Key leaders and groups within the CCP-linked Singham Network quickly began to mobilize to defend Raul Castro in the wake of the Justice Department’s indictment against the Cuban Communist leader this week.

The DOJ’s indictment of former Cuban strongman Raul Modesto Castro Ruz on Wednesday — just the latest example of the Trump Administration’s efforts to launch a maximum pressure campaign against the Communist island regime — saw swift pushback from key members of the financial and activist network led by wealthy Marxist and China-based businessman Neville Roy Singham.

Singham Network mobilizes to defend Raul Castro and Communist Cuban policies after DOJ indictment

The DOJ revealed that Raul Castro, the brother of former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, has been charged in connection with a 1996 attack on two airplanes in which four U.S. nationals, including three U.S. citizens, were killed. The unsealed indictment against Raul — the second revolutionary leader of Communist Cuba following the stepping down of his brother Fidel — charged him and other co-defendants in connection with conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, the destruction of aircraft, and four counts of murder for the Cuban MiG fighter jet shooting down of humanitarian supply-and-rescue planes flown by Brothers to the Rescue over international waters near Cuba three decades ago.

The Marxist-oriented Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), the Manhattan-based Communist revolutionary group called the People’s Forum, Tricontinental: Institute for Socialism Research (a far-left global activist group led by Singham’s top lieutenant which counts Singham on its board) and the radical antiwar group Code Pink — co-founded by Singham’s wife Jodie Evans — and other Singham-linked groups all swiftly condemned the DOJ’s actions, often promoting or echoing the messaging from the Cuban government.

This is just the latest effort by the Singham Network to attempt to bail out the Communist Cuban regime. Just The News had reported back in March that the now-infamous scenes of far-left activists descending upon Cuba to provide alleged humanitarian aid that month were preceded by high-level meetings between leaders within the Singham Network and the strongman head of Communist Cuba in the weeks prior, as Cuba’s allies sought to prop up the regime.

In the lead-up to that month’s pro-Communist revolutionary events in Cuba, the leaders of the People’s Forum, Tricontinental, the PSL, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition, and the International Peoples’ Assembly all traveled to Havana for a warm “solidarity” meeting with Diaz-Canel.

The so-called “humanitarian” trips to Cuba in March were in large part organized by groups within the activist network tied to and funded by Singham, as well as by the far-left Progressive International (which counts the leftist anti-war group Code Pink, which is personally and financially tied to Singham, as one of its member organizations).

Singham did not respond to a request for comment sent to him through his activist leader wife.

Code Pink says “HANDS OFF CUBA!”

Code Pink sent a tweet in response to a video of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s announcement of the Castro indictment, with the far-left anti-war group claiming, “They're not seeking justice for a downed flight. The Trump administration is fabricating a pretext for military intervention.”

Blanche had said: “My message today is clear: The United States and President Trump does not and will not forget its citizens [...] For the first time in nearly 70 years, senior leadership of the Cuban regime has been charged in the United States of America for acts of violence resulting in the deaths of American citizens.”

Code Pink also posted on Instagram a pro-Castro message also shared by group co-founder Medea Benjamin and by the National Network on Cuba, whose membership organizations include Code Pink as well as the Communist Party USA, the Democratic Socialists of America, and the Socialist Workers Party. 

“After decades of economic warfare and violent sabotage against Cuba, the U.S. has indicted its former president, Raul Castro in order to justify military intervention. We firmly reject these politically motivated charges. HANDS OFF CUBA! LIFT THE BLOCKADE!” Code Pink said.

Code Pink called it a “sham indictment” and defended the Cuban government’s decision to shoot down the civilian planes back in 1996.

“International law guarantees any country, including Cuba, the right to respond to airspace violations after exhausting diplomatic means to do so,” the anti-war group added.

The DOJ emphasized in its indictment that, at the time that the Cuban MiG fighter jets shot down the two civilian planes, the Brothers to the Rescue aircraft were flying outside of Cuban territory over international waters and traveling away from Cuba. The prosecutors said that the civilian pilots were not given any warning of the imminent destruction of their aircraft by the Cuban military.

Code Pink seemingly compared Cuba shooting down the Brothers to the Rescue planes and killing four Cuban-Americans to the U.S. shooting down an unmanned Chinese spy balloon, arguing that “the United States has recently exercised this right by shooting down balloons.”

