Joy and emotion sweep Miami’s Cuban community after Raul Castro indictment

On Wednesday, which also marked Cuba’s Independence Day, a federal judge unsealed an April 23 indictment against Castro, the 94-year-old president of Cuba and brother of the late Fidel Castro.

The indictment comes as the United States puts pressure on the Cuban government to negotiate economic and political reforms, and President Donald Trump has recently hinted at the possibility of regime change.

“We have been waiting for our government to seek justice even if it’s late; sooner or later justice will be served,” a Cuban living in Florida said. “We are really happy that he was indicted. There is no way to escape justice.” The federal indictment says that the Cuban government infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue and reported back on its activities to Havana.

“The families of the four men killed in 1996 deserve to see that the world has not moved on. The people of Cuba deserve more than a change of slogans. They deserve the end of the regime that took those lives and has taken so many others in silence. This indictment should be a beginning, not a curtain call, in the effort to finally bring about a free Cuba,” said another Cuban at the site of protest.

For decades, the families of the four men killed in the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown have been seeking accountability from Cuba’s communist government in South Florida. There is now renewed attention to the role Raúl Castro is accused of playing in ordering the attack that killed the humanitarian pilots over international waters.