CNN
By Hira Humayun, CNN
(CNN) — Former Cuban leader Raul Castro has been indicted for his alleged role in the shooting down of two civilian planes 30 years ago that killed three Americans and sent US-Cuba relations plunging.
Here’s what you need to know about the deadly incident.
What happened?
In the 1990s, a Miami-based volunteer organization called Brothers to the Rescue carried out regular flights attempting to find and assist Cubans trying to sail to the US.
On one such mission, on February 24, 1996, Cuban forces shot down two of their planes near to the Cuban coast, destroying them with heat-seeking missiles, according to Congress documents. Three American citizens and one resident of the US were killed. A third Brothers aircraft escaped.
In the immediate aftermath of the incident, the Cuban government accused Brothers to the Rescue of engaging in covert operations against the regime – allegations the US swiftly denied.
According to the US government, the Brothers to the Rescue planes were unarmed and the volunteers aboard posed no threat to the Cuban government, military or population.
On Tuesday, Cuba’s embassy in the US took to X saying the “violations of Cuban airspace” were not isolated incidents but among “more than 25 serious, deliberate and systematic violations.”
“These were not miscalculations, but rather a continuous campaign that jeopardized international aeronautical safety,” the embassy said.
Who are Brothers to the Rescue?
Brothers to the Rescue, which is no longer active, has in the past described itself as a pro-democracy humanitarian group dedicated to helping Cuban people free themselves from dictatorship, using nonviolent means.
The volunteer activist group was founded in May 1991 by anti-regime Cuban exile Jose Basulto, who was on the plane that escaped, and made up of Cuban American pilots flying out of Miami area airports. Its inception came after Cuban teenager Gregoria Perez Ricardo, who fled the communist-run island, died of severe dehydration while crossing the Florida Straits, according to the group.
They also dropped leaflets over Cuba criticizing the communist government of Fidel Castro, the country’s former revolutionary leader who made Cuba the first Communist country in the Western Hemisphere – and played a central role in the Cold War.
During the Fidel Castro dictatorship, arbitrary arrests, brutal crackdowns on dissent, beatings, intimidation, and surveillance were common. Many of those trying to flee the island – some on makeshift rafts – wouldn’t survive the perilous journey across the Florida Straits.
How did the US respond?
The US government swiftly condemned the shooting down of the two planes and just days later, President Bill Clinton signed the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act, also known as the Helms-Burton Act.
The act tightened sanctions on Cuba and remains the basis of US embargos on the country. Th