Raúl Castro, the defining symbol of revolutionary Cuba, is in the crosshairs of the US government

At 94, formally retired from public office but still maintaining control over the Communist Party’s political bureau, the last great symbol of Castroism, former Cuban president Raúl Castro, is watching the U.S. pressure campaign begin to focus directly on him. The hardline Cuban military leader will be indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice next Wednesday, in a move that — along with the imposed energy blockade — underscores the level of pressure Washington is exerting on the regime to force a change of course in a country mired in a deep economic and social crisis.

A Justice Department official cited by Reuters said federal prosecutors will unveil the formal charges against Castro in Miami, the epicenter of a Cuban exile community that has spent decades awaiting political change on the island just 230 miles away.

The action for which the U.S. government intends to charge Castro dates back to February 24, 1996, when Cuban Air Force MiG fighter jets shot down two civilian Cessna 337 aircraft belonging to the exile group Brothers to the Rescue. The incident — which the International Civil Aviation Organization said took place over international waters in the Florida Straits, though Cuba claimed its sovereign airspace had been violated — resulted in the deaths of four volunteers dedicated to searching for Cuban rafters at sea.

The episode marked an irreversible breaking point in the already frigid relationship between Washington and Havana. Castro was serving as defense minister at the time. The Cuban government argued that its response was legitimate because of repeated incursions into its airspace.

“We need to treat this [indictment] cautiously and wait to see whether it actually materializes. It would seem schizophrenic for the U.S. government to send one of the top figures in its intelligence apparatus [to negotiate in Cuba] while simultaneously preparing an operation like the one in Venezuela. Frankly, it makes no sense to me; it would be absurd for the United States to target its main interlocutor,” says journalist Gerardo Arreola, who spent 16 years in Havana as a correspondent for Mexican media outlets and is the author of Cuba, el futuro a debate (Cuba: The future under debate).

“Whenever there is a move that facilitates détente or rapprochement between Cuba and the United States — and this is historical — conflicting reactions emerge within the U.S. administration itself. It is almost cyclical: there is an attempt at rapprochement and very often trends, leaks, or speculation appear pointing in the opposite direction,” the journalist adds.

It is hardly a comfortable situation for a man who fortified his power through the monolithic structure of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. If his brother Fidel embodied rhetoric and utopia, Raúl was the uniformed bureaucrat, the architect of the Cuban state, and the strategist who ensured the regime’s survival after the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the Revolution’s former great ally and benefactor. Yet the institutional shield he built over more than half a century is beginning to show cracks under pressure from international bodies and accusations of crimes against humanity aimed at ending the historic impunity of Havana’s ruling elite.

For decades, the name Raúl Castro (Birán, Holguín, 1931) was synonymous with the most pragmatic — but also the most ruthless — wing of the Cuban Revolution. He evolved from Fidel’s shadow into the man who steered the island’s tightly controlled transition and the historic thaw with the United States during Barack Obama’s presidency. Under his rule (2006–2018), Cuba underwent a cautious but significant economic opening and a diplomatic reintegration that culminated in Obama’s 2016 visit to Havana.

“As long as he is alive, Raúl will remain the leader of the Revolution,” says journalist Gerardo Arreola. “In official language today, he is referred to as ‘the leader at the head of the Revolution,’ to distinguish him from the ‘historic leader,’ of whom there was only one: Fidel Castro. The notion that there must always be a leader — because where there is a leader, there is Revolution, and vice versa — is deeply ingrained in Cuba’s political system. Raúl carries that symbolic weight, which is the most important thing, along with recognition of his experience and authority within the armed forces, the security apparatus, the Communist Party, and the government. He remains the final authority above any differences or internal disputes,” he explains.

Behind the reformist façade Castro sought to project to the world, however, stood a man who kept sharply honed the intelligence and social-control apparatus he himself had designed in the 1960s. And under his watch came repression in a country increasingly worn down by economic hardship — worsened by the U.S. blockade — and by the regime’s political rigidity.

The spotlight on Castro comes at the moment of greatest vulnerability for the Cuban model. Though still limited, protests and nightly pot-banging demonstrations have begun appearing in Cuban cities. The memory of the July 11, 2021, protests remains fresh, as does the harsh crackdown carried out by the security structure he passed on to current President Miguel Díaz-Canel. International investigations and reports identifying Raúl Castro as ultimately responsible for political persecution are weakening the island’s last ideological line of defense.

“I don’t believe the regime will easily agree to a mass and unconditional release,” says Camila Rodríguez, founder and director of Justicia 11J, an activist organization. “What does seem to be happening is an attempt to release certain very internationally visible figures from prison, especially those who tend to be mentioned in diplomatic meetings or international reports. However, in several cases the implicit or explicit condition has been exile, and many people are not willing to accept that outcome,” she notes, being herself in exile.

“There is significant social fatigue,” says Arreola. “In recent days, popular protests have multiplied: marches toward local government centers and pot-banging protests, whether people are in the streets or at their windows. The level of discontent is already very high. If you add to the lack of electricity and water the fact of having a son, brother, or father in prison for speaking out, it is clear there is a deterioration in the historical consensus of support for the government,” he continues.

Raúl Castro’s revolutionary youth was marked by unconditional loyalty to his brother Fidel, a relationship in which the younger brother assumed the role of pragmatic enforcer. From the assault on the Moncada barracks — the founding myth of the Revolution — and exile in Mexico, to the days of the Sierra Maestra, Raúl was the organizer in the shadows, the man who institutionalized the military and security apparatus that ensured the regime’s survival. He was the bureaucrat who saved the system after the Soviet collapse and the architect of a machinery of social control that today, in the twilight of his life, defines the historical judgment of his figure.

“Raúl is very old now. When he is gone, the generation of the Cuban Revolution will disappear. There are veterans like Ramiro Valdés or Machado Ventura, but they are also nonagenarians, and there is no real succession,” says Arreola. “The political system, in abstract terms, can survive historical leaderships because the real centers of power (government, the military-run business apparatus, the party, and the security organs) depend on one another and are mutually reinforcing. They share common paths and destinations. The problem is immobilism: the Cuban leadership has treated time as if it could be frozen. It has been nearly 40 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and they have not undertaken any comprehensive reform. Maintaining immobilism is not a good idea,” the journalist argues.

Raúl Castro, who has outlived the old guard of the Revolution, remains the last guardian of that state secret called Cuba. Putting the revolution’s great symbol in the crosshairs of justice is, ultimately, a way of putting an entire system on trial. For Havana, any accusation against the younger Castro brother is immediately labeled an imperialist aggression. For victims of dissent and exile, however, it is a historic opportunity.