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Brothers to the Rescue (Spanish: Hermanos al Rescate) is a Miami-based activist nonprofit organization headed by CIA agent José Basulto. Formed by Cuban exiles, the group is widely known for its opposition to the Cuban government and its former leader Fidel Castro. The group 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 non-violence". Brothers to the Rescue, Inc., was founded in May 1991 "after several pilots were touched by the death of" fifteen-year-old Gregorio Perez Ricardo, who "fleeing Castro's Cuba on a raft, perished of severe dehydration in the hands of U.S. Coast Guard officers who were attempting to save his life."

The Cuban government accuses them of involvement in terrorist acts, and infiltrated the group (see Juan Pablo Roque and the Wasp Network).

In 1996, two Brothers to the Rescue planes were shot down by the Cuban Air Force in international airspace. The incident was condemned internationally, including by the UN Security Council while the Cuban government defended the decision claiming the planes were there to destabilize the Cuban government. The Castro-approved mission against Brothers to the Rescue was codenamed "Operation Scorpion".

History

Humanitarian missions

In its early years, the group actively rescued rafters from Cuba and claims to have saved 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 focused more on civil disobedience against the Cuban government. At least once, the group's founder dropped leaflets on Cuba.

Roque and Wasp Network

One of the group's pilots, Cuban Juan Pablo Roque, a former major in the Cuban air force, unexpectedly left on February 23, 1996, the day before the two planes were shot down, and turned up in Havana, where he condemned the group. Roque had left Cuba four years earlier and was recruited by the Brothers shortly afterward, flying several missions.

Despite being dismissed as a Cuban agent by US officials, Roque denied working for the Cuban government and claimed to have returned home after being disillusioned with the Brothers. He claimed that they had 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 the Brothers as an illegal and anti-Cuban organization the fundamental purpose of which is to provoke incidents that aggravated relations between Cuba and United States. In an interview with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), he stated that the group had planned to introduce anti-personnel weapons into Cuba and blow up high tension pylons to interrupt the energy supply.

While in Miami, Roque had contacts with and was paid by the FBI. His claims 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. José Basulto agrees with US officials that Roque was a Cuban spy who, along with the Wasp Network, infiltrated the Brothers.

Rene Gonzalez, another Wasp Network spy, also infiltrated Brothers to the Rescue and regularly sabotaged aircraft and reported on its activities until his subsequent arrest.

1996 shootdown incident

On February 24, 1996, two of the Brothers to the Rescue Cessna Skymasters involved in releasing leaflets to fall on Cuba were shot down by a Cuban Air Force MiG-29UB. The four people in the aircraft were killed: Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre, Jr., Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales.

Promoted to lieutenant colonel after the shootdown, Roque has lived in a government-provided Havana home with security since the incident. In an interview with The Miami Herald in 2012, he expressed remorse for the shootdown. "If I could travel in a time machine", he said, "I'd get those boys off the planes that were shot down." In 1999, he was indicted on federal charges of defrauding the FBI and failing to register as a foreign agent. However, Cuba has refused to extradite him. To this day, the Cuban exile community in South Florida considers Roque a traitor.

See also

• Cuba-United States relations

Notes

1. ^ "Background and information". Brothers to the Rescue. Archived from the original on December 25, 2005.
2. "Murder in the Florida Straits". paxety.com.
3. "Background And Information on Brothers to the Rescue, Inc". Archived from the original on April 7, 2013. Retrieved April 7, 2013.
4. "Annex to the letter dated 29 October 2001 from the Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General. Summary of principal terrorist actions against Cuba (1990-2000)" (PDF). November 6, 2001. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 25, 2003.
5. ^ "The Cuban Downing of the Planes. The News We Haven't Been Hearing ..." Cuba Solidarity. Archived from the original on September 26, 2006. Retrieved February 5, 2006.
6. ^ Prellezo, Lily (2010). Seagull One. US: University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-3490-4.
7. Prellezo, Lily (2010). Seagull One. US: University Press of Florida. p. 190. ISBN 978-0-8130-3490-4.
8. Court testimony from the Cuban spy trial, referred in The Miami Herald March 13, 2001 at "Basulto testifies". Latin American Studies.
9. Padgett, Tim (June 24, 2001). "The spy who raped me". Time. United States. Archived from the original on November 25, 2011. Retrieved 2009-09-23.
10. "Report on the shooting down of two U.S.-registered private civil aircraft by Cuban military aircraft on 24 February 1996", C-WP/10441, June 20, 1996, United Nations Security Council document, S/1996/509, July 1, 1996.
11. "U.S. Tightens Sanctions Against Cuba After Downing of Two Exile Planes Off Cuban Coast". NotiSur – Latin American Political Affairs. 6 (9). March 1, 1996. ISSN 1060-4189. Archived from the original on September 15, 2003. Retrieved April 30, 2006.
12. Tracey Eaton (October 2, 2012). "Retired spy in Brothers to the Rescue case lives in obscurity in Havana". The Miami Herald.

