Brothers to the Rescue

Officially registered as a non-political, non-profit organization.

Disguised under a supposedly "humanitarian activity” spotting and assisting rafters at sea, they conducted a study of the operational situation in Cuban costs and keys and of the movement of ships, as well as tracking the communications of Cuban ships and agencies. They plotted multiple terrorist plans against Cuban facilities.

They consist of around 25 people, the majority pilots of Cuban origin, although they have also taken in Americans, Argentineans, Venezuelans and other nationalities. Their main leader is Jose Basulto Leon. William (Billy) Chuss also participated in its creation.

They have operated with diverse airplanes, owned or borrowed, among them Cessnas, Pipers and Big Kracs, and have systematically carried out all types of provocations in areas near the Cuban coasts and violated Cuban air space since 1992 on countless occasions, twice flying over the city of Havana, and on at least five subversive propaganda dropping. It used, initially, as main centers of operations the airports of Kendall, Tamiami, Marathon and Opa Locka, this last one becoming their main base in 1994, where they repair and they keep the airplanes in a rented hangar.

In mid-1993, Basulto came up with a plan called Bread, Love and Freedom that sought to create disorder by “bombarding" food and other articles in short supply over the province of Villa Clara. It also sought to fly through the Giron air corridor to take pictures of sensitive areas of the territory, with the intention of sabotaging them later on. Through the years Brothers to the Rescue have worked to encourage illegal exits from Cuba and have violated Cuban airspace systematically, in an openly provocative attitude since 1992.

According to data available, Arnaldo Iglesias, Guillermo Lares, Billy Chuss and Jose Basulto participated in a working lunch that took place in a restaurant located in 36 Street in the north west of the city of Miami, during which Basulto proposed a group of ideas that he said would be the final solution to the Cuban problem. The plan was to step up the provocations in order to produce what he described then as a flying or air “Maine” in the style of the incident involving the U.S. battleship Maine that blew up in the Havana harbor and resulted in a U.S. military invasion against Cuba.

Brothers to the Rescue pilots also engaged in testing the response capabilities of the Cuban military aviation.

After the signing of immigration agreements in May 1995 between the governments of Cuba and the United States, Brothers to the Rescue became closely linked to Movimiento Democracia of Ramon Saul Sanchez, and participated alongside that organization in setting up provocative flotillas.

In the first of these actions, on July 13, 1995, three boats of Movimiento Democracia violated Cuba's jurisdictional waters along with five aircraft of Brothers to the Rescue and a light plane from another terrorist organization. A helicopter also violated the Cuban air space.

The planes carried out dangerously low flights past Cuban naval ships, while two planes from Brothers to the Rescue flew over the city of Havana and filmed the city, images that were broadcast that same day by television stations in Miami. Basulto then told CNN in Miami about the action.

A few months later, on January 9, 1996, three light C-137 Brothers to the Rescue planes again violated Cuban airspace, this time north of Guanabo and Santa Maria del Mar, east of Havana, dropping leaflets at various points along the coast.

Later, on January 13, two other light planes that had participated in the airspace violation of January 9 repeated the provocation and again dropped counterrevolutionary propaganda along different points on the coast of the capital urging people to act against the Cuban government. Basulto would state on Miami's Channel 51 and Univision television network that he was responsible for the dropping of 500,000 leaflets in Havana that fall.

A few weeks later, on February 20, 1996, three other planes considered to have been from the Brothers to the Rescue again violated Cuba's airspace, north of Bacunayagua, over Matanzas Bay and in Matanzas. Four days later, on February 24, 1996, aircraft from Brothers to the Rescue carried out new provocations that resulted in the downing by Cuban forces of two of the intruding planes.

Over those years, the Brothers to the Rescue continued participating in provocative flotillas, air incursions on the north coast of our country, and offering systematic material and financial support to hostile groups inside Cuba–as has been pointed out and repeatedly denounced by Cuba.

On February 24, 1999, the Brothers to the Rescue formed a flotilla composed of three light planes and a helicopter with the press onboard that they flew as close as 30 kilometers from Havana's Morro Castle. They dropped a small parachute with anti-Cuba propaganda that was carried by the wind, with leaflets falling over several points across the Havana.

At the same time, from the moment that the child Elian Gonzalez arrived in Miami in November 1999, they actively participated in his kidnapping and publicly fought against his being returned to his father.

Brothers to the Rescue and the organization Unidad Cubana presented an aerial provocation plan against Cuba to the Vietnamese pilot Li Tom, who violated Cuban air space and dropped anti-Cuban leaflets in January of 2000. This effort was financed by the CANF.

Funding and Support

Among the Brothers to the Rescue’s principal funding sources is, first of all, the Cuban American National Foundation--an organization which has contributed lavish support to the organization of flotillas, instigating them to carry out provocative actions and to violate the Cuban airspace.

Another of their benefactors is the Association of Latin Builders, a U.S. organization formed by businesspeople of Hispanic origin, primarily Cubans, with close ties to the CANF and very influential in local Miami politics.

To mobilize other financing, the organization frequently uses radio marathons and telethons with the support of the Miami broadcast media, among those being Channel 23 TV and anti-Cuba radio stations such as WQBA and the WRHC.

Brothers to the Rescue also maintains close ties with recalcitrant Congress members such as Ileana Ross Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart. Based on relationships with its principal leader, Jose Basulto, during the administration of George Bush (senior), in 1992 Ileana Ross approached the president requesting that the U.S. Department of Defense donate or sell at a discount price, three Cessna airplanes to Basulto's organization.