Brothers to the Rescue

Brothers to the Rescue (Spanish: Hermanos al Rescate) is a Miami-based organization headed by José Basulto. Formed by Cuban exiles, the group is widely known for its opposition to Cuban President Fidel Castro. The group formed in 1991 and describes itself as a humanitarian organization aiming to assist and rescue raft refugees emigrating from Cuba and to "support the efforts of the Cuban people to free themselves from dictatorship through the use of active nonviolence". The group has been accused of repeatedly violating Cuban airspace, dropping leaflets, and involvement in terrorist acts. In 1996, two planes of Brothers to the Rescue were shot down by the Cuban Air Force, leading to international condemnation.

Rafting missions

In the first years, the group was active rescuing rafters from Cuba, being credited with rescuing thousands of Cubans who were emigrating from the country. Eventually, the group's focus shifted after changes in US immigration policy meant that rafters would be sent back to Cuba. The group's founder has stated that after August 1995 it stopped seeing rafters in the water. Heavily dependent on funding for rafting activities, the group's funding rapidly dropped to $320,455 in 1995, down from $1.5 million the year before. As a result, the group shifted its activities to dropping leaflets and similar on Cuba.

Juan Pablo Roque

One of the group's pilots, Juan Pablo Roque, unexpectedly left on February 26, 1996, the day before the two planes were shot down, and turned up in Havana where he condemned Brothers to the Rescue. Roque, a former major in the Cuban air force, supposedly defected from Cuba four years earlier and was soon after recruited by Brothers to the Rescue where he flew several missions. Despite being dismissed as a Cuban agent by US officials, Roque denied that he worked for the Cuban government. He said he returned home because he had become disillusioned with the methods of the Brothers, including what he said were its plans to carry out attacks on military bases in Cuba and to disrupt its defense communications. Roque appeared on Cuban television on February 26, 1996, where he denounced Brothers to the Rescue as an illegal and anti-Cuban organization the fundamental purpose of which is to provoke incidents that aggravated relations between Cuba and United States. While in Miami, Roque had contacts with and was paid by the FBI. Roque's declarations brought questions about the role of agencies such as the FBI and CIA in the activities of the exile community. However, White House spokesperson David Johnson said that "there does not exist, nor has there existed, any tie between the North American intelligence services and Hermanos al Rescate," adding that the organization is "not a front" for those services, nor is it financed by them.

1996 shootdown incident

On February 24, 1996 Cuban MiGs shot down two Brothers to the Rescue planes, killing pilots Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre, Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales. A third plane, flown by Basulto, escaped. The planes used were unarmed Cessna 337s, a twin-engine civilian light plane known for its safety and simple operation. Some of those owned by Brothers to the Rescue had a decade earlier been used by the United States Air Force, and Cuba claimed that the letters USAF were still clearly visible on them. However, the Cuban Air Force pilots' radio transmissions proved that they had been identified as belonging to Brothers to the Rescue before the shootdown.

The incident was investigated in detail by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The report concluded that the authorities in Cuba had notified the authorities in the United States of multiple violations of their airspace since May 1994. In at least one case (13 July 1995), the pilot had released leaflets over Havana. The United States authorities had issued public statements advising of the potential consequences of unauthorized entry into Cuban airspace and had initiated legal actions against the above-mentioned pilot. After Basulto was warned by an FAA official about the possibility of being shot down, he replied, "You must understand I have a mission in life to perform," disregarding the potential danger involved. He would later say he considered the group's activities to be acts of civil disobedience against the regime, and a demonstration that such disobedience was possible.

According to Cuban authorities, two light aircraft entered Cuban territorial airspace on 9 and 13 January 1996, and released leaflets which fell on Cuban territory. According to the pilot of one of the aircraft, half a million leaflets were released on January 13; he also claims they were released outside the 12-mile (22 km) Cuban territorial limit and the wind carried them to Havana. Following that incident, the ICAO report states, the Commander of the Anti-Aircraft Defence of the Air Force of Cuba was instructed to intercept any further flights and authorized to shoot them down.

On February 24, 1996, three of the group's planes again entered Cuban territory, and two of three of the group's planes were shot down. The third, with Basulto on board, was also identified for intercept and shootdown, but the mission was aborted when Cuban authorities realized that there was a ship in the area. Whether the order was due to concern for the safety of the ship or that a third shootdown that close to observers might have repercussions is not known. It is disputed whether or not the planes were over Cuban territorial airspace at the time of the shootdown. Finding US and Cuban radar-based data on the location in mutual contradiction, the ICAO used the known positions of the U.S. cruise liner Majesty of the Seas and fishing boat Tri-Liner to locate the incidents at 10 to 11 miles (18 to 20 km) outside Cuba's 12-mile limit. That is two to three miles (4 to 6 km) from where the U.S. radar tracks put them, and roughly 16 to 17 miles (30 to 32 km) from where the Cuban government claimed that the planes went down. Five years later, testimony from a retired US colonel supported Cuba's claim that both Brothers aircraft, along with a third flown by Brothers founder and pilot José Basulto, were only four to five miles off the Cuban coast.

The ICAO report also states that means other than interception, such as radio communication, had been available to Cuba, but had not been utilized, and that this conflicts with the ICAO principle that interception of civil aircraft should be undertaken only as a last resort. Nor did the Cuban Air Force make any attempt to direct the aircraft beyond the boundaries of national airspace, guide them away from a prohibited, restricted or danger area or instruct them to effect a landing.

Reactions to the incident

International

Following the incident, US-sponsored Security Council resolution 1067 (1996) condemning Cuba was passed. Dissenting members believed that the resolution was singling out Cuba for condemnation, and instead should have issued a call which urged states both to refrain from shooting down civilian airplanes as well as to prevent the improper use of civil aviation. In the European Union, the incident was condemned.

United States

In United States, the incident led to widespread and sharp condemnation of Cuba, and the incident in turn prompted the adoption of the Helms-Burton Act, which strengthens and continues the United States embargo against Cuba.

In Miami, reaction from the exile community was swift. Jorge Mas Canosa, head of the powerful Cuban American National Foundation, condemned the attack: "For two warplanes from the Castro government to shoot down two unarmed civilian planes with American flags on a humanitarian mission should be considered an act of war against the US".

Cuban response

Miguel Alfonso Martinez of the Cuban Foreign Ministry stated in an interview that during the previous 20 months, planes belonging to the Hermanos group had flown into Cuban airspace 25 times. He asked, "What would happen if an unidentified, or an identified, aircraft piloted by declared enemies of the US was detected flying over Washington? What would the US authorities do? Would they allow it to continue flying undisturbed?" He also said that the two aircraft that were shot down were "not common civilian aircraft," as suggested by the US. "This is not the case of an innocent civilian airliner that, because of an instrument error, departs from an air corridor and gets into the airspace of another country". "These people knew what they were doing. They were warned. They wanted to take certain actions that were clearly intended to destabilize the Cuban government and the US authorities knew about their intentions".

Pro-Cuba groups, while not approving the shootdown, responded that "the policies of the United States government of indefensible hostility against the island of Cuba that sit at the heart of the matter", citing constant threats and a history of military and paramilitary attacks on Cuba from the US and paramilitary groups.

Notes

.

External links

• Brothers to the Rescue Homepage
• Shoot Down A 2006 film about the event, co-produced by the niece of one of the four victims.