Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)Oratio Pro Animo Milone (XVI)[The original latin is "Maxima illecebra est peccandi impunitatis spes."] "Impunity sets in when perpetrators of human rights violations whether in time of war or peace are not brought to book. Just as it is the primary responsibility of States to ensure that the human rights of people within their jurisdiction are protected, so also is it their duty to ensure that victims of violations are given justice."
UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS Brothers to the Rescue planes were shot down on February 24, 1996 On Saturday afternoon between 3:20pm and 3:28pm on February 24, 1996 Armando Alejandre, Jr., Mario de la Peña, Carlos Costa, and Pablo Morales were blown to bits as they flew in international airspace in two civilian aircraft searching for rafters by missiles fired from two Cuban MiGs. Below you will find background information and reports investigating the event.
Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet and Migdalia Rosado Hernandez hold vigil to protest the murders of Armando, Carlos, Mario and Pablo by the Cuban government on 2/24/1996 Please consider organizing vigils, marches, masses at Church in remembrance of the victims, and at the very least write letters to the editor, and op ed pieces in your local newspapers. We will be sending more detailed information on our plan of action next week. Please review the information, and get back to me with any suggestions that you might have. Background information: Brothers to the Rescue (BTTR) was founded in 1991 to spot rafters in the Florida Straits and save their lives. Amnesty International's Holly Ackerman co-authored a monograph on Cuban rafters indicating that as many as 100,000 people have died trying to flee Castro's Cuba.On July 13, 1994, four Cuban government boats equipped with high-pressure water hoses attacked an old tugboat that was fleeing Cuba with 72 people aboard. The massacre took place seven miles off the Cuban coast. They attacked the runaway tug with their prows while at the same time spraying everyone, including women and children, with pressurized water. The old boat sank, with a toll of 41 dead, including ten minors (37 identified four unknown).This was not an isolated event. The regime has a history of committing atrocities against fleeing Cubans. One year later a memorial flotilla for the victims was forced to turn back when Cuban gunboats crushed the hull of the lead boat of the flotilla: Democracia. At the moment that the hull of the lead boat was partially crushed, BTTR planes flew over Havana dropping bumper stickers that read, "Comrades No. Brothers."Fidel Castro was humiliated and began to plot his revenge using his spies to gather information and develop a conspiracy that eight months later ended with Cuban MiGs blowing to bits two BTTR planes, murdering Armando Alejandre, Jr., Mario de la Peña, Carlos Costa, and Pablo Morales. Castro personally took responsibility for the destruction of the planes.The goal was to destroy all three planes on that mission, and then have Juan Pablo Roque appear as the lone survivor to offer his "testimony." But with one plane's survival and recordings of routine communications with Cuban government air-traffic controllers, as well as the fact that the two destroyed planes' flight paths were outside Cuban national airspace, the conspiracy unraveled. "There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."
Elie Wiesel
Above video: Brothers to the Rescue Vigil 2008 "True peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of Justice."
Martin Luther King Jr.