Threatened indictment of Raúl Castro ratchets up US pressure on Cuba | Cuba

The tension between Cuba and the USA seems to increase further following the following reports:
The country’s 94-year-old former president, Raúl Castro, may soon face the kind of indictment that led the United States to kidnap Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January.

Although Raúl has officially retired, he remains the most powerful figure in Cuban politics following the death of his brother Fidel in 2016, and by targeting him Washington appears to be increasing pressure on Cuba’s communist leadership at the end of an already extraordinarily busy week.

The indictment, which has not yet been officially approved and must be approved by a grand jury, appears to be linked to the shooting down of two small planes belonging to the Cuban exile group called the Brotherhood in 1996. The plane, searching for beams escaping from the Florida straits, was intercepted by a Cuban jet while flying over Havana to drop leaflets.

“You could convene a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich,” said Pedro Freyre, a prominent Cuban American lawyer in Miami.

Reports of possible indictment It came the day after CIA director John Ratcliffe flew to Havana to meet Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the grandson of the former Cuban president, and senior government officials.

Ratcliffe’s arrival follows a night when protests spread across the island’s capital and people battled 22-hour blackouts. Cuban Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy had previously admitted that there was no fuel left on the island. “We have absolutely nothing,” he told state television.

Since the kidnapping of Maduro and Washington taking control of the Venezuelan oil industry, the US has been pushing for change in Havana: either the fall of the current regime or at least the opening of the economy to US interests.

“I don’t think we can change the course of Cuba as long as these people are in office,” Marco Rubio, the Cuban-American US secretary of state, said as he flew to China this week. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has made it clear that he wants to “take over” the country.

The United States has maintained a strict oil blockade of Cuba for the past four months, with Trump allowing only a single Russian crude oil carrier, Anatoly Kolodkin, in for humanitarian reasons.

The United States also held bilateral talks with Rodríguez Castro; this decision caused widespread unrest among many Cubans, who complained that Raúl’s grandson had no official role in the government.

Amid speculation that the United States was trying to split the government, the island’s current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, held a press conference to confirm the talks and Raúl Castro’s participation, while Rodríguez Castro continued to watch.

Until this week, the discussions had been assumed to have foundered in the hope that the Cuban government would drag its feet and Washington would be too distracted by the difficulties in Iran to pursue its own case.

But Trump’s growing impatience is obvious. At a conference in Florida in early May, he said he could intercept the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln “about 100 yards away.” [Cuban] Over the past few weeks, both drones and manned US surveillance aircraft have been tracking around the island.

“I still can’t imagine the United States actually conducting a military operation while Iran is still in shambles,” said Michael Bustamante, chair of Cuba and Cuban American studies at the University of Miami. “But I also don’t think Cuba can meet that claim without oil in storage.”

The outcome of the meeting between senior Cuban officials and CIA director Ratcliffe remains unclear. Both sides restated their positions; The Cubans declared that the island “does not pose a threat to the national security of the United States” and the United States said it was “ready to deal seriously with economic and security issues, but only if Cuba makes fundamental changes.”

The US State Department had previously said they would offer $100 million in aid as long as it was matched with “meaningful reforms”. In an unprecedented move, Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez said the Cuban side would accept aid as long as there were no conditions.

Meanwhile, Cuba’s population of 9.5 million faces an uncertain future. But what is certain is that the lack of fuel on the island creates a hopeless situation. As summer approaches, temperatures soar into the 30s (high 80s Fahrenheit) and people try to sleep without fans or keep food in the refrigerator.

The Cuban economy has been collapsing for five years and many are poor, struggling to find food. When people took to the streets to complain on Wednesday, one told Reuters it was not political: “We started banging pots to see if they would give us just three hours of electricity. That’s all we want.”