The Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2001

Indict Castro for Murder 

By Christopher Smith

On Feb. 24, 1996, Cuban Air Force MIGs attacked three unarmed civilian aircraft. The attack took place in international airspace over the Florida Straits. One plane escaped, but the MIGs shot down the other two, killing all four men on board. The victims included U.S. citizens Armando Alejandre, Mario de la Pena and Carlos Costa, as well as Pablo Morales, a lawful U.S. resident who was a Vietnam veteran. They had been on a mission for Brothers to the Rescue, a group of pilots who search for asylum seekers lost at sea.

Five years later, none of the perpetrators of these murders has been brought to justice. Shortly after the killings, however, the U.S. presented compelling evidence to the United Nations, showing that the attack resulted not from a mistake, or even the whim, of the MIG pilots, but by order of the Cuban military command. Fidel Castro himself took credit for giving the order to shoot down any civilian planes that engaged in "acts of provocation." In a March 1996 interview with Time magazine, he said that he gave the Cuban Air Force authority to shoot down Brothers flights because he was exasperated with U.S. "interference in our internal affairs."

Recently, evidence has surfaced that the killings were wholly premeditated. In the espionage trial of four Cuban intelligence officers now taking place in Miami, federal prosecutors have produced messages from Havana intercepted days before the planes were shot down. Some of these messages appear to have been warnings to one of the Cuban agents, who had infiltrated the Brothers, of the impending attack. He was instructed not to fly with the Brothers between Feb. 24 and Feb. 27, "in order to avoid any incident of provocation they may carry out and our response to it." In the event the agent could not avoid flying on one of the designated days, he was given a code phrase to say over the radio, evidently to alert the Cuban military not to shoot down their own man.

This demonstrates that the actions of the Castro government constituted premeditated murder. The Cuban officer who had infiltrated the Brothers is now being charged not only with espionage, but with conspiracy to commit murder. Justice will not be done, however, unless the criminal conspiracy is traced up the chain of command to its ultimate source. This chain almost certainly leads to Fidel Castro.

After the 1996 murders, President Clinton pledged that those responsible for the deaths of Armando, Mario, Carlos and Pablo would be brought to justice. Yet despite abundant evidence documenting the crime, including the identities of those who carried it out and some of those who authorized it, the Clinton administration never initiated criminal proceedings against them. This inaction contrasts with the exhaustive efforts to unravel the conspiracy behind the bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and of the USS Cole. The mainspring of such efforts has been the determination of our law-enforcement agencies to identify and prosecute the chief conspirator, Osama bin Laden. In the Cuban case, however, such determination has been absent.

The responsibility to ensure that justice is done now passes to the new administration. The recent decision by Paul O'Neill, the Treasury secretary, to authorize payment of $96.7 million in frozen Cuban government assets to satisfy judgments obtained by the families of the four victims should obviate the need for further civil proceedings. As to criminal charges, John Ashcroft's Justice Department should review the evidence that has been languishing for five years as well as the new evidence that has come to light.

Mr. Ashcroft should consider whether the discretionary doctrine of "head of state immunity"-which has not stopped U.S. courts from holding Manuel Noriega accountable for crimes-should apply to the killing of four civilians in international airspace. If not, a federal grand jury should be convened to determine whether the evidence warrants an indictment of Mr. Castro for murder.

Petition to the President of The United States

Top ^