The anti-war group has long praised Communist Cuba, including a 2015 piece by Benjamin which pointed to “the pride felt by so many people in Latin America” that “the tiny island has managed to fend off the attempts by the U.S. Goliath to overthrow it.”

Party for Socialism and Liberation defends Castro's shootdown order

The Party for Socialism and Liberation also quickly condemned the indictment of Cuba’s Communist leader.

“The announced indictment of Raul Castro Ruz, historic leader of the Cuban Revolution and former President of the Republic of Cuba, by the United States Department of Justice is a brazen act of injustice and a transparent pretext for escalating aggression against a sovereign nation,” the PSL tweeted. “This indictment is not an act of justice; it is another provocation designed to manufacture consent for another war by the Trump administration.”

The PSL’s media outlet — Liberation News — also put out a lengthy statement siding with the Cuban dictator and defending his shootdown order.

“The United States indictment of Raul Castro has no legal basis and rests on a fundamental distortion: that Cuba possessed no right to defend its territorial integrity from U.S.-based terrorist groups like ‘Brothers to the Rescue’. This is false,” the socialist outlet argued. “Under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations and consistent with international law, every sovereign state possesses the inherent right to defend its territory, including its national airspace, against unlawful incursions.”

The PSL website claimed that “Raul Castro acted within his sovereign rights and in a manner consistent with Cuba’s obligations under international law.”

“It would be an outrage if Trump turned around and launched yet another unprovoked war, this time to Cuba,” the socialist outlet concluded. “This indictment should be withdrawn, and the Trump administration’s war drive against Cuba must end immediately.”

The PSL has repeatedly declared its love for Communist-led Cuba in the past, writing last year, “We stand with the Cuban Revolution! … Today, on the 66th anniversary of the victory of the great Cuban Revolution, we in the Party for Socialism and Liberation send our warm greetings and solidarity to the Cuban people.”

People’s Forum leader calls Raul Castro a “courageous and revolutionary hero”

Manolo De Los Santos — the executive director of the People’s Forum who is also a researcher at Tricontinental and is listed in tax records with the Singham-linked Justice and Education Fund — also blasted the DOJ indictment against Castro. He defended Castro’s shootdown order against Brothers to the Rescue by claiming the Trump Administration was hypocritical, pointing to U.S. strikes against alleged narco-terrorist drug-running boats in the Caribbean.

“What greater hypocrisy? The U.S. Navy has killed 194+ people in extrajudicial strikes across the Caribbean & Pacific since Sept 2025. None posed any threat to U.S. security,” the forum leader tweeted. “Yet the same US govt indicts Raul Castro for defending Cuban airspace against U.S.-based terrorist groups.”

De Los Santos said he was also “sharing this thread again on this incredibly courageous and revolutionary hero that is Raul Castro!” The forum leader was re-posting a lengthy multi-tweet thread he had previously shared in 2023 praising Fidel Castro’s brother.

“Today Raul Castro turns 92! At a young age, he committed himself to the struggle for Cuba's independence & for socialism!” De Los Santos said in the birthday post. “Throughout his career, western media has often placed him in Fidel's shadow ignoring the important historical role he's played in the Cuban Revolution.”

De Los Santos also retweeted the PSL statement critiquing DOJ’s indictment, and also retweeted comments from Ernesto Soberon, who is Cuba's ambassador to the United Nations, and from the Cuban Embassy in the U.S., which condemned “the despicable accusation against the Leader of the Revolution” and declared that “Homeland or Death, We Will Prevail.”

De Los Santos and the People’s Forum have repeatedly praised the Communist revolution in Cuba in the past.

“When asked on how Cuba has managed to survive more than six decades of blockade, Manolo’s answer was clear: because Cuba made a socialist revolution,” the People’s Dispatch wrote last year. “Socialism, he said, allowed Cuba to create a system where the needs of the people come before profit. In capitalist societies, when crises hit, the rich survive and the poor starve. In Cuba, food, healthcare, and education are distributed equitably, even in times of scarcity. [...] This difference, he explained, is what makes Cuba unique among nations facing U.S. aggression. It’s also what inspires global movements seeking alternatives to neoliberalism and imperial domination.”

Forum leader and PSL presidential candidate also goes to bat for Raul Castro

Marxist leader Claudia De La Cruz — co-founder of the People’s Forum and the PSL’s candidate for president during the 2024 race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden (and then Kamala Harris) — also defended Castro against the DOJ’s actions.

