Hands Off Cuba: Reject US Escalation and Threats Against Cuban Sovereignty - CSC statement
Campaign News | Thursday, 21 May 2026
The Cuba Solidarity Campaign strongly condemns the latest contemptuous escalation by the United States government against Cuba – the indictment of former Cuban President Raúl Castro over the 1996 shoot-down of aircraft belonging to the Miami-based group Brothers to the Rescue.
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This is another dangerous step in Washington’s escalating campaign of economic warfare, political aggression and destabilisation against Cuba. At a moment when the US blockade is already inflicting immense suffering on the Cuban people through shortages of food, fuel and medicines, the Trump administration is intensifying efforts to manufacture a pretext for further intervention and confrontation.
The international community must respond with urgency and clarity. Governments, trade unions, parliamentarians and supporters of peace must reject these provocations and oppose any attempt to justify aggression against Cuba under the guise of “security” or “counterterrorism”.
The indictment of Raúl Castro must be understood in this wider context.
This is not about justice. It is about manufacturing a pretext for aggression against Cuba and laying the political groundwork for further intervention.
For months, the Trump administration and anti-Cuban hardliners have been escalating hostile rhetoric against Cuba – from false claims that Cuba poses a military threat to the United States, to manufactured stories alleging Cuba is preparing drone attacks. These accusations are absurd, inflammatory and designed to create a climate of fear and hostility.
The history of the Brothers to the Rescue incident is well documented. The organisation, led by long-time anti-Cuban activist José Basulto, was not a neutral humanitarian group. Basulto himself had a long record of involvement in hostile actions against Cuba and links to violent anti-Cuban exile networks.
In the months leading up to the February 1996 incident, Brothers to the Rescue aircraft repeatedly violated Cuban airspace. Cuban authorities documented at least 23 incursions and repeatedly warned the United States government that these provocations could not continue indefinitely.
The aircraft regularly flew over Havana dropping political leaflets in deliberate acts of provocation designed to undermine Cuban sovereignty. Cuba formally protested through diplomatic channels time and again, demanding that Washington prevents further violations of international law and respects Cuban territorial integrity.
The US government ignored those warnings.
Even after repeated incursions, the United States failed to restrain the flights or prevent further provocations. The situation escalated in an atmosphere already shaped by decades of US hostility, sabotage, assassination attempts, terrorism and economic warfare directed against Cuba.
Now, thirty years later, the US government is cynically reviving the incident as part of a broader campaign to portray Cuba as a threat and justify escalating aggression.
This is deeply dangerous.
At a moment when the US blockade is already inflicting severe humanitarian suffering on the Cuban people Washington is intensifying its campaign of political and psychological warfare. The goal remains what it has always been: regime change and the destruction of Cuban sovereignty.
The international community must reject these attempts to manufacture consent for intervention.
We call on the British government, parliamentarians, trade unions and all supporters of peace and international law to speak out against this latest escalation.
Cuba has the right to sovereignty, self-determination and freedom from foreign intervention.
Hands off Cuba.
End the blockade.
Defend Cuban sovereignty.
