#Cuba #TheBrothersToTheRescue 🇨🇺🌻

#Cuba 🇨🇺 #Florida
Remembering the #BrothersToTheRescue

25 years ago on February 24, 1996 a Cuban MiG-29UB Fulcrum and a MiG-23ML intercepted three US civilian registered Cessna 337s (N2456S, N5485S and N2506), operated by the Brothers to the Rescue while they were engaged on a humanitarian search and rescue mission over the Florida Straits for Cuban rafters in international airspace.

At 3:21pm EST the Brothers to the Rescue Cessna 337 (N2456S) was destroyed by an air-to-air missile fired by the Cuban MiG-29 military aircraft.

At 3:27pm EST the Brothers to the Rescue Cessna 337 (N5485S) was destroyed by an air-to-air missile fired by a Cuban MiG-29 military aircraft.

Immediately killed were Armando Alejandre Jr.,45 years old, Carlos Alberto Costa, age 29, Mario Manuel de la Peña, age 24, and Pablo Morales, age 29. This was a premeditated act of state terrorism carried out by Havana on the orders of both Fidel and Raul Castro.

The third Brothers to the Rescue Cessna 337 (N2506) was able to escape and the survivors Jose Basulto, Arnaldo Iglesias, Silvia Iriondo and Andres Iriondo were able to set the record straight on the propaganda offensive already underway from Havana to misrepresent what had happened.

Members of Brothers to the Rescue risked their lives in the Florida Straits to rescue Cuban rafters and they challenged the Cuban exile community to abandon both violent resistance and appeasement as approaches in order to embrace strategic nonviolence. Brothers to the Rescue had elements of civil disobedience but it was primarily a constructive program.

https://www.cubacenter.org/archives/2021/2/23/cubabrief-truth-justice-memory-and-the-brothers-to-the-rescue-shoot-down-at-25-and-orlando-zapata-tamayo-at-11