As the US escalated pressure on Cuba with criminal charges against former leader Raul Castro, one member of the Castro family is warning President Donald Trump not to underestimate the communist government in Havana. Alina Fernandez, the exiled daughter of late Cuban leader Fidel Castro, said any US military intervention against Cuba could lead to devastating consequences.
“This is not the first time (Cubans have been) told that an invasion is coming immediately,” Fernandez told CNN. “We’ve been under invasion for the last 67 years, or the state of an invasion. I’m sure they are prepared. I don’t know how they are going to respond.”
Raul Castro faces serious charges
The comments came just before court records revealed Raul Castro had been indicted on murder charges connected to the 1996 shootdown of planes operated by the Miami-based exile group Brothers to the Rescue.
A US Justice Department official previously told Reuters the case is expected to focus on the incident in which Cuban military aircraft shot down two civilian planes over international waters, killing all four people aboard.
The International Civil Aviation Organization later concluded the planes were shot down outside Cuban airspace.
Castro, now 94, served as Cuba’s defense minister at the time. The Cuban government has long defended the attack as a response to repeated violations of Cuban airspace.
Trump ramps up pressure on Cuba
Trump has intensified rhetoric against Cuba during his second term, openly discussing regime change while accusing Havana of supporting hostile foreign powers. “From the shores of Havana to the banks of the Panama Canal, we will drive out the forces of lawlessness and crime and foreign encroachment,” Trump said during a Coast Guard Academy event in Connecticut.
Earlier this year, Trump reportedly warned that Cuba “is next” after U.S. actions against Venezuela.
Meanwhile, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel warned Monday that any U.S. military assault on Cuba would lead to a “bloodbath.”
Fernandez said she shares those fears. “We know that these regimes put civilians on the front line,” she said. “When there’s a situation involving military or political violence, so to speak, that is very worrying. That’s the feeling I have – that my joy will not be matched by the way the solution comes about. It’s going to be very painful.”
Fidel Castro’s daughter became a critic of the regime
Fernandez fled Cuba in 1993 after becoming openly critical of the communist government. Now living in Miami, she described herself as both an exile and a victim of the political system built by her father.
“I feel like every other Cuban,” Fernandez said. “Like a woman, an exile, also a victim.”
She said she officially learned Fidel Castro was her father when she was 10 years old, though she suspected it much earlier because of his frequent visits to their Havana home.
“He was an assiduous visitor,” she recalled.
Fernandez said she eventually became disillusioned with the Cuban government during the 1980s. “There are times when you notice things as a child and times when you don’t,” she said. “But from a very young age I could see that that glory and those speeches did not match reality.”
She later fled Cuba to protect her daughter from political retaliation.
“I have always lived according to my truth,” Fernandez said. “The moment I made the decision to leave Cuba to get my daughter out was because I realized, someone pointed it out to me, that I was subjecting my daughter to the same things that were done to me.”
“My mother, for being very revolutionary, and I, for being very counterrevolutionary.”
Rubio offers Cuba aid amid crisis
As tensions rise, Marco Rubio offered Cuba a potential $100 million aid package while blaming the island’s communist leadership for worsening shortages of electricity, fuel and food.
Rubio, whose parents immigrated from Cuba, said Washington wanted a “new relationship” with the Cuban people.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez sharply criticized Rubio’s comments.
“He keeps talking about an aid package of 100 million dollars that Cuba has not rejected, but whose cynicism is evident to anyone in light of the devastating effect of the economic blockade and the energy stranglehold,” Rodriguez wrote on X.
Rodriguez earlier described White House statements criticizing Cuba as “superficial and misinformed.”
Fernandez says Raul Castro was different from Fidel
While critical of the Cuban system, Fernandez also reflected on the differences between her father and her uncle Raul Castro. “Raúl Castro is almost 95 years old,” she said. “I don’t see much logic on what’s going on, except that this is part of the strategy.”
“In personal dealings, Raúl Castro was completely different from his brother,” she added. “He was a family person.”
