Raúl Castro celebrates 95th birthday in public, defiant after U.S. indictment
Raúl Castro reappeared in public in Cuba to celebrate his 95th birthday for the first time since his indictment in the United States, in an official event that turned into an act of defiance against the Trump administration’s intensified pressure on Cuban leaders to enact democratic changes.
Castro, appearing notably thinner in his olive-green military uniform, entered a theater full of military officers and government officials who gave him a standing ovation. He appeared surrounded by two of his great-grandchildren and his grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, the man who has been negotiating with the Trump administration.
Images of the late-evening event on Friday and of another event Castro attended to decorate Ministry of Interior officials were aired over the weekend.
Castro turned 95 on June 3 and had been last seen in public during the May 1 Workers’ Day parade. On May 20, he was indicted by a federal court in Miami and charged with the murder of four men during a 1996 shoot down of two planes of the Cuban exile organization Brothers to the Rescue.
In a defiant speech, his handpicked successor, Miguel Díaz-Canel, blasted the accusation as “vile slander” and vowed a fight if the U.S. government attempts to capture Castro.
“The nation’s historic enemies sought to humiliate Cuba by accusing its leader; instead, all they have achieved is to unleash the legendary defiance of a people who repudiate and condemn them, even as they sing birthday greetings to the Army General in one of the most widely celebrated birthdays in memory,” he said. “Raúl is Cuba, and Cuba is not to be touched! It is not to be touched as long as a single dignified Cuban remains alive to place a shield wherever the enemy aims a bullet.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he believes he could bring about change in Cuba. His administration has ramped up sanctions on Cuban government officials and their relatives, as well as on foreign companies that do business with the military conglomerate GAESA or invest in key economic sectors. U.S. military surveillance flights around Cuba have significantly increased as the Pentagon is updating plans for different scenarios involving the island.
Díaz-Canel said the Trump administration is fabricating a pretext to attack the island under the “ridiculous and pathetic story” that Cuba is a threat to U.S. national security. “To this end, they are circulating vague images of Chinese or Russian bases that do not exist in Cuba,” he said.
Cuba desires peace and would not provoke a U.S. attack, he added. But if it happens, he said, “the response will be a resolute and firm fight.”
Díaz-Canel also accused the Trump administration of committing “genocide” for ratcheting the pressure on Cuba’s oil providers and foreign companies investing in the island. He said the measures have resulted in the country receiving only one oil shipment – from Russia – in five months, and several foreign companies leaving the country.
He acknowledged that the population was suffering “unbearable” blackouts and shortages of food and medicines, but said U.S. sanctions were to blame and that the communist-run island would not yield to Trump’s pressure.
“It is a collective punishment aimed at breaking and bringing to its knees an entire nation that, despite the difficult times it is enduring, refuses to renounce its independence or yield to the designs of turning Cuba into a state under their tutelage,” he said. “That is the uncomfortable truth: Cuba does not surrender! Cuba persists and resists! And that persistence is intolerable to the empire.”