“Raul Castro’s indictment is a pretext for war. They are reaching with the intent of manufacturing consent for military action. International law protects nation states by defending their airspace and territorial integrity,” De La Cruz said on X. “The hypocrisy is staggering. The ongoing genocide in Gaza supported by the Trump administration, the expansion of war in the Middle East. The attacks and killing of fishermen in the Caribbean Sea. Unlawful and immoral acts - none of them about defense or security.”

De La Cruz said in a 2024 interview about her campaign as the PSL nominee to be U.S. president that “I co-founded and co-directed … the People’s Forum.” The forum says that De la Cruz “is a central committee member of The Party for Socialism and Liberation” and that “in 2018, she co-founded the People’s Forum.” De La Cruz is listed as a director at the forum in tax records.

Tricontinental: World stands with “hero of the Cuban Revolution”

Vijay Prashad — the director of Tricontinential: Institute for Social Research, whose advisory board is chaired by Singham — also criticized the indictment against Raul Castro.

He tagged De Los Santos, the National Network on Cuba, Cuban strongman and Raul Castro successor Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs official David Ramirez Alvarez, and Communist Party of Cuba international relations department leader Emilio Lozada Garcia in his post.

“Cuba is not a menace to the world. The United States is a menace to the world. The world stands with Raul Castro, hero of the Cuban Revolution. The world turns its back on Donald Trump, clown of human destruction,” Prashad declared on X.

Just the News recently revealed that Prashad, one of the top leaders of Singham’s far-left activist network, also holds a position inside a Chinese Communist Party-led think tank whose leader is a member of the CCP’s leading foreign influence arm known as the United Front.

Wang Wen, the dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, is a member of the CCP, and a leader within multiple United Front organizations. The Chongyang Institute itself is influenced by the CCP and is immersed within the United Front ecosystem.

The Singham Network-linked People’s Dispatch said that Prashad is a “senior non-resident fellow” at the very same Chongyang Institute at Renmin University in China. The Chinese university’s “experts” page also lists Prashad in that position.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has said that “the united front is an important magic weapon for the party to defeat the enemy” — and Prashad holds a position in an institute closely tied to this United Front work.

Singham-linked outlets also push pro-Castro messages

A far-left media outlet closely tied to the Singham Network also shared a piece on the DOJ indictment which consistently mainly of Cuban government critiques of the U.S. targeting of Castro.

“Cuba condemns U.S. indictment of Raul Castro as pretext for aggression. The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted the historic leader of the Revolution for an event that took place nearly 30 years ago,” the People’s Dispatch wrote. “Havana maintains that this is a ploy to justify military aggression against Cuba.”

Pablo Meriguet — an author at the outlet and the writer of the piece — counts among his “areas of interest” the “history of Marxist thought” and he has written book chapters on Marxist influence.

The article quoted Diaz-Canel at great length, including the Cuban strongman claiming the alleged indictment “highlights the arrogance and frustration felt by the representatives of the empire due to the unwavering resolve of the Cuban Revolution and the unity and moral strength of its leadership.”

The piece also quoted Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez calling the indictment a “farce” while also sharing the PSL’s similar condemnation.

The Singham-linked BreakThrough News also responded to the DOJ indictment against Raul Castro by promoting an interview it had done with Castro’s successor and by pushing pro-Castro content from the ground in Cuba.

“The DOJ is expected to announce an indictment against former Cuban President Raul Castro today,” BreakThrough said on X. “Watch a clip from our exclusive interview with current President Diaz-Canel who gives critical context for the Trump admin's renewed aggression against Cuba.”

In the interview with the Singham-linked outlet, the Cuban leader accused the Trump and Biden Administrations of being beholden to the “Cuban-American mafia” 

“In Cuba, the objectives of the Empire are well known,” Diaz-Canel said. “What are its objectives? To destroy the Cuban Revolution. Here stands the Cuban Revolution.”

BreakThrough also posted a tweet and video purportedly sharing interviews with Cubans on the island.

"We won't hand over Raul to any foreigner,” one interviewee said, as the outlet captioned the video: “Havana residents are rejecting the new indictments against Raul Castro, dismissing the possibility of handover to the U.S. They also accuse the US of ‘inventing’ another justification for military aggression against Cuba.”

