Donald Trump ruled out any escalation and added that he would soon make an announcement on the oil blockade he imposed on the island.
EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, Hugo Barcia, 21 May 2026 – A thunderous ovation was the thanks that Cuban community leaders in Miami gave the United States Government following the indictment of former Cuban president Raúl Castro over the shooting down of two small planes that left four people dead 30 years ago. They celebrated the fact that it sends a powerful message that “impunity for the executioners is over.”
“It is a very important message: the impunity of the executioners Cuba has suffered under for 67 years has ended. Raúl Castro’s impunity is over. It is a devastating message for that regime and for those people who fought so hard for their freedom,” Orlando Gutiérrez, secretary general of the exile organization Assembly of the Cuban Resistance (ARC), told EFE.
He was one of the dozens of members of the Cuban diaspora who went this Wednesday to the Freedom Tower in Miami, an emblem of exile in this city, to applaud and hear in person United States Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announce Castro’s indictment.
Flanked by images of the four victims of the attack on two small planes belonging to the humanitarian organization Brothers to the Rescue — shot down by Cuban fighter jets in 1996 — Blanche charged the former Cuban president with the crimes of murder, conspiracy to kill Americans, and destruction of aircraft for allegedly giving the order to shoot them down.
Blanche charged the former Cuban president with the crimes of murder, conspiracy to kill Americans, and destruction of aircraft for allegedly giving the order to shoot them down.
The setting, the Freedom Tower, and the day, coinciding with what exiles celebrate as the island’s Independence Day, even though the Cuban Government does not commemorate the date in that way, fitted perfectly with the symbolism of the announcement.
“I passed through here when I came from Cuba with my parents. For me, this is emblematic. (…) For us, this is the gateway to freedom,” Cuban-American Guillermo Cueto recalled from inside the Tower, guarded by slender columns and a monumental painting with maps of America and Europe.
The charges Castro faces, at 94 years of age and currently in Cuba, could mean life imprisonment or even the death penalty, according to the indictment.
“We would love to see Raúl in handcuffs in the United States, but above all in Miami,” said city commissioner Rolando Escalona, referring to the arrival in the United States of deposed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro after his capture last January.
Bryan Calvo, the mayor of Hialeah, the city with the highest proportion of Cuban population in the United States, hopes this will be “a first step toward direct action,” calling for it “not to remain a symbolic act” and for Castro and the other five accused to be brought before United States justice.
Bryan Calvo, the mayor of Hialeah, the city with the highest proportion of Cuban population in the United States, hopes this will be “a first step toward direct action.”
“It has to be more than what happened in Venezuela. There, only one person was removed from power. Here, what we as the Cuban community are asking for is for all these people to be removed, for there to be a new Government on the island,” he stressed.
The United States Government has not clarified the next steps in the case, although Blanche emphasized during the press conference that Castro will face justice “of his own free will or in any other way.”
United States President Donald Trump, however, ruled out in a message on Truth Social that there would be any escalation, and added that he would soon make an announcement on the oil blockade he imposed on the island, worsening its energy and humanitarian crisis.
The Cuban exile community blames the “Castro regime” for the increasingly miserable situation being experienced in Cuba.
That is why the potential capture of Castro, brother of Fidel Castro, is interpreted as the beginning of the end of the Cuban Government by most exiles living in Miami, considered the historic, cultural, and political capital of Cuban exile and the Cuban diaspora in the world.
In this regard, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine-Cava told EFE that she has “great hope of seeing freedom and democracy in Cuba very soon,” and pointed out that Wednesday’s development is a sign that the Miami community stands with the Cuban diaspora.
A development which, once the euphoria of the announcement had faded, gave way to the silent routine of the Tower as a museum of Cuban memory and a symbol of exile in Miami.
Translated by GH
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