United States charges target Castro legacy
By: Chris Kenning
and Antonio Fins
USA Today Network
..... When Cuba's then-President Raul Castro welcomed President Barack Obama to Havana in 2016, it marked a historic reopening of diplomatic relations announce a year earlier between longtime Cold War adversaries - and a rare widow for change.
..... Castro, who had taken over from his charismatic revolutionary brother Fidel, wanted to lift the U.S. embargo. Obama wanted economic and human-rights reforms. Some saw the chance to steer Cuba to a model like Vietnam, where communist rule coexisted with a thriving economy.
..... "He had a huge opportunity," said Sebastian Arcos, interim director of the Institute for Cuban Studies at Florida International University,
..... But it wasn't to be. That opening slammed shut in 2017 when President Donald Trump shot down rapprochement and began to ratchet up the pressure on the island nation.
..... Now that pressure is targeted squarely on Castro, 94 year old, visibly fragile and presiding over a country facing daily blackouts.
..... The Justice Department unsealed a murder indictment against the former Cuban president on May 20. [2026] The United States charged Castro with four counts of murder, accusing him of ordering Cuban military jets in 1996 to shoot down civilian planes flown by a Cuban-exile aid group and killing four people aboard.
..... That could presage a U.S. military action to remove Castro as occurred in Venezuela, where the U.S. military arrested and extracted Resident Nicolas Maduro. The United States has also recently offered an economic deal if changes are made.
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The indictment and U.S. pressure mark a dramatic late-stage chapter for a leader who for decades labored in Fidel's shadow, the organizer and administrator behind the showy orator,
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Through many were skeptical he could take the reins when Fidel Castro stepped down, Raul Castro turned out to be a more skilled political chess player than expected.
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He coalesced military and economic power behind him, making some economic reforms and agreeing to a historic opening with Obama while seeking to keep Cuba postured as a communist stalwart. despite his advanced age, Castro is viewed as holding sway over the government and its revolutionary legacy.
The quite one
..... Raul Castro grew up with his brother in Biran, a small village in eastern Cuba, in the 1930s. He was in his 20s when he was among dozens of revolutionaries packed in the 60-foot boat called the Granma, splashing ashore form exile with Fidel Castro in 1956.
..... After the government detected and attacked them, Raul was one of only 12 fighters who reached safety in the Sierra Maestra mountains. there, the Castro led the guerrilla war that ended with the overthrow of dictator Fulgencio Batista three years later, in 1959.While he was always the quiet one compared with the charismatic Fidel, he became known for instances of ruthlessness. In 1959, he led the execution of dozens of Batista officers and supporters in Santiago de Cuba.
..... A
victorious Fidel Castro, who nationalized businesses and properties owned by Americans, further alienated the United States by allying with the Soviet Union, setting up what would be a decades lone Gold War clash. Raul Castro spent decades as his brother's defense minister, playing a secondary role to the cigar-smoking "Comandante Maximo," said Peter Kornbluh, a Cuba specialist with the National Security Archives. "He was kid of to Fidel what Robert Kennedy was to John Kennedy," Kornbluh said.
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In 1961, Raul Castro helped repel the Kennedy-military interventions abroad, including in Angola.
..... He remained in the role during the early 1990s "special Period," when the Soviet collapse ended subsidies, causing severe shortage as the United States tighten its embargo. this was the decade of the deadly shoot-down connected to the U.S. incidence.
..... Audio recordings captured Raul Castor admitting he order the downing of the Cessna operated by Brothers to the rescue, according to a 2006 article in el Nuevo Herold.
A reluctant reformer
..... In 2008, after an aging Fidel Castro became ill, Raul was formally named as president, finally stepping out of the shadows but remaining a far less flamboyant figure.
..... In embracing a rapprochement with the United States under Obama, Raul Castro played the had of a pragmatist. There were some years of economic growth, the expansion of the private sector and U.S. cooperation on issues such as narcotics and migration, Kornbluh said. But Cuba was also slow in licensing U.S. companies that wanted to set up shop in Cuba.
..... Former National Security adviser John Bolton doubts Raul Castro had any interest in making a deal that would satisfy the desire for democracy in Cuba.
..... Around that same time, Castro was expanding the GAESA group, a business conglomerate connected to the military that had its hand in various industries. It's been the target of U.S. sanctions.
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Over time, Raul did enact reforms, such as expanding small-scale private businesses. Korbluh said he also helped expand access to the Internet. However, problems persisted, with the economy stagnant and Cubans still seeking to leave the country.
..... By 2018, Raul stepped down as president but retained significant power within Cuba's Communist Party, armed forces and sate institutionalist, according to Reuters Miguel Diaz-Canel was appointed president but was and still is widely through to answer to Castro.
..... Contributing: Reuters, Rick Jervis, USA Today