Singham Network touted “solidarity with the Revolution” in meeting with Cuban leader

The Singham Network’s leaders were on the ground in Cuba earlier this year in an attempt to defend its Communist leadership.

The Cuban government’s official website in early March wrote that “the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, received members of the delegation of the International Peoples' Assembly, who have been developing a program on the Island since last Sunday motivated by cooperation and solidarity.”

Coordinated actions in the ideological, cultural and media war

The Cuban government wrote that “the purpose of the above, the dignitary said, is to confront with coordinated actions the ideological, cultural and media war of the United States government, which is an expression of its hegemonic ambition.”

Diaz-Canel reportedly directed a message to “Brian Becker and Manolo de Los Santos — from the Party for Socialism and Liberation of the United States — and other brothers from Africa, Europe and Latin America” and stated that “we expected no less from you as representatives of the International Peoples' Assembly.”   

Diaz-Canel shared a message on X in early March touting the meeting with the far-left Singham Network leaders.

“I held a fraternal meeting with the delegation from the International Assembly of the Peoples, who are carrying out a visit to our country, to reaffirm their permanent support and solidarity with the Revolution, at this moment when the threats of Yankee imperialism are intensifying,” the Cuban leader said, in a tweet translated by Google and by X.

Diaz-Canel specifically described “Brian Becker and Manolo De Los Santos, from the Party for Socialism and Liberation of the United States” as among the “friends of our people” who “reaffirmed their solidarity.”

“The accompaniment of spaces such as the International Assembly of the Peoples demonstrates the broad support that the Revolution possesses, and that we are never and will never be alone in the struggle for the defense of our sovereignty in the face of the constant imperial pretensions,” the leader of the Communist-run island added.

The International Peoples’ Assembly quickly reshared the X message from the Communist leader.

“Cuba is not alone!” the Singham Network group declared. “Movement leaders from across the world, part of the International Peoples' Assembly delegation, met with President Miguel Díaz‑Canel to reaffirm unwavering solidarity with the Cuban Revolution and its people, who are facing the ongoing illegal US blockade.”

De Los Santos tweeted a photo of himself hugging the Cuban leader in early March.

“Today, we met with President Miguel Diaz-Canel not to make statements, but to stand shoulder to shoulder,” De Los Santos said on X. “Trump’s extreme fuel blockade is a brutal act of economic warfare, and we refuse to be silent bystanders. We are comrades with the Cuban people in the fight to dismantle it.”

The People’s Dispatch reported in March that ANSWER leader and PSL founder Brian Becker was also at the meeting. The Cancilleria de Cuba — Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs — also shared photos from the meeting, including of De Los Santos, Becker, and others.

“International Assembly of the Peoples' Delegation, made up of representatives from various countries, visits Cuba and holds exchanges with diverse sectors to learn about the country's reality and reaffirm international solidarity,” the Cuban government account said on X.

One day after De Los Santos met with Cuba’s president, the People’s Forum tweeted that “this month, we’re going to Cuba with 40 young organizers!”

“Our delegation of young people will meet, exchange, and stand together with Cuban youth — building bonds of solidarity at a moment when the Cuban people face the full force and brutality of the U.S. blockade,” the Marxist forum said on X. “This brigade is part of a broader wave of solidarity — one that has moved over 3k people to donate more than $500,000 to send solar generators & panels to Cuban hospitals.”

The People’s Forum added at the time: “Along with other delegations of people from around the world part of the ‘Nuestra America Convoy,’ we will deliver humanitarian aid to the Cuban people and reaffirm that a blockade will never sever the ties between peoples who share a common struggle for dignity and justice.”

The U.S. is still ratcheting up its pressure on the Cuban regime, and it remains to be seen whether the Cuban government’s condemnations or the Singham Network’s alliance with the Cuban regime will make a difference.

“While the people suffer, the regime’s kleptocratic elite have hoarded the island’s remaining resources for themselves and their lavish lifestyle. In the way of all radical leftist ideologies, the regime has quashed any hope of prosperity, banished the notion of human dignity, and starved the hopes and dreams of its people,” Trump said Wednesday. 

“Its military leaders have demonstrated zero care for ensuring the prosperity of the Cuban people, channeling their attention instead only towards maintaining control and the regime’s raison d'être of violently exporting communism and despotism abroad," Trump said.”