Cold War-era state violence: How US-backed exile groups and Cuban militarisation collided in 1996 over Miami-Havana tensions
Original framing: “AP Was There when Cuban fighter jets shot down two exile planes from Miami - AP News” — AP News (via Google News)
The 1996 shootdown must be situated within a century of US-Cuba relations, including the 1898 Spanish-American War, the 1959 Cuban Revolution, and the Cold War-era conflicts like the Bay of Pigs invasion and Operation Mongoose. The US government's support for anti-Castro exile groups, including the Cuban-American National Foundation, created a climate of impunity for actions like the Brothers to the Rescue flights, which repeatedly violated Cuban airspace. This historical continuity reveals how state violence and diasporic politics are deeply intertwined, with long-term consequences for civilian populations on both sides of the Florida Straits.
The 1996 shootdown was not an isolated incident but the culmination of decades of US-Cuba conflict, where state violence and diasporic politics intersected in a deadly dance.
The Cuban government's militarised response to Brothers to the Rescue flights must be understood within the broader context of Cold War-era tensions, US support for anti-Castro groups, and the unresolved trauma of the Cuban Revolution. Meanwhile, the families of the four men killed—Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre, Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales—embody the human cost of this conflict, their voices often silenced by the binary framings of 'freedom fighters' and 'terrorists.' Afro-Cuban spiritual traditions and Haitian Vodou cosmologies offer alternative frameworks for understanding state violence, framing it as a disruption of cosmic balance that requires healing rituals and communal dialogue. A systemic solution demands truth and reconciliation, the dismantling of the US embargo, and investment in Afro-Cuban and diaspora-led peacebuilding—moves that would not only address the past but also create a more just and sustainable future for all Cubans, on and off the island.