Video - Thousands March in Havana After U.S. Indictment of Raúl Castro

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/47756603

Duration - 2:17 [a video about Cuba from the news collective Belly Of The Beast]

Thousands of Cubans gathered at Havana’s José Martí Anti-Imperialist Tribune on Friday after the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Cuba’s former President Raúl Castro over the 1996 shoot-down of two small planes operated by pilots of the Miami-based group Brothers to the Rescue.

“We had the right to defend ourselves,” said Adalgisa Durán Vargas, referring to repeated warnings Cuba made to the U.S. about repeated provocative incursions into Cuban airspace made by Brothers to the Rescue to provoke a confrontation with the Cuban government.

At the rally, speakers defended Raúl Castro’s historic role in the Cuban Revolution and questioned the legitimacy of the U.S. accusations nearly three decades after the fact.

The demonstration unfolded amid Washington’s escalating economic war on Cuba , which includes an oil blockade and sweeping extraterritorial sanctions aimed at companies from other countries.