The death of kings: As a Cuban from Miami, I welcome Raul Castro’s indictment

Former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured and removed from Caracas, Venezuela, in an American operation called “Absolute Resolve” on Jan. 3. The next month, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the brutal supreme leader of Iran, was killed during a joint U.S.-Israeli operation. And on Wednesday, the United States indicted Fidel Castro’s brother, Raul Castro, which some are seeing as the beginning of the end for Cuba’s 67-year dictatorship.

For many, the actions of the U.S. feel like too much intervention. In the words of former Vice President Kamala Harris, this administration is “dragging the United States into a war the American people don’t want.”

But for others, including myself as a Cuban American whose maternal grandfather fled three tyrannies (Francoist Spain, France as it was being occupied by the Nazis, and Communist Cuba), these are complex yet deeply hopeful moments, when the veil of tyranny is torn, allowing