Q24N — With the indictment of Raúl Castro, the United States has set its sights on the most influential figure of the Cuban regime in recent decades.

The former revolutionary fighter, Minister of the Armed Forces for nearly half a century, successor to his brother Fidel, and architect of the communist regime’s most significant reforms, now faces, at 94, a trial in a neighboring country with unpredictable consequences.

The United States justice system attributes to him a central role in the downing of two planes belonging to the Brothers to the Rescue exile organization on February 24, 1996, an incident that left four dead and triggered one of the biggest crises in relations between Cuba and the United States.

Raúl Castro faces four counts of murder, as well as conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and destruction of aircraft, U.S. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Wednesday from Miami.

A Crucial Figure

The case takes on great significance, not only because of the precedent of Nicolás Maduro’s capture last January, but also because of the central role of Army General Raúl Castro in Cuba’s contemporary history.

Always in the shadow of his brother Fidel, he was a crucial figure within the regime’s military and intelligence apparatus until formally assuming power in 2008 and governing the country for a decade.

Although he handed over the presidency to Miguel Díaz-Canel in 2018 and three years later the leadership of the Communist Party, analysts believe he remains the most powerful man in the Cuban power structure.

His potential prosecution also comes at one of the most delicate moments for the island in decades.

Cuba is experiencing an extreme economic and energy crisis, marked by blackouts and fuel shortages, exacerbated by pressure from the Trump administration in the United States.

Meanwhile, U.S. and Cuban officials, including figures close to Raúl Castro, have held discreet meetings in Havana to discuss the island’s uncertain future.

The nonagenarian leader is notable for having maintained a traditional family life, unlike his brother Fidel, known for his numerous, varied, and secret love affairs.

Raúl Castro was married to Vilma Espín, a prominent revolutionary whom he met during the guerrilla movement that overthrew the Batista regime and who died of cancer in 2007.

The couple had four children, including Mariela Castro Espín—a member of the National Assembly of People’s Power and Director of the National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX)—and Alejandro Castro Espín, Director of Intelligence and Counterintelligence for State Security.

In contrast to the widespread revolutionary iconography of Fidel and Che, Raúl Castro cultivated a more understated, pragmatic, and militaristic image without developing a massive personality cult.

Despite this, it is common to see his portrait hanging on the wall—almost always next to Fidel’s—in the offices of Cuban government agencies.

We analyze who Raúl Castro is and his crucial relevance in the history and present of Cuba.

The President of Reforms and the Thaw (2008-2018)

Although he participated in the revolutionary struggle from a very young age alongside Fidel and Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and for decades played a key role within the Cuban military apparatus, Raúl Castro reached his greatest prominence after assuming power between 2006 and 2008.

He inherited the presidency provisionally in 2006, after his brother became seriously ill, and two years later, he was officially appointed president of Cuba.

Unlike Fidel Castro’s charismatic and ideological style, the younger of the brothers projected a more pragmatic image and was less prone to grandiloquent speeches.

During his presidency, he implemented economic reforms that, although very limited, were the most significant since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

His government expanded the space for small private businesses, authorized the buying and selling of homes and cars, eased some immigration restrictions, and promoted tentative openings to the market.

He also reduced part of the enormous Cuban state apparatus and fostered new forms of self-employment.

However, these reforms coexisted with the continuation of the one-party political system established after the 1959 revolution.

With Raúl Castro at the helm, international human rights organizations continued to denounce the lack of freedom of expression and civil and political rights, as well as the repression of dissidents.

The most significant moment of his presidency came in 2014, when he announced, together with then-US President Barack Obama, the beginning of the historic diplomatic thaw between Cuba and the United States after more than half a century of hostility.

That historic rapprochement allowed for the reopening of embassies, increased travel and contact between the two countries, and Obama’s visit to Havana in 2016, an unprecedented event since the 1959 Revolution.

When Fidel Castro died in 2016, Raúl Castro led the official farewell to the Cuban leader: he announced his death on television, organized the state funeral, and vowed to defend the continuity of the socialist system.

As for the thaw, many of the expectations for economic and political openness were limited, and part of the process began to reverse with Donald Trump’s arrival at the White House in 2017, a year before Castro’s transfer of power to Díaz-Canel.

Fidel and Che’s Comrade in Arms

Raúl Castro was born on June 3, 1931, in Birán, in eastern Cuba, into a well-to-do family. His father was Ángel Castro, an immigrant from Galicia, and his mother was Lina Ruz.

