We also asked Shoman about his take on the indictment of Raul Castro and others for murder and other high crimes. Shoman called it a "false flag" - essentially an excuse to continue to commit, as Shoman puts it, terrorist acts on Cuba. Here's how he put it.
Assad Shoman, Historian
"It's what people call them. A false flag thing. Right? In other words, they create something as an excuse in order to do something that they know is not justified, which is invading Cuba or hurting Cuba even more. so, they are that they're saying that Raul Castro was the minister of defense at the time, 30 years ago, when two aircraft that were had people in it, some of them were actual terrorists that had done terrorist acts against Cuba, who had been invading Cuban airspace, who had been warned against it. The Cuban government had even told the US government to please make them stop, and they hadn't. So there comes a point when a country has to defend itself, right? So, now, just think about it. If any plane from anywhere would go into U.S. airspace, be warned of and refused and keep going, what do you think the United States would do? I mean, there's no question about that. But we have to ask who is indicting who for the more than 200 innocent people who have been killed in our seas in the Caribbean the last few months by the U.S. military. Okay. Who was indicted when 70 odd people were killed 50 years ago in a Cubana flight as it was near to Barbados, right? By a person who boasted about doing it and lived in the United States, in Miami, under the protection of the U.S. government. So the U.S. government has inflicted many, many, terrorist acts against Cuba."
"So if anybody is a terrorist, is United States of America, they have committed innumerable terrorist acts all over the world, but also particularly against Cuba. Now, they say that Cuba is a threat to the United States. That's just crazy."
"But I think we need to bear in mind that this is nothing new. This is nothing to do with communism, nothing to do with shooting down an aircraft. Right? It's everything to do with the historical desire of the United States of America to dominate and control Cuba. So I'd like to read to you, for example, a statement made by the Secretary of State of the United States of America in 1823."
"He said something about an apple. Cuba was like a ripe apple ready to drop in the hands of the United States. And he said, there is no foreign territory of greater significance to the United States than the island of Cuba."
