Cuba Assembles Communist Protest at U.S. Embassy for Act of ‘Patriotic Reaffirmation’
Frances Martel 22 May 2026
The Communist Party of Cuba organized a massive military display shortly after dawn on Friday before the U.S. embassy in Havana to condemn the U.S. government for indicting dictator Raúl Castro on murder charges.
The event featured several high-profile members of the Party, including various Politburo bigwigs and, most prominently, figurehead “president” Miguel Díaz-Canel. Notably absent from the affair was Díaz-Canel’s boss, Castro himself, who is approaching his 95th birthday next month. In response to the indictment against him, the Party has also announced a wave of nationwide events to honor Castro’s 95th birthday, perpetuating the personality cult once controlled by older brother Fidel.
On Wednesday — Cuban Independence Day — the Department of Justice announced that it had indicted Raúl Castro and several other Communist Party underlings on a variety of criminal charges, including murder and conspiracy to kill American nationals, for his role in the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue killings. In February of that year, the Cuban military shot down airplanes belonging to the humanitarian group Brothers to the Rescue over international waters as they were searching for wayward Cuban refugees attempting to cross the Florida Straits to America. Americans Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales were killed as the planes were shot down into the Caribbean Sea. Audio exists appearing to document Raúl Castro boasting of the killings.
“For the first time in nearly 70 years, senior leadership of the Cuban regime has been charged in the United States for alleged acts of violence resulting in the deaths of American citizens,” Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said following the announcement of the indictment on Wednesday. “President Trump and this Justice Department are committed to restoring a simple principle: if you kill Americans, we will pursue you. No matter who you are. No matter what title you hold.”
Prior to the Brothers to the Rescue murders, for decades and even before Fidel Castro’s 1959 coup d’etat, younger brother Raúl developed a reputation for bloodthirstiness on par with Ernesto “Che” Guevara who openly boasted of his mass murders before the United Nations General Assembly. Raúl Castro was often in charge of firing squads to kill suspected anti-communist dissidents, doing the “dirty work” Fidel did not want to handle.
The Communist Party has responded with outrage and panic at the indictment, given the precedent of the indictment and arrest of one of Castro’s closest allies, former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. Maduro was arrested by American forces in Caracas, Venezuela, on January 3. He was protected by Cuban state security agents, 32 of which perished defending the foreign leader.
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https://www.breitbart.com/latin-america/2026/05/22/cuba-assembles-communist-protest-at-u-s-embassy-for-act-of-patriotic-reaffirmation/
