The U.S. government on Wednesday indicted 94-year-old Raúl Castro, charging the former Cuban president in connection with the downing of two planes carrying “Brothers to the Rescue,” an anti-government group in exile, killing four, back in 1996.
PETER KORNBLUH, peter.kornbluh@
Available for a limited number of interviews, Kornbluh is co-author with William M. LeoGrande of Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana. He is also director of the Cuba and Chile Documentation Projects at the National Security Archives.
On Tuesday, the group posted “Cuba: Declassified Records on the Brothers to the Rescue Shootdown,” which states: “One month before Cuban MiG aircraft shot down two unarmed Cessna planes off the island coast, a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) official cited ‘further taunting of the Cuban Government’ by the Brothers to the Rescue (BTTR) overflights and State Department concern about a ‘worst case scenario’ in which ‘one of these days the Cubans will shoot down one of these planes and the FAA better have all its ducks in a row.’ The declassified FAA email is one of several records on the shootdown published today by the National Security Archive.
“FAA emails, memos, and communications recorded concerns among high-level Clinton administration officials that repeated penetrations of Cuban airspace would eventually lead to a crisis if Cuba acted to protect its territorial integrity from provocative BTTR incursions. ‘A major fear is the possible downing of a BTTR aircraft by land-based gunfire,’ a summary of an August 1995 meeting with White House officials stated.
“The posting comes as the U.S. Department of Justice prepares to indict Cuban leader Raul Castro for his role in the downing of the BTTR planes. At the time, General Castro served as minister of defense and was the highest officer in the military chain of command in Fidel Castro’s government. The documents offer a detailed historical context in which the aerial violence against the civilian aircraft occurred.
“The FAA records also provide significant details on events leading up to the February 24, 1996, downing of the planes, which cost the lives of four Cuban American members of BTTR. Among those details:
* Starting a year before the shootdown, the Cuban government filed multiple protests on repeated violations of its airspace by BTTR aircraft overflying populated zones and dropping thousands of leaflets and other materials calling for popular insurrection against the government.
* The FAA opened a protracted investigation, met with BTTR president Jose Basulto, and warned him multiple times not to continue his ‘taunting’ provocations. The agency took steps to suspend his pilot’s license but allowed him to keep flying, even as he repeatedly filed false flight plans.
* High-level U.S. officials, including White House Cuba point man Richard Nuccio, State Department undersecretary Peter Tarnoff, and Secretary of Transportation Federico Peña repeatedly expressed their concerns to the FAA that BTTR flights should be permanently grounded and repeatedly warned that Cuba’s redlines to protect its security should be taken seriously. Their efforts to press the FAA to clip Basulto’s wings failed. Only after the shootdown did the FAA issue a concrete ‘cease and desist’ order against Basulto for what it called ‘careless or reckless’ operations that ‘endanger the lives or property of others.’
“The FAA documents were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for the 2014 book, Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana, by American University Cuba specialist William LeoGrande and Archive senior analyst Peter Kornbluh. The book detailed multiple backchannel attempts by Cuban leaders, including Fidel Castro, to press the Clinton administration to halt the provocative BTTR flights. In January 1996, Castro personally struck a secret deal with then Congressman Bill Richardson to release several political prisoners in return for an ironclad promise from President Clinton to ground Basulto’s planes. Although Richardson told Castro he had obtained that commitment from the President, in reality he had talked to other White House aides who had then appealed to Secretary Peña to intercede with the FAA.
“On the night of February 23, according to Back Channel to Cuba, the White House official in charge of Cuba, Richard Nuccio, sent an email to National Security Advisor Sandy Berger alerting him that Basulto intended to fly the next day. ‘Previous overflights by Jose Basulto of the Brothers have been met with restraint by Cuban authorities,’ he reported. ‘Tensions are sufficiently high within Cuba, however, that we fear this may finally tip the Cubans toward an attempt to shoot down or force down the plane,’ he warned.
“Nuccio called FAA officials in Miami and instructed them to block the flights. To his surprise, they refused. The FAA agreed only to warn Basulto, again, against violating Cuban airspace.”