Trying to avert a deadly incident like Cuba’s shoot-down of two Brothers to The Rescue airplanes, the U.S. State Department has urged the Raúl Castro government and exiles in South Florida to act with “restraint” when a flotilla of exile boats stages a fireworks show 12.5 miles off the coast of Havana.

The “Lights of Liberty” show scheduled for Friday is being organized by the Miami-based Democracy Movement, which has staged a dozen similar outings since 1995, including a couple that ended in confrontations.

State Department officials met privately with Democracy Movement leader Ramon Saúl Sánchez last month and “urged him to be responsible,” said one department official who requested anonymity to speak about the issue.

The State Department also urged the Cuban government, which had previously asked Washington about the flotilla’s plans, “to act with restraint and let our people know of any problems,” the official added.

Cuban MiG warplanes shot down two Miami-based civilian airplanes in 1996, killing four members of Brothers to the Rescue as they searched for Cuban boat people along the Straits of Florida. Havana claimed the planes violated its airspace, but U.N. investigators ruled they were shot in international airspace.

Although the Raúl Castro government has not officially commented on the flotilla, two Havana writers known to reflect the government positions have alleged the flotilla is designed to incite disturbances in Havana.

“People here are worried. There is concern about a provocation,” Percy Alvarado told El Nuevo Herald. He was identified by the Cuban government in the late 1990s as one of its intelligence agents.

Sánchez said the flotilla will stay out of Cuban waters and is designed to show support for “those who struggle peacefully for democracy on the island.” He added: “All tyrants feel provoked when citizens exercise their rights.”

Alvarado wrote several recent columns noting Sánchez’s membership in the 1970s and early ’80s in violent anti-Castro groups, and his 4½ year prison stint in the mid-’80s for contempt after refusing to testify about a plot to kill Fidel Castro.

Sánchez has said the prison time made him shift to peaceful activities, and he has not been linked to any violent plots since then.

On Tuesday, a Cuban government website posted a column by José Luis Méndez calling the Democracy Movement “a terrorist organization” and alleging that Washington approved the flotilla “to create tensions between the United States and Cuba and support the minuscule groups of [dissidents] on the island.”

What would happen if Cuban groups announce plans “to stop 12 miles off Miami and carry out similar actions?” Méndez wrote. “The U.S. reply would be immediate and drastic. Its anti-aircraft defenses would be mobilized, no doubt.”

Sánchez said the flotilla “is a sovereign protest of the Cuban people in exile, and in no way is it the work of the U.S. government. In fact, the U.S. government opposes it, but in a democracy we have the right.”

Méndez added that the fireworks display “which will be seen from the coast of Havana, Pinar Del Rio and Matanzas … could endanger aerial navigation and cause some anxiety among Havana residents who live near the coast.”