Cuba is defiant as U.S. targets Castro and fears of conflict loom

MEXICO CITY — In recent days, the U.S. Navy stationed an aircraft carrier off the coast of Cuba, the White House expanded sanctions on Havana’s leaders and federal prosecutors charged former Cuban President Raúl Castro with murder.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking to reporters, said what to many is becoming obvious: that the likelihood of a “negotiated and peaceful agreement” with Cuba’s communist government is “not high.”

Months into a punishing oil blockade that has triggered widespread blackouts on the island, the Trump administration has ratcheted up its pressure campaign against Havana even further, raising questions about whether Cuba will be the next U.S. target after Venezuela and Iran. The U.S. overthrew Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January and a month later killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Officials in Cuba, who slammed the indictment against Castro as “a political action” to build the case for an invasion, say they are preparing for war.

Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, said that while the country hopes to avert conflict, it is hardening its defenses.

“We would be naive” not to, he said.

For weeks, Cuba has been circulating a pamphlet among its citizens — a “Family Guide for Protection Against Military Aggression” — that says the U.S. “threatens to launch a military assault and destroy our society with the aim of perpetuating capitalism … and annihilating the dream of our Commander-in-Chief, Fidel Castro.”

The document instructs families to pack survival kits, seek shelter if they hear air raid sirens and shares first aid instructions for things such as tying a tourniquet. “Should the enemy attack,” it reads, “our Revolution will defend itself until victory is achieved and the aggressor is expelled.”

Cubans are watching the developments anxiously, but are focused on the daily business of survival.

An April shipment of crude — one of the only oil deliveries this year — has been exhausted, with Cuba’s minister of energy and mines announcing this week that the country lacks fuel to power its antiquated electrical grid and is relying on domestic oil and solar panels. “We have no more reserves,” he said.

The energy crisis has plunged much of the country into darkness, with many homes receiving just a few hours of electricity each day. Food is scarce or goes rotten because of a lack of refrigeration. Some schools are closed. Cars and buses are idled. Hospitals lack power for ventilators.

“Cuba is spiraling,” said Michel Fernández Pérez of the Florida-based nongovernmental organization Cuba Próxima. “It is a country on the brink of terminal crisis. People don’t know what’s going to happen next, and most have almost no hope that things will actually improve.”

The U.S. and Cuba have been involved in talks for months, with American officials demanding an overhaul of the island’s state-run economy and one-party political system. Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Havana for talks.

But Cuba’s leaders appear unwilling to make major concessions. And they have said publicly that they do not believe the U.S. is acting in good faith.

“Obviously it does not help a climate of dialogue and trust that every other day there are statements like, ‘We are ready to take over Cuba,’” Cuba’s ambassador to the United Nations told the New York Times this week. “Warmongering rhetoric does not help.”

The indictment of Castro, the 94-year-old brother of the late revolutionary leader Fidel, is perhaps the most aggressive move yet from the United States.

Castro, who served as defense minister in the 1990s, was charged with ordering the 1996 downing of two planes over Cuban territory flown by members of Brothers to the Rescue, a group of Florida exiles opposed to the Castro regime. Four people died. Public records show that Cuban officials have said that they attacked the planes only after trying via diplomatic back channels to stop the flights.

Announcing the charges in Miami on Wednesday, acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche hailed the case as an important step toward justice, and said he believed Castro would eventually end up in the U.S. for his day in court. “There was a warrant issued for his arrest,” he said. “So we expect that he will show up here, by his own will or by another way.”

But what “another way” means remains unclear, and Blanche said that was an issue for the departments of Defense and State.

Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, a progressive think tank, said President Trump appears to be on a warpath.

“Once again he’s leading us into a conflict for no good reason,” Duss said, and in a nod to the operations in Venezuela and Iran, added that U.S. officials “have offered no plausible argument that Cuba or any of the three countries represent a threat.”

In March, Trump had said that he would have “the honor of taking Cuba,” adding, “I can do anything I want with it.” On Thursday, he denied that his administration was seeking to intimidate Havana when asked about positioning the USS Nimitz near Cuba.

“Not at all,” Trump told reporters during an event in the Oval Office.

He then characterized Cuba as a “failed country,” and said that for “humanitarian reasons” his administration was looking to “help them along.”

“Other presidents have looked at this for 50, 60 years, doing something,” he said. “And it looks like I will be the one that does it.”

A recent poll by El Toque, a Cuban news site, found that 56% of the island’s residents support a U.S. military intervention.

“That is the level of desperation currently gripping the Cuban people,” said Fernández, who compared everyday Cubans to “hostages trapped between two powers: the illegitimate and dictatorial authority of the Cuban government, and the United States — a global power seeking to impose its will without regard for human rights.”

Also on Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld lawsuits by U.S. companies whose property was seized during the Cuban revolution. The suits do not seek compensation from Cuba, but create another headache for the government by putting pressure on four cruise lines being sued because they had used the Port of Havana.

In Cuba, anger has been growing at the government over the blackouts and decades of mismanagement of the economy. But sporadic protests have been quickly suppressed.

The government, in a show of force, is organizing a large protest to defend Castro on Havana’s seaside promenade on Friday.

Times staff writer Ana Ceballos contributed to this report from Washington.