhousie University who has written numerous books on Cuba, says Castro’s impeachment is a continuation of the Trump administration’s policy of “death by the thousands,” following the fuel embargo and other sanctions.
Residents suffer from power outages, sometimes lasting more than 20 hours at a time, and are left without transportation to get to work. He says the power outages also lead to thousands of surgeries and other treatments.
The country’s energy minister announced last week that Cuba has run out of diesel and fuel oil.
Kirk says this “psychological operation” is intended to quell popular opposition and promote the overthrow of the Cuban government.
“All these things build to a crescendo,” he said. “I think the US is looking at a bag of things to throw at Cuba to try to make the country uncertain.”
Kirk says Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, whose parents are from Cuba and whose “entire political career has been focused” on sending anti-Castro messages, is driving regime change.
He says that Trump is very interested for ego reasons, he wants to “burn his crown” by saying that he is achieving what no other US president has done and “bringing an end to the process of the Cuban revolution.”
Trump has also never been shy about wanting America’s commercial interests in.
‘America is back’
Alejandro Magos, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, says impeaching Fidel Castro’s brother is a “symbolic act.”
“This is almost as if the entire state has been charged,” said Magos.
“They won’t be able to bring Fidel Castro back from the grave, but they can put his brother on trial as a final victory – a victory that has proved too difficult for the USA.”
Magos says Trump needs to “show something to his voters” to demonstrate victory in Cuba, especially as the US midterm elections approach.
Pointing to a meeting between CIA director John Ratcliffe and Cuban officials in Havana last week, he says the impeachment is “just one more tool” of many being used against Cuba’s communist government.
“You have the legal way, you have the political way, the diplomatic avenue, and everything that tries to create more pressure on Havana,” he said.
US President Donald Trump has called Cuba a ‘failing nation’ and suggested that the US may ‘pass’ after the end of the US war with Israel and Iran.
Magos says that Cuba still represents a kind of “romanticism” that is anti-imperial, anti-capitalist and anti-globalization for many people in the Americas.
He says Trump ultimately wants to send a message that “the moment of leftist insurgency is closed forever,” and any perception that the US is ignoring what’s happening in other American countries is “over.”
“It’s like, you know, America is back.”
