Venezuela's Ruling Socialists Condemn Florida for Raul Castro Arrest Warrant

The United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) on Wednesday condemned the arrest warrant issued by a judge in Florida against Cuba’s nonagenarian communist dictator Raúl Castro — reiterating support for their ideological mentors in the Castro regime.

In an official statement published on its website and on social media, the PSUV claimed that the arrest warrant against the 95-year-old Cuban dictator allegedly lacks legal basis, violates international law, and seeks to “undermine” Cuban sovereignty. According to the ruling Venezuelan socialist party, the arrest warrant is part of what it described as the “intensification of the economic blockade and the policy of material suffocation” and called for joint action across Latin America and the Caribbean to end the “siege” of Cuba.

“Today more than ever, the PSUV reiterates its call to respect Cuba’s sovereignty and the right of its people to independence and self-determination,” the statement concluded.

The statement does not feature the signature of any leading PSUV member. The PSUV is the party of “interim president” Delcy Rodríguez.

Raúl Castro is the true dictator of Cuba despite having allegedly “retired” in 2018 roughly a decade after he succeeded his late murderous brother Fidel. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier revealed this week that an arrest warrant was issued against Raúl Castro on conspiracy to commit murder charges. The nonagenarian dictator stands accused of having ordered the February 1996 murders of Carlos Costa, Armando Alejandre, Mario de la Peña, and Pablo Morales, four Americans who formed part of Brothers to the Rescue, a humanitarian organization that conducted rescue flight operations across international waters, saving Cubans fleeing from communism during the 1990s’ Balsero (“Rafter”) crisis who found themselves adrift at sea.

On February 24, 1996, Cuban regime forces shot down the Brothers to the Rescue planes, killing the four men even though there is no evidence that suggests the civilian planes posed a threat to Cuba. At that time, Raúl Castro was serving as the leader of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) during the rule of Fidel Castro. Raúl Castro was originally indicted over the murder of the Brothers of the Rescue Americans this year.

Although the PSUV, a longtime close ally and benefactor of the Cuban regime, expressed its support to dictator Castro in the statement, neither Rodríguez nor interior minister, long-suspected drug lord, and PSUV Secretary-General Diosdado Cabello, nor any other high-ranking member of the ruling socialist regime has individually and publicly expressed support to Castro over the arrest warrant at press time.

The Venezuelan socialist leadership’s apparent public silence, particularly in contrast to the unnamed PSUV statement, comes weeks after Rodríguez did not express any message of support to the Castro regime and called for an end of the U.S. “embargo” on Cuba during her September speech before the United Nations General Assembly — a significant omission of a quasi-traditional rhetoric issued by Venezuelan socialist regime officials before the U.N. in the past. Similarly, Rodríguez has not publicly issued any comments on the torture charges unveiled this month against her former boss, deposed socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro.

“Acting president” Rodríguez began collaborating with the United States and the administration of President Trump after Maduro was arrested in January in a U.S. law enforcement operation in Caracas. Her active collaboration with America — which the PSUV for years declared was an “enemy” of Venezuela — appears to have led to friction among the party’s hard-socialist base and other far-left organizations, as it goes against nearly three decades’ worth of “anti-imperialism” rhetoric espoused by the nation’s socialist rulers and the ideological precepts of the “Bolivarian Revolution” established by late dictator Hugo Chávez and maintained by Maduro.

Rodríguez herself is the daughter of Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, a Venezuelan Marxist terrorist who participated in the kidnapping of American businessman William F. Niehous in the 1970s.  The “acting president” once said that imposing socialism in Venezuela was an act of “personal revenge” over the death of her father.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.