Like his brother Fidel, he studied at religious schools in Santiago de Cuba before moving to Havana to continue his secondary and university education.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he became involved in protest movements against the governments of Carlos Prío Socarrás and later against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista (1952-58).

Unlike Fidel Castro, whose political formation was initially more closely tied to Cuban nationalism, Raúl soon developed sympathies toward Soviet socialism.

He joined the youth wing of the Popular Socialist Party and participated in youth gatherings organized in Eastern Europe, experiences that decisively influenced his political views, according to historians and sources close to him.

His definitive entry into the revolutionary struggle occurred in 1953, when he joined the armed movement led by Fidel Castro against Batista.

At just 22 years old, Raúl participated in the attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba, a failed operation that, despite resulting in dozens of deaths and the imprisonment of the Castro brothers, would later become one of the main founding myths of the Cuban Revolution.

After benefiting from an amnesty in 1956, Raúl left with Fidel for Mexico, where he participated in the preparations for the Granma yacht expedition alongside other exiles and the Argentine Ernesto “Che” Guevara.

The Granma landing in Cuba marked the beginning of the Sierra Maestra guerrilla war, which would culminate in the fall of Batista and the triumph of the Revolution on January 1, 1959.

The General in Fidel’s Shadow

Raúl Castro quickly became one of the most powerful figures in the new regime led by his brother Fidel in 1959.

That same year, he was appointed Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, a position he would hold for almost half a century, from which he consolidated one of the most robust military and intelligence apparatuses in Latin America.

Experts identify him as the man responsible at that time for guaranteeing the internal stability of the system and as Fidel Castro’s right-hand man.

Unlike his brother’s international profile and charismatic leadership, Raúl maintained a more discreet profile, focused on controlling the Armed Forces and organizing the State.

In the early decades of the new system, he played a crucial role, according to experts, in strengthening the alliance with the Soviet Union and building the Cuban political model inspired by the socialist regimes of the Eastern Bloc.

He was also identified for years by exiles and human rights organizations as one of the most ruthless figures, who did not hesitate to repress or eliminate those he considered enemies of the Revolution.

With Raúl Castro at the head of the Armed Forces, on February 24, 1996, Cuban fighter jets shot down two small planes belonging to the exile organization Brothers to the Rescue, which were flying over waters near Cuba to assist rafters fleeing by sea to the United States.

The military attack on the planes resulted in the deaths of four people.

While the Cuban government claimed that they had violated the island’s airspace, international investigations concluded that they were shot down in international airspace, triggering a serious diplomatic crisis between Cuba and the United States.

The indictment announced now by Washington revolves precisely around that episode.

Historical recordings revealed years ago by US media capture Raúl Castro’s voice apparently ordering action against the aircraft, including phrases like “shoot down the planes.”

This evidence could be crucial in the trial.

His Power After Retirement

Although he formally relinquished the presidency to Miguel Díaz-Canel in 2018, the younger Castro remained First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, the most powerful position within the regime.

When he also passed on this position to Díaz-Canel in 2021, Cuban authorities presented it as the symbolic end of the historic generation of the Revolution that had governed the country since 1959.

However, experts maintain that Raúl has continued to wield enormous influence over the state’s strategic decisions, especially in military and security matters, as well as relations with the United States.

After his official retirement, he continued to appear at key regime events, such as military parades and revolutionary commemorations, generally alongside Díaz-Canel and the leadership of the ruling party.

On July 11, 2021, the largest anti-government demonstrations in more than six decades took place on the island, to which the regime responded with thousands of arrests and imprisonments.

Although Díaz-Canel publicly led the official response, the security and political control structures that Raúl Castro had controlled for decades played a decisive role, according to experts.

Meanwhile, Cuba was entering its worst crisis since the Special Period of the 1990s.

The tightening of US sanctions under Donald Trump, the economic impact of the pandemic, the collapse of tourism, and the energy crisis exacerbated the economic and social deterioration that the island had already been experiencing for decades and triggered a mass exodus in which the island lost up to 20% of its population, according to estimates.

Meanwhile, Raúl Castro’s family circle has emerged as one of the main centers of influence in Cuba: his grandson and bodyguard Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, known as “El Cangrejo” (The Crab), was mentioned by US media as one of the intermediaries in the recent, discreet contacts between Washington and Havana.

Castro’s last public appearance to date was at the traditional May Day parade where, dressed in his military uniform, he accompanied Díaz-Canel and other figures of the Cuban regime.

Translated and adapted from BBC Mundo.