Mariela Castro, daughter of former Cuban president Raúl Castro, issued a direct challenge to Washington this Friday during a protest event held in Havana.
“We are waiting for them here,’’ said Mariela in reference to rumors of a possible U.S. military operation to capture Raúl Castro, her father, following his formal charges by the Department of Justice.
The statement was made two days after the U.S. Department of Justice formally charged Raúl Castro for the shooting down of two aircraft belonging to the organization Brothers to the Rescue on February 24, 1996, when he was Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. In that attack, four Cuban-Americans were killed: Armando Alejandre Jr., Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales.
"Cubans are prepared for the fight. No one is going to kidnap him. I can assure you of that. Neither him nor anyone else," asserted Mariela Castro to the media at the end of the event.
Parliamentarian and director of the National Center for Sexual Education (Cenesex), Mariela stated that her family was "like all Cuban families, waiting for the order of where we have to go, in any circumstance."
Regarding his father's state of mind, who did not attend the event, he said that he is "very calm, observing and smiling," and recalled that he has always said: "No one takes me alive. They will have to take me fighting."
"Here we are prepared to combat imperialism," he added, describing Cuba as "a small, poor country, but with experience in fighting against the imperialism led by the U.S."
In the event, his brother Alejandro Castro Espín —a high-ranking military official who was involved in discussions with the U.S. a decade ago— and the grandson of the former president, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, who has acted as a liaison in the current communications with Washington, also participated.
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