By Dave Sherwood
HAVANA, June 3 (Reuters) - Cuba’s former leader Raul Castro turned 95 on Wednesday, though his whereabouts were still unknown two weeks after U.S. authorities charged him with murder in connection with the downing of civilian airplanes in 1996.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel early in the day praised Castro, who he said he considered to be a mentor and father figure, for his contributions to Cuba.
“To reach 95 years of age with one foot in the stirrup and an endless record of service to the Homeland, to regional and world peace… to the dreams of social justice of millions of human beings, is not his luck, it is ours,” Diaz-Canel said.
But Castro - a key figure alongside older brother Fidel in the 1959 guerrilla war that toppled a U.S.-backed dictator - is once again at the center of tensions with the United States.
The Trump administration has accused the former Cuban defense minister of ordering Cuban military jets to shoot down planes operated by a group of Cuban exiles in 1996, a major escalation in Washington’s pressure campaign against the island’s communist government.
U.S. President Donald Trump this year has vastly ratcheted up sanctions on Cuba, cutting off the island’s fuel supply and threatening sanctions on foreign businesses in Cuba in a bid to topple a government that for decades was led by the Castro brothers.
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said recently the U.S. would do “everything possible” to bring Castro to justice after announcing his indictment before a crowd of Cuban-Americans in Miami on May 20.
Former Cuban spy Rene Gonzalez, one of the so-called “Cuban Five” espionage agents arrested in 1996, told Reuters Castro’s indictment had thrown relations between the two countries into a “critical situation.”
Castro led negotiations with the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama that heralded warming relations between the two countries a decade ago, but is now seen by the Trump administration as a nemesis, murderer and dictator.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the very person who led the negotiations between Cuba and the United States 12 years ago is now the target of this accusation by the U.S. government,” Gonzalez said.
“Whenever there has been a possibility of a rapprochement between the two countries, (Cuba’s enemies in) Miami have been instrumental in attacking that possibility, in undermining it.”
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There is no evidence that Castro - still a powerful behind-the-scenes figure in Cuban politics - has left the island or that he will be extradited.
The outskirts of one of Castro’s homes, a gated enclave called La Rinconada in a wealthy western suburb of Havana inhabited by foreign business people, diplomats and Cuban leaders, was quiet on Wednesday morning.
The complex, surrounded by high aluminum and cement walls, razor wire and dense vegetation, appeared only lightly policed, with plainclothes guards at one entrance and a police cruiser circulating nearby.
Castro, noticeably thin and slouched in military uniform but still lucid despite his age, was last seen in public a month ago during May 1 festivities in Havana, just prior to his indictment.
He had previously not been seen since January 15, when he appeared in a public ceremony in the capital paying homage to the 32 Cuban soldiers killed during the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
(Reporting by Dave Sherwood in Havana, additional reporting by Alien Fernandez and Anett Rios; Editing by Nia Williams)
