Is Raúl Castro Indictment The Pretext For An Invasion Of Cuba?

• • Meeks issues statement on Raúl Castro Indictment
  • Caribbean Bloodshed? The Cuban Invasion – Peter Polack

WASHINGTON, USA – Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, issued the following statement on the Trump administration's indictment of former Cuban president Raúl Castro:

“Raúl Castro should be held accountable for the murder of Americans over international waters. But this indictment looks less like a pursuit of justice and more like a pretext for escalation, potentially even an illegal invasion of Cuba.

“There is no military solution, and no amount of sanctions will bring about a better future for the Cuban people. If the Trump administration is serious about building a new relationship, as Secretary Rubio claims, it should work with Congress to reform the failed and draconian sanctions regime that has hampered the ability of administration after administration to negotiate a meaningful opening with the island.

“The administration must also end its senseless oil blockade, which is exacerbating the suffering of the Cuban people, plunging hospitals, homes, and private businesses into darkness. The only way to foster real change is to empower the Cuban people themselves, not by doubling down on a failed approach that punishes them while yielding no progress.”

Related Links:

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• Secretary Rubio's Message to the Cuban People on Their Independence Day

Caribbean Bloodshed? The Cuban Invasion – Peter Polack

Cuba has been the subject of an embargo for most of its post-revolutionary life, but the recent, almost absolute ban on fuel and other imports by their near neighbour, the USA, is a new reality that appears to have not led to political change for a people, long used to deprivation, yet.

The Cuban leadership has tried to project Patria o Muerte, Homeland or Death, to the Americans, a sign prominently displayed for the benefit of Cuban soldiers trapped in the Angolan town of Cuito Cuanavale in 1988, before a later peace treaty. The Cubans then left Angola with their nearly 2,500 or more dead soldiers in refrigerated containers that had accumulated over the conflict. They were buried in multiple cemeteries in many provinces of that island to limit any potential outcry by family and friends. The veterans of that war have seen little or no compensation except a ventilator or fan bought before departure from meagre funds allowed by their government, who received thousands for each soldier, every month, from the oil-rich Angolan government.

Many Cubans received combat experience on their internationalist missions to Angola and elsewhere. Those aged soldiers are either unwilling, incapable, sick or dead today. That sacrifice generation no longer exists.

History may prove a useful guide to what can be expected if the Cuban military decides to defend their territory, or not.

A brief canvass of the February 1961 memorandum of February 1961 from the US Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Secretary of Defense before the Bay of Pigs invasion debacle would reveal that the proposed action as having a fair chance of ultimate success that could contribute to the overthrow of the Castro regime.

They were completely wrong, but that was then, and this is now.

The Grenada invasion by America in 1983 saw only 24 of the nearly 1,000 Cubans stationed there, killed. The recent commander of those forces, Colonel Pedro Tortolo, fled to the Soviet embassy with 42 others before being evacuated back to a hero's welcome in Havana.

This later turned sour on the easy loss of Grenada, before he and others were dispatched to anonymity on the Angola front as mere soldiers, having failed to die to the last man. That inherited Soviet battlefield strategy has now been discarded on a field of social networks that promise a better life outside of war and death.

What do the United States and the Caribbean leadership assess the Cuban military and resistance to be, should there be an invasion?

The migrants, refugees, family members of those abroad, entitled Cubans and others with any available opportunity, including sports figures, have fled the island post-revolution for almost a century. They want a future, better economic conditions and an openness to speak. The expatriate Cuban resistance in Florida is as strong today as they ever were, especially with local developments. Exile groups like Alpha 66 may no longer be active under previous administrations, but their roots remain strong.

The older Cubans wish every year on New Year's Eve, next year in Havana.

The aged military Cuban leadership have been a good preventative during peacetime against a restricted, unarmed population. The big question is whether younger Cuban troops will follow their gerontocracy into battle or turn on their generals and middle managers.

If the Cuban elite do not offer up a sacrificial lamb then the unwilling Colonel Tortolo may provide a better read for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The jaded slogan Patria o Muerte could become Patria con Plata or Homeland with Money. No one is prepared to die for an unsuccessful, obsolete ideology, also known as you pretend to lead and I will pretend to follow.

That is the Venezuelan paradigm.

• • Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer in the Cayman Islands for several decades. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities with almost five hundred Soviet spies expelled from nearly 100 countries worldwide 1940-88.

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