SACP condemns planned indictment of Comrade Raul Castro by US regime

Saturday, 16 May 2026: The South African Communist Party (SACP) has learned of the planned indictment of former President of Cuba, Comrade Raul Castro, by the US government through its department of justice. The SACP condemns this as yet another act of aggression by the US regime which has for close to seven decades failed to illegally overthrow the Cuban government.

This mooted indictment is based on events of 1996 where an airplane belonging to an organisation known as "Brothers to the Rescue" was shot down. This was followed by an accusation towards the Cuban government for the plane's demise. Thirty years later, the Donald Trump administration has made the political decision to dig into its cold files to find a convenient excuse to justify its latest move to deepen its ongoing war on Cuba. This case is neither the actual reason for this decision nor is it a legitimate legal action.

The US government does not have any form of jurisdiction over Cuba. Their action does not have any legitimacy in international law to arrest the former head of state of another country. This is only a political manoeuvre to fish for legally framed justification for military violence.

At the height of the US's asphyxiation of Cuba through its illegal and immoral economic blockade spanning close to 70 years, made worse by modern efforts to starve the Cuban people through the oil embargo, the US government is arming itself to execute a new assault on Cuba through this facade of a case. This is not a legal action to seek justice for an aircraft accident of thirty years ago. It is rather a renewed war effort against Cuba utilising new methods to achieve the same known objectives. In a similar manner with the strategy implemented to justify the abduction of President Maduro and effecting of regime change agenda in Venezuela, the imperialist US regime is presently creating conditions for a fictitious legal case so as to justify the targeting of Comrade Raul with the aim to intervene in Cuba in pursuit of its imperialist agenda.

The Trump regime has set itself apart in the company of other US administrations in its brutality and violence as it pursues its imperialist policies against the Cuban people. As the SACP has said before, this is part of US foreign policy built upon the foundations of the Monroe Doctrine in which it claims the right to control the Americas as its "sphere of influence". The failure of imperialists to impose this policy on Cuba is the single most damaging record in the US's consciousness as an imperialist bully.

At this moment in history, the working-class movement and progressive internationalists across the world are called upon to raise their solidarity work to meet the present challenges facing the Cuban people. The primary imperialist structures have reached a new level of desperation to demonstrate what they believe is the strength and legitimacy of their agenda in the face of the birth of a multi-polar world. The desperation manifests in increased levels of violence and reactionary nationalist regimes. The US government and its MAGA philosophy is the ultimate manifestation of this crisis.

As the SACP, we condemn the indictment of a Cuban leader by a foreign government. The US actions in this direction is an action of extraordinary arrogance. We condemn the continued US aggression against Cuba. We further call for practical acts of solidarity that demonstrate support of the Cuban people in their daily struggles for survival, sustenance and development from working people across the world and in South Africa in particular.

ISSUED BY THE SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY,
FOUNDED IN 1921 AS THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF SOUTH AFRICA.

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