The indictment was an extraordinary escalation of the Trump administration’s multifaceted pressure campaign against Cuba’s Communist government.
News of U.S. Indictment Slow to Reach Cubans Waiting for a Breakthrough - The New York Times
While many Cubans were divided over the legitimacy of the U.S. charging Raul Castro with murder, the hope for developments that might ease their suffering is widespread. “This has to change.”
Nimitz Aircraft Carrier Enters Caribbean as Trump Pressures Cuba - The New York Times
The carrier arrived in the southern Caribbean on the same day that the Justice Department announced charges against Raúl Castro.
Justice Department announced charges on Wednesday against Raúl Castro, the 94-year-old former president of Cuba, accusing him of murder and a conspiracy to kill American citizens stemming from the fatal downing 30 years ago of two planes over waters off the coast of his country. The indictment raised the possibility that the United States could be paving the way for its military to remove him from the country through a means similar to how U.S. Special Operations forces used an indictment against Nicolás Maduro, the former leader of Venezuela, to swoop into Caracas in a brazen operation in January and capture him.
The Cuban government, in a statement, rebuked the United States:“It is highly cynical for this accusation to be made by the very same government that has murdered nearly 200 people and destroyed 57 vessels in international waters of the Caribbean and the Pacific, far from United States territory, through the disproportionate use of military force,” it said.