External links

• Brothers to the Rescue Official Website (Archive webpage)
• Rosa M. Abella Collection, an archival collection that contains clippings, other archival materials, and a bibliography, co-authored by Rosa M. Abella and Dolores Rovirosa, of sources that discuss the 1996 shootdown.
• Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report on killings of Armando Alejandre Jr. (45 years old), Carlos Alberto Costa (29), Mario Manuel de la Peña (24), Pablo Morales (29)
• Betrayal: Clinton, Castro & the Cuban Five, a 2009 book about the shootdown, co-authored by Matt Lawrence and Thomas Van Hare.
• Carl Nagin, The New Yorker, January 26, 1998, Annals of Diplomacy – Backfire

v t e Cuba–United States relations
Diplomatic posts	Embassy of Cuba, Washington, D.C. Ambassadors of Cuba to the United States Embassy of the United States, Havana Ambassadors of the United States to Cuba United States Interests Section in Havana Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs
Diplomacy	Cuban–American Treaty of Relations (1903) Hay-Quesada Treaty Cuban–American Treaty of Relations (1934) Good Neighbor policy Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance El Diálogo Cuba–United States Maritime Boundary Agreement Tripartite Accord (1988) Cuban thaw JetBlue Flight 387
Conflicts	Spanish–American War Ostend Manifesto USS Maine Monument to the Victims of the USS Maine (Havana) United States Senate Committee on Cuban Relations The Paquete Habana Army of Cuban Occupation Medal Propaganda United States Military Government in Cuba Second Occupation of Cuba Cuban Pacification Medal (Army) Banana Wars Negro Rebellion Sugar Intervention Cuban Revolution Aftermath La Coubre explosion Cuban exodus Cuban exile Golden exile Bay of Pigs Invasion Brigade 2506 Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front Cuban Revolutionary Council Operation 40 Operation Mongoose Operation Northwoods Operation Ortsac Operation Peter Pan JMWAVE Polita Grau José Antonio Llama Bay of Pigs Monument Bay of Pigs Museum Jamaican political conflict United States invasion of Grenada United States embargo against Cuba
Incidents	Cubana de Aviación Flight 493 Matthew Edward Duke Cuban Missile Crisis Crateology Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino Zemel v. Rusk Cuba–United States aircraft hijackings Pan Am Flight 281 Trans World Airlines Flight 106 Southern Airways Flight 49 Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 Leyla Express and Johnny Express incidents Mariel boatlift Garcia-Mir v. Meese Cuban boat people Sandy Pollack Regan v. Wald 1994 Cuban rafter crisis Operations Safe Haven and Safe Passage Bill Gaede 1996 shootdown of Brothers to the Rescue aircraft Cuban Five Elián González Ana Montes Carlos Alvarez Elsa Alvarez Kendall Myers Alan Gross Havana syndrome American fugitives in Cuba Assassination attempts on Fidel Castro
Legislation	Teller Amendment Platt Amendment Cuban Assets Control Regulations Cuban Adjustment Act Wet feet, dry feet policy Helms–Burton Act Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act Cuban Democracy Act Trade Sanction Reform and Export Enhancement Act
Related	Americans in Cuba Cuban Americans Little Havana Cuban migration to Miami Havana on the Hudson Cuban–American lobby Guantánamo Bay Timeline Guantanamo Bay Naval Base Guantanamo Bay detention camp 1999 Baltimore Orioles–Cuba national baseball team exhibition series Alpha 66 Antonio Maceo Brigade Brothers to the Rescue Balseros Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba Congressional Cuba Democracy Caucus Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations Cuban American National Foundation Cuban dissident movement Cuban Liberty Council CubaOne Foundation Cuban Power Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil Engage Cuba Fair Play for Cuba Committee Friends of Democratic Cuba Havana Jam Omega 7 Radio Free Dixie Radio y Televisión Martí US-Cuba Democracy PAC Varela Project Venceremos Brigade ZunZuneo Cuban football players who defected to the United States Filibuster (military) NOAAS Oregon II (R 332) Silver certificate Troika of tyranny Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame Boquerón, Cuba Straits of Florida Third Border Initiative State Sponsors of Terrorism United States and state-sponsored terrorism Luis Posada Carriles Orlando Bosch Cuba–OAS relations United Nations Security Council Resolution 144 Overthrow The Cuba Wars Balseros 638 Ways to Kill Castro
Category:Cuba–United States relations

• Cuba–United States